Scheer addresses issues arising from research areas of computer science and information systems that arise primarily from electronic data processing (EDP) techniques and business economics. The implications of EDP are clear for effective computer science principles, but the information management examples used in the book may not enable the reader to extend EDP ideas to the broader world of information management. Although the title emphasizes information management, the book does not cover management information systems (MIS) issues beyond business economics and EDP techniques.
After noting that EDP techniques are increasingly changing business economics issues and problem-solving approaches and that business economics methods and techniques can be employed to achieve an optimal application of information technology, the author examines the influence of computer science and business economics on information and communication techniques. The effect of computer science and business economics on the use of databases, networking, CASE, and interactive processing is dealt with in depth.
The book centers on EDP orientation of business economics, business economic implementations, and the structuring of EDP techniques. Chapters cover EDP-oriented business economics solutions and an EDP-oriented business economics information model. The author addresses issues arising from research in both information and computer science, but the EDP impacts are of greater magnitude than the information systems impacts. The latter are developed through the investigation of business economics. To this extent, something may have been lost in the translation from German to English.
According to the author, the book investigates the interdependencies between business economics and EDP in both directions:
What implications can business economics draw from EDP techniques for its problem-solving approaches?
How can business economics ensure that EDP techniques and their implications are more efficiently structured?
Even though this book has been broadened in scope and includes many information systems examples, it is essentially about business economics and EDP departments, along the lines of its original title, Computer: a challenge for business administration, rather than its revised title, Principles of efficient information management, which in the United States has much broader implications. The author defines EDP-oriented business economics as the reciprocal effects of information technology and business economics on each other. He points out that EDP know-how did not find its way into business economics until the mid-1960s, with the establishment of business informatics, which he defines as the science of designing and implementing computerized information and communications systems.
This book is thorough, well documented, and meticulously written. It is no doubt technically correct. For readers not familiar with or oriented toward business economics, it may appear narrow and detailed. The information systems reader must transfer the thrust of the book from business economics to business informatics, to use the author’s terminology. The solutions and the model given in chapter 4 are EDP-oriented and are useful for EDP management. The material may not be as valuable for general information managers as for EDP administrators, however.
The strength of the book is that it focuses on business economics methods and techniques, which business schools and organizations in the United States tend to overlook in arriving at optimal applications of high technology, by recognizing information systems components relating to business economics such as database and process control. The author also covers more recent developments such as user-friendly languages, expert systems, computer-aided software engineering, graphical data processing, and new media networking. All categories of managers, technicians, analysts, and users should know about these timely and valuable developments.
The book provides excellent material on business economics and its impact on EDP. Its greatest value may be in revealing the useful interdependencies and influences between EDP and business economics. As such, it may form the basis for courses on information systems for business economics. Broader information management courses would benefit only marginally from the book. It could, however, serve as a reference text; it is not encompassing enough to be used as a text on the principles of information management.
