cture while an organization operating in a highly structured environment may favor a more hierarchical structure. Other factors, including corporate culture and power dynamics, are also influenced by the external environment. For example, culture is affected by the various employees and the backgrounds that they bring to the organization, as well as by the larger culture in which the company operates (Daft, 1998).
The various subsystems in an organization are best described by the functions that they perform. Thus there is the human resource subsystem, composed of the individuals and resources that focus on the successful recruiting, management and training of employees. Accounting is another subsystem, as is marketing. Manufacturing provides yet another subsystem, as does program management, a function found in larger organizations. Individual companies may have more or less subsystems depending on their organizations, and individual subsystems may themselves have subsystems. Thus accounting might have subsystems of accounts payable, accounts receivable and finance while marketing might have subsystems of product management, advertising and promotions. However, none of the subsystems, or sub-subsystems, operates independently. Marketing relies on finance to provide the cash flow for its activities; manufacturing relies on the sales department to sell products and provide sales forecasts. Human resources both serves all other subsystems in the organization and receives information from these subsystems, as well. There is an interconnectedness among the subsystems critical to the functionality of the company as a whole, and a need for accurate and timely information across the various subsystems necessary for effective decision making (Adobor, 2002).
Executive information systems provide a management team and individual managers the ability to retrieve information critical for making timely and effective decisions. Init...