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Information Systems: Oneness, wholeness and excellence

Information systems (IS) is now ubiquitous in the lives of many people around
the world. It became one of the most important features in peoples life. According to
Wikipedia (2017), IS is defined as an organized system for the collection, organization,
storage and communication of information. Competitiveness of most organizations are
depending on the effectiveness of using IS in their daily tasks. There is no doubt that
IS serves its purpose at its best to make our life easier, especially when it involves
processing huge amount of data for our decision making processes (Hassenzahl &
Tractinsky, 2006).

Over the past years IS has brought a lot of benefits in our life. One significant
advantage that I can observe is the use of technology in communication. It has
definitely been much cheaper, quicker and more efficient to use mobile phones and
other sorts of communication compared to those days where use of technology was
less significant. Applications such as Facebook, Whatsapp and Skype for
communication has reduced the gap between us and our family, friends, colleagues,
and business partners. It has made businesses to stay operated 24x7 around the globe.
As less cost is required to stay connected all the time, it is also considered as cost
effective and promotes productivity (Myers & Kappelman, 2007).

Although the benefits of using IS is huge, it has also has its own disadvantages.
Massive use of technology in communication has said to make us more anti-social
where we do not interact with real people directly, instead use the communication tools
as medium to communicate (Saunders & Jones, 2012). This may cause problem as it
sets up communication barrier as we interact lesser face-to-face. Use of abbreviations
and emoticons may not be the correct representation of true emotions and it is always
best to communicate directly as we can interpret real emotions from non-verbal body
languages.

According to Gould (2005), the capabilities of IS can be used to improve the


abilities and well-being of people. We can always use the concept of oneness (common
good and shared prosperity), wholeness (conscience) and excellence (utilizing the
best) to evaluate use of IS in improving and promoting human values. Good
communication builds oneness as we can always stay connected with our peers and it
enhances our relationship with others. While IS helps betterment of the world, it has
also negative implications such as the stronger community dominating the weaker
ones. To avoid this situation, promoting wholeness, where putting emphasis on
individuals human values instead of external rules and processes will definitely solve
issues related to humans greed of power and control misuse of IS, which is available
worldwide. By doing this, it will definitely bring excellence to quality of our lives
through IS.
References

1. Saunders, C.S., & Jones, J.W. (2012). Measuring performance of the information
systems function, Journal of Management Information Systems, 8(4), 63.

2. Information System. Retrieved on 15 May, 2017 from


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_system

3. Myers, B.L., & Kappelman, L.A. (2007) A comprehensive model for assessing the
quality and productivity of the information systems function: Toward a theory
for information systems assessment, Information Resources
Management Journal, 10(1).

4. Gould, E.W., Synthesizing the literature on cultural values. In Aykin, N. (ed.),


Usability and Internationalization of Information Technology, Mahwah, NJ:
Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2005.

5. Hassenzahl, M. and Tractinsky, N., User Experience a Research Agenda,


Behaviour and Information Technology, 2006.

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