Analyzing Data Integrity and Ethical Perspectives in Business MIS

This report provides an analysis of information systems management across various business functions, focusing on manufacturing, finance, marketing, and human resources. It explores how data is managed in each of these areas and emphasizes the importance of maintaining data integrity at all ti...Read More

Managing Information Systems
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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................3
1. Describe how the data/info is managed across Manufacturing, Finance, Marketing, and
HR. 4
2. How do you ensure that data integrity is maintained at all times? Why is it important
from a legal perspective (e.g. reporting correct, true and fair, financial data to the stock
market?.......................................................................................................................................7
3. Why is it critical to have an ethical perspective on data collection and handling?............8
Conclusion................................................................................................................................10
References................................................................................................................................11
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Introduction
The reported study is mainly aimed at analysing of different uses of data integrity across
various areas such as human resource, marketing, and many others. The implication of data
integrity in such areas has been identified in this assignment. Moreover, the enabling of data
integrity from the legal perspective is also assessed in this report study. Also, the comparison
of an information system is made in the report. In the end, the critical analysis in the context
of ethical perspective is also studied in respect of data collection and data handling. The
conclusion is also stated at the end which highlights over the summary of overall report
study.
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1. Describe how the data/info is managed across Manufacturing, Finance,
Marketing, and HR.
There are various functions in an organisation. Due to the increasing operational activities in
the organisation, it is very important for the organisations to manage the data and information
available so as to identify the data and analyse it easily and quickly. The different functions
in the organisations affect the operational activities of the company (Laudon and Laudon,
2016). These activities contain very useful data and information about the company’s
operations. Every company focus on securing and managing the information across the
various functions of an organisation.
The selected organisation for this report is one of the huge retail departmental stores of UK,
namely, John Lewis. The company is a huge departmental store of UK operates in various
functions and departments. There are various departments in which it is dealing. The various
functional departments provide the opportunity for the development and growth of the
business but in the case of properly managed business functions and their information.
The functions at John Lewis are managed by the effective use of management of information
systems in Business functions. The business functions get the support from enterprise
information. Some of the basic and important functions of this organisation are Marketing
and sales, Production, Finance and Human resources (Laudon and Laudon, 2016). The
information systems are supported by various support systems in an organisation. The
Management support system, decision support system, executive support system, transaction
support system, professional support system and Office information system are the
foundation of the Management of the information system in an organisation. The John Lewis
works upon all of the above information systems according to the requirement.
The John Lewis operates the functions of the Marketing Information systems for taking the
decisions which are related to the marketing Mix (Valacich and Schneider, 2015). The
marketing mix includes majorly four elements which are Product, Price, Place, and
Promotion. The Marketing Mix of the company, John Lewis has some marketing Mix sub-
systems which are based on-
Product sub-system- In Product Sub-system includes some information systems to manage
the information and data of the product and to take the decisions regarding the new products.
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 The use of professional support systems to assist the designers in their work.
 To evaluate the new products DSS is used.
Place Sub-system- To ensure the product is available to the customer at the right time to the
right place, the place sub-systems are used (Valacich and Schneider, 2015). These include the
options of-
 Bar-code Universal product code
 Point of sale scanning
 Electronic data interchange
 Just in time
Promotion Sub-system- For promoting the products and services of the company, John
Lewis focus on database marketing, sales force automation.
Price Sub-system- The access to the database and the support from DSS is provided in the
company.
John Lewis focuses on the various information systems to manage and secure the data and
information of the company. To avoid the immortal charge of competitors the use of
management information systems must be considered (Pearlson, et. al., 2016). This helps in
Securing the information and data of the company.
The use of Financial and Accounting information systems for assuring the effectiveness of
the information and data by the methods of accounts receivable records, accounts payable
records, Payroll records, Inventory control records, and general ledgers are used by the
company to secure and manage the information of the financial data.
For the effective management of the human resource in an organisation the various systems
are used to manage the information and data of the human resource function in John Lewis
(Pearlson, et. al., 2016). The transactional process subsystems and databases of human
resource information system include-
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Applicant databases- the database for the applicants for the new job is used by the company
for managing the information about the applicant. The applicant database provides the
information about the proper information availability.
Position Inventory- Position Inventory is the database which provides the information to the
company about the position of the human resources in an organisation and the position must
be used effectively.
Skills inventory- The skills and factors to improve skills are included in the database of
skills inventory to manage the information of different human resource and their skills
(Galliers and Leidner, 2014). These skills may include a different factor which impacts on the
skills inventory.
Benefit databases- The benefits which are to be received by the human resources in the year
are recorded in his database. This information helps in assessing the availability of the
benefits to the people of an organisation. To achieve these benefits the people are forced to
work more effectively.
External databases- the External database is the information about the external availability
of data and information to the company about the human resources.
The overall information and database of the company are to be secured in the proper manner
to manage the functions of the organisation (Galliers and Leidner, 2014). John Lewis plays an
excellent role in managing the information of different functional activities of the company
and this is one of the major reasons for its success in the competitive market. The different
functions in the organisations affect the operational activities of the company. These
activities contain very useful data and information about the company’s operations. Every
company focus on securing and managing the information across the various functions of an
organisation.
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2. How do you ensure that data integrity is maintained at all times? Why is it
important from a legal perspective (e.g. reporting correct, true and fair, financial data
to the stock market?
Data Integrity – It refers to as the fundamental component in regards to the keeping the
information security. In addition to this, it is referred to as the accuracy as well as the
consistency of data which is stored in a database. For the organisations, it is the main area of
concern that their data is stored and secured in an effective and efficient manner. It has
become an essential organisational challenge for the big data analysts companies (Subashini
and Kavitha, 2011).
It is very important and essential from the legal perspective also to ensure that the data
integrity has been maintained all the time. It is applicable in each and every data analyst’s
field. From the following perspective the data integrity is essential to a legal perspective
which is as follows:
 Reporting Correct – The recording, as well as reporting of data, must be insured in a
correct way so that accurate and reliable information or data can be generated. The data is
recorded in an appropriate manner so that an optimum decision can be taken within the
organisation.
 True and Fair –The Data integrity enables data cleaning and its maintenance in an
accurate manner. It also ensures that true as well as fair recording and analysis of data so that
fair decision can be made. For example – It includes the data encryption which ensures the
secrecy as well as the privacy of data.
 Financial Data to the Stock Market–The data integrity ensures recording of the
manual data which is significant for the analysis of results in an effective and efficient
manner. The data integrity also focuses on the training as well as accountability of data which
is the key part in the financial recording of data to the stock market (Subashini and Kavitha,
2011).
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3. Why is it critical to have an ethical perspective on data collection and handling?
Every company works under various secured and important information which cannot be
leaked in any manner. The data collection and handling are required to be processed properly
in the company. It is very important to have an ethical perspective on the data collection and
handling to secure the information and to save it from the wrong use (Richards and King,
2014). The information about the company functions and activities is very important and
critical and it cannot be leaked or used wrongly for earning a profit or gaining the advantage
in the competition.
The company requires monitoring the data collection and it's protection approaches so as to
make sure about the safety data. The handling process should be specified by the company
because the wrong handling of the data or information can create a problem for the company.
The storage of data must be considered by the company so as to store the information
securely. The location or the hardware where the data or information is secured should be
provided. Conservation methods must be specified (Richards and King, 2014). A Non-Wan
connection should be preferred or hard disk should be preferred to secure the data or
information.
The company must also follow some ethical specifications and perspective in structuring the
data and information. The structure of data should be specified. The encryption to the data
must be added to identify it and it should be separate from the sensitive data such as health
data.
John Lewis must consider the securely accessing the data. The secured access policy must be
used and specified properly (Teterin, et. al., 2015). The risk involved with the data and its
sensitivity must be proportional to it. The data must be password protected, encrypted, some
basic principles which could be used only by the owner must be added to the data.
The data protection in the company must be properly used to ensure the effectiveness of the
information.
It is very important for John Lewis to strict the rules for accessing the data. The legal
permission must be added in the obtaining and processing the data and information of the
company. These rules restrict access the information in the company (Teterin, et. al., 2015).
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The privacy and data protection is the ethical perspective which is to be followed. The
privacy, consent, dual-use and research involving developing countries must be the ethical
perspective of the company.
There is an importance of ethical issues to be considered for protection. The protection of
data and rights to access data must be known to the people of an organisation. By the leakage
of information, some of the issues could take places which are-
Strategically loss- The companies follow some strategies which help in achieving the
upcoming targets and risks to the company. For attaining the organizational goals, the data
and information of the company related to the strategies must be secured (Danezis, et. al.,
2015).
Products designs and ideas leakage- The designs of products and ideas could be leaked
with the unprotected data and information. The products and designs of the company are their
assets which could not be disclosed at the wrong time. This needs to be ethical prohibited
accessing the information.
Employee dissatisfaction- The employee dissatisfaction occurs with the leakage of
information of human resource management (Danezis, et. al., 2015). To secure and manage
such information there is a need for proper management of the system to lock and secure the
information.
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Conclusion
On the basis of the above-reported study, it has been analysed that the study of data integrity
is very essential from the organisational perspective. In addition to this, it has been observed
that there are different ways through which the data can be managed across different
departments of the organisation. These are such as manufacturing, marketing, finance and
many others. Furthermore, it is evident that it is very significant to have ethical perspective
on the data handling as well as data collection. It is crucial because it leads to creating of the
significant impact across various areas.
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References
 Danezis, G., Domingo-Ferrer, J., Hansen, M., Hoepman, J.H., Metayer, D.L., Tirtea,
R. and Schiffner, S., 2015. Privacy and Data Protection by Design-from policy to
engineering. arXiv preprint arXiv:1501.03726.
 Galliers, R.D. andLeidner, D.E. eds., 2014. Strategic information management:
challenges and strategies in managing information systems. Routledge.
 Laudon, K.C. andLaudon, J.P., 2015. Management Information Systems: Managing
the Digital Firm PlusMyMISLab with Pearson eText--Access Card Package. Prentice Hall
Press.
 Pearlson, K.E., Saunders, C.S. and Galletta, D.F., 2016. Managing and Using
Information Systems, Binder Ready Version: A Strategic Approach. John Wiley & Sons.
 Richards, N.M. and King, J.H., 2014. Big data ethics. Wake Forest L. Rev., 49, p.393.
 Subashini, S. and Kavitha, V., 2011. A survey on security issues in service delivery
models of cloud computing. Journal of network and computer applications, 34(1), pp.1-11.
 Teterin, B., Lolayekar, S.C., Murali, P. and Talati, V., 2015. Techniques for Policy-
Based Data Protection Services. U.S. Patent Application 14/078,130.
 Valacich, J. and Schneider, C., 2015. Information Systems Today: Managing in a
Digital World PlusMyMISLab with Pearson eText--Access Card Package. Prentice Hall
Press.
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