Transactions of the SDPS:

Journal of Integrated Design and Process Science

17 (2), 2013, 59-88
DOI 10.3233/jid-2013-0009
http://www.sdpsnet.org

The Evolution of Management Information Systems: A

Literature Review
Xiaojuan (Julia) Zhang*
School of Information Management, Wuhan University, Wuhan, China

Abstract The Management Information Systems (MISs) have been displaying considerable diversity during the
evolution in the past decades. It comes such a big demand and challenge to draw an overarching picture of the
evolutionary development of MISs. By systematically investigating the existing representative literature/research in
MISs, especially by analyzing and modeling the MIS concepts, this paper first identifies the crises and challenges the
traditional MIS has faced. Furthermore, by applying EBD, a design methodology, the author analyzes how these crises
have been addressed, and as a result, how the classical MIS Pyramid is transformed and developed into an intelligence-
integration framework for the understanding of MISs evolution, which is able to not only position various information
systems, but also show how these systems are still interrelated in the whole process of the evolution. The two
dimensional framework here for MISs is conceptual model based, and different from prior frameworks, is able to
describe the overall evolution of management information systems dynamically, rather than just “partially”, or
“statically”. This framework also provides a model applicable to the development of MISs and information
technologies, thus it is has meanings not just academia but also practice. The descriptive validity or consolidation of
the framework is demonstrated by applying it to published MISs’ studies. Future trends and challenges of MISs are
also discussed based on the framework in this paper.

Keywords: Management information systems, evolution, framework, Environment Based Design, literature review

1. Introduction
The Management Information System (MIS), or Management Information Systems (MISs) /Information
Systems (ISs), have been displaying considerable diversity during its evolution in the past decades, which
is demonstrated and also highlighted by such systems as Electronic Data Processing Systems
(EDPS)/Transaction Processing Systems (TPS), Management Information Systems (MIS), Database
Management Systems (DBMS), Decision Support Systems (DSS); Group Decision Support Systems
(GDSS), Intelligent Decision Support Systems (IDSS), Executive Information Systems (EIS), Material
Requirement Planning (MRP), Manufacturing Resources Planning (MRP II), Enterprise Resource Planning
(ERP), Data Warehousing (DW) & Data Mining (DM), and Business Intelligence (BI), and also the
application systems in the internet environment. However, even there are various models and frameworks
which have contributed to the description of a particular part of the MIS field, there is still “no underlying
framework” that provides “systematic” and “holistic” view of it (Bacon and Fitzgerald, 2001), or even the
MIS/IS systems. Meanwhile, numerous research issues have been raised in doing the research in the stream.
It comes such a big demand and challenge to draw an overarching picture of the evolutionary development

*
Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]; [email protected] Tel: (+86)27-68752600.

1092-0617/$27.50© 2013 - Society for Design and Process Science. All rights reserved. Published by IOS Press
60 Zhang / The Evolution of Management Information Systems: A Literature Review

of MISs, and address these issues and concerns. By systematically investigating the existing representative
literature/research in MISs, with an emphasis on analyzing and modeling the MIS concepts, this paper first
clearly identifies the crises and challenges the traditional MIS has faced. Furthermore, by applying the
Environment-based Design (EBD) methodology, the author analyzes how the crises have been addressed,
and as a result, how the classical MIS Pyramid has been transformed and developed into an intelligence-
integration framework for the understanding of MISs evolution, which is able to not only position various
information systems in terms of their intelligence and integration degrees, but also show how these systems
have been interrelated in the whole process of their evolution.

2. The Concepts of MIS/MISs

Since the “discussion of the evolution of the MIS area1 is greatly facilitated by a definition of the area”
(Dickson, 1981), we started our discussion with “what is conceptually a MIS?” Some published definitions
of management information system(s) are quoted as the following for further discussion.

2.1. Classical and modern definitions of MIS/MISs

When MIS concept was first used in late 1950, the system it represented only had plan and control
functions. However, in 1960s – 1970s, the expectation of both researchers and practitioners in the business
management community had raised as high as a single system for all management requirement, namely a
total system (Dearden, 1972). As of early 1980s, two of the “commonly referenced definitions” (Dickson,
1981) of a specific management information system, were as the following:
Definition 1: Davis (1974) described management information system as “an integrated, man/machine
system for providing information to support the operations, management, and decision-making functions
in an organization. The system utilizes computer hardware and software, manual procedures, management
and decision models, and a database”.
Definition 2: A management information system is an organized method of providing past, present, and
projection information relating to internal operation and external intelligence. It supports the planning,
control, and operational functions of an organization by furnishing uniform information in the proper time-
frame to assist the decision-making process (Kennevan, 1970, p21).
In contemporary works, researchers in business management communities have presented their broader
views of management information system.
Definition 3: Baskerville and Myers (2002) broadly defined MISs as “the development, use and
application of information systems by individuals, organizations and society”.
It is of note that in the past few decades, MIS has gone through a steady shift from a techno-centric
focus to a balanced view of technology, organizational, management, and social focus (Baskerville and
Myers, 2002). We also need to point out that management information system, or management information
systems, has, since it came into being, evolved into such a broad concept, or an collective concept for a
body of concepts as it expands the scope of information processing to include not only applications for
business transactions and operations, but also applications that support its administrative and management
functions, and support organizational and inter-organizational communications and coordination. In
addition, we also noticed that the terms management information system (MIS) and information system (IS)
are synonyms, which means their meanings are identical and interchangeable (Reilly, 2003).
In this contribution, the author defines a MIS as a specific management information system, and MISs,
as a collective term which includes a body of technological systems such as DSS, ERP, BI, etc. (in this
sense, MISs is identical with ISs). In addition, the “MIS field” includes management information systems
research subject/discipline, activities such as system planning, analysis, design and development, and the

1
Authors in business management community use MIS area or field frequently. The MIS area or field includes
management information systems research subject/discipline, activities such as system planning, analysis, design and
development, and the above mentioned technological systems such as TDP, MRP, ERP, DSS, OLAP, Data warehouse,
BI, etc.
 Zhang / The Evolution of Management Information Systems: A Literature Review 61

above mentioned technological systems, etc. This present research has a focus on MIS and MISs, while
also taking the relevant research in MIS field as some references in discussing the evolutionary development
of management information systems.

2.2. The MIS pyramid

The MIS Pyramid, as shown in Fig. 1, originated from the three levels of managerial activity of Anthony
(1965), the decision-making categories of Simon (1977), and the triangle to characterize MIS used by Head
(1967). Later various authors added transactional processing as a base on which the entire system rested,
and its further extension was made in the work of Sprague (1980). The complete MIS Pyramid was first
delivered in the work of Davis and Olson (1985).
One important and interesting thing is that with the scope of systems providing information technology
services increasing dramatically, and as a result, the concept of MIS or MISs has greatly expanded in the
past decades, the broad concept of MIS as a system “that combines transaction and operational requirements
with administrative and management support remains valid” (Reilly, 2003). As a proof, the Pyramid is still
commonly cited by current business management communities while describing MIS (Davis, 2005).
Research Issue One: how the core parts, which are depicted by the MIS Pyramid, remain stable while
the whole systems dramatically expanding?

Strategic
Planning

Management
Control

Operational
Control

Transaction processing
Goods & Service

Fig. 1. The MIS as a pyramid.

Fig 1. The MIS as a Pyramid

2.3. Classifications of MIS definitions

To provide a clear picture of MIS or MISs, some researchers also made their great efforts on the
classification of its representative definitions or descriptions. Based on the works of such researchers as
Davis (1974), Moravec (1965), Schwartz (1969), Kriebel (1972), Mason and Mitroff (1973), and Honold
(1972), etc., Ein-Dor and Segev’s showed the audience how the MIS picture was evolving:
By late 1970s, the “definitions of MIS fall into two broad categories. Those in the first category are
design oriented and place considerable emphasis on the physical realization of the system as one of the
distinguishing features of a MIS, and refer to computer hardware and software, data bases and decision
models. Definitions in the second category are use oriented and distinguish MIS entirely in terms of their
function in the organization – support for management” (Ein-Dor & Segev, 1978).
62 Zhang / The Evolution of Management Information Systems: A Literature Review

The classification was made clearer in their work of 1981: “there seem to be two classes of definition
of MIS, one definition calibrates Management Information Systems by their degree of integration. An
extreme view regards only a completely integrated total model of the organization as being an MIS …. The
second class of definition defines a management information system as an information system that serves
management, rather than serving operations or process control functions. In this view, management
information systems are one of many co-equal types of information systems. … Given this definition, a
simple, stand-alone, un-integrated information system serving management is a management information
system. This is a use-oriented approach that states that a system is an MIS when it is used by a manager
who finds it useful in the performance of that manager’s duties” (Ein-Dor & Segev, 1981).
Research Issue Two: Are there two types of MIS, integrated and un-integrated?

3. Evolution of MIS’s Foundations and Systems

Attempts to illustrate the evolutionary development of the management information systems have been
expressed in different ways. With an emphasize on MIS concept and MIS systems, we invest our efforts on
describing what have been involving in terms of MIS as technological systems and, closely related with
that, MIS as an umbrella concept, rather than probing into MIS subareas or activities.

3.1. The evolution of MIS foundations

Studies in the stream of MIS subject or discipline include those who have examined the necessary
foundations or reference disciplines for this field.
As early as mid 1970s, Davis stated that “four major areas of concept and system development are
especially significant in tracing the evolution of the MIS concept: managerial accounting, management
science, management theory, and computer processing” (Davis, 1974). Later on, he suggested that MIS
represents the intersection of six fields of knowledge: computer science, behavioral science, decision
science, organization and management, organizational function and management accounting (Davis, 1980).
Swanson and Culnan (Swanson, 1984; Culnan, & Swanson, 1986) held that three fields of study
constituted necessary foundations for MIS: computer science, management science, and organization
science. Each focuses on foundational elements held to be fundamental to the study – computer science
focuses on data, hardware, and software as basic elements of study; management science attends to
problems, models, and solvers; and organization science studies individuals, organizations, and institutions.
Through the work of Grover et al (2006), it became appropriate to “explicitly consider Economics and
Marketing as reference disciplines for IS (management information systems) in addition to the often used
classical disciplines (of Davis and Swason’s)”.
From one or more perspectives of the above mentioned areas/fields held to be fundamental to the study
of MIS, different definitions of MIS have showed different focus or emphasis, which validates the above
discussion. For example, Definition 1 and 2 are technology focus; others may emphasize management and
technology (Law, 2009), or be organization and technology oriented (Reilly, 2003), which helps us
understand the great diversity of the MISs concepts.

3.2. The evolution of MIS systems

As mentioned above, the meanings of MISs and ISs are identical. Moreover, there is a recent tendency
to use the simpler term information systems while the term MIS is still in common use (Reilly, 2003). This
tendency shows the information systems represent MISs well.
In terms of information systems, MISs ranges from the original, basic data processing system
that records transaction data to sophisticated expert system, such as intelligent computer programs
that provide advice on decision making. The representative enterprise information systems include:
EDPS/TPS, MIS, DBMS, DSS, GDSS, IDSS, EIS, MRP, MRP II, ERP, DW & DM, and BI, etc. Each
system represents a certain stage in the process of the MISs evolution. They have distinguished advantages
to meet different business management requirements.
 Zhang / The Evolution of Management Information Systems: A Literature Review 63

Fig. 2 offers the chronicles of the evolutionary development of MISs, beginning with EDPS/TPS in
1950s, evolving into traditional MIS in 60s and the collaborative Systems in the Internet environment after
2000 (Watson, et al, 1997; Rashid, et al, 2002; Arnott, 2005). As a result of the evolution, it comes out the
considerable diversity of MISs.
Research Issues Three: How are those systems related to each other in the process of their evolution?
For example, how EDP led to MIS, and how ERP and EIS “infringed on” the traditional MIS? (Helms,
2009).
Through our discussion in Section 2 and 3, we can find out that in addition to the static depicts of a MIS
or MISs, it is also a “process” which has been producing various systems. The great diversity of those
systems makes the evolution of MIS complex and the researcher and practitioners confused.
Aiming to clarify the confusion and provide a framework for the dynamic evolutionary process of MISs,
in the rest parts of this contribution, the author first discusses the necessity of review of MISs evolution in
Section 4. Then, the EBD, a design methodology is introduced to this review In Section 5, followed by the
application of this methodology to analyze how the crises MIS faced are identified and addressed. Section
6 focuses on the analysis of the transforming of the MIS Pyramid as a result of the crises-addressing, which
leads to the introduction and consolidation of a two dimensional framework of intelligence and integration.
Section 7 probes into future trends of MISs based on the framework. Section 8 briefly concludes this
contribution.

4. The Evaluation of Existing MIS Framework and the Purposes of This Paper
There are two folds of reasons why the author makes this literature review contribution.

4.1. The evaluation of existing frameworks in MIS field

The evaluation of existing frameworks in MIS field gives the general reasons, that is, the importance
and necessity of an overarching framework for MISs.
As early as 1971 it was realized that “a framework for viewing management information systems is
essential if an organization is to plan effectively and make sensible allocation of resources to information
systems tasks.” “Without a framework to guide management and systems planners, the system tends to
serve the strongest manager or react to the greatest crisis. As a result, system activities too often move from
crisis to crisis, following no clear path and receiving only ex post facto justification” (Gorry & Morton
Scott, 1971).
In the point of view of Bacon and Fitzgerald(2001), various models which have contributed to the
description of a particular part of the MIS/IS field, such as (a) an information system, (b) strategic systems
planning approaches, (c) types of development, (d) types of system/application, and (e) research themes,
have been highlighted and reviewed. In addition, the models of Culnan (1986), Culnan and Swanson (1986),
and Dickson (1981) also classified the intellectual progression of the field. However, even though there
were “various models” to describe MIS, there was still “no underlying framework” that provided
“systematic” and “holistic” view of MIS/IS field (Keen, 1991; Bacon & Fitzgerald, 2001).
64 Zhang / The Evolution of Management Information Systems: A Literature Review

Fig. 2. The chronicles of the evolutionary development of MISs.

Bacon and Fitzgerald’s work derives a systematic framework for the MIS/IS field. Within the framework,
five main areas of the framework integrate with each other -- IS development, acquisition & support, People
& organization, Information for knowledge work, customer satisfaction & business performance,
Information & Communication Technology(ICT), and Operations & network management. It emphasized
the IS/MIS activities, information technologies, and organizations, rather than the MIS systems as a whole,
or their evolution.
Gorry and Scott Morton’s framework for MIS (1971) and Sprague’s for DSS(1980) used to be two of
“the best known and most useful frameworks” (Waston, et al, 1991). Among the most inspiring classical
works, both have been fueling the present studies of this stream. In its reprint of 1989, the broad thrust of
 Zhang / The Evolution of Management Information Systems: A Literature Review 65

their original analysis of decision making activities remained valid. Although Gorry and Scott Mortons’s
work was entitled a framework for MIS, it was actually developed “for managerial activities, not for
information systems” (Gorry and Scott Mortons, 1971). Sprague’s framework for DSS has also offered
some detail information concerning the characteristics of early EDP and MIS through comparison, and
questioned the DSS evolution based on the data -- information -- decision making transition. Even these
two works have highlighted the shift of MIS’s emphasis from transaction processing to management
activities since 1970s, they mainly focused on a part of MISs evolution, rather than the whole.
The study of Millet et al (1992) has showed that the transition from the traditional MIS stage to an online
EIS stage requires a shift along two dimensions: (1) a move from batch to interactive online environment,
and (2) an increase in information integration and focus. However, this framework only covered the
evolutionary stages from traditional MIS to online EIS. Associated with that, the paths of the evolution
were all confined within the framework without “attempting effect both transitions simultaneously” (Millet,
et al, 1992).
Greiner’s work in Harvard Business Review (1972) built a general, dynamic model for organization
development. The author showed how companies could turn organizational crises into opportunities for the
future growth. This work was reprinted in 1992 and has generated record citations.
The reprints above mentioned have prompted the need for the framework for MIS evolution through
early 1970s to late 1990s. It has also become a huge challenge given the ongoing processes and great
diversities showed in the evolutionary development of MISs.
Research Issue Four: How was the confusion of Sprague’s generated and how could it be clarified?

4.2. The purposes of this paper

More specifically, the targets of this contribution are, in addition to address the Research Issues raised
in each section, as the following:
(1). To provide a framework to describe the dynamic evolution of MISs. Corresponding to this dynamic
process, this framework will position the key information systems in motion, as a result, it will also
(2). To provide “paths” of how the MISs have evolved -- they have been advancing independently
while still having close interrelationships and even working collaboratively with each other to help
enterprises improve their productivity.
The framework here for MISs will be conceptual model based and also a model applicable to the
development of MISs and information technologies, thus it has meanings not just academia but also practice.

5. Design Methodology and its Application in This Review

5.1. Coupling EBD methodology with MISs evolution

Dicksen (1981) held that “both terms, MIS and DSS, refer to a product produced by a process.
Unfortunately, both terms have been applied to the process as well as the product, which has caused no end
of confusion.” In this Section, the author will make efforts on the application of design methodology to
clarify the “confusion”.
Design is both a process and a product. And the result of design science research in IS, or MIS, is a
purposeful IT artifact, or product, created to address an identified organizational problem (Hevner, et al,
2004), help achieve organization goals or in other words, meet the expectation of the designers. Such
artifacts are represented in a structured form that may vary from software, formal logic to informal natural
language descriptions.
In the view of Environment Based Design (EBD) as a design methodology, the above mentioned process
and product in design actually aims to change an existing environment to a desired one by creating a new
artifact (Zeng, 2004). To this end, EBD also provides procedures throughout this environment change
process.
66 Zhang / The Evolution of Management Information Systems: A Literature Review

EBD consists of three major activities: the environmental analysis targeting to define the current
environment system, the conflict identification aiming at identifying undesired conflicts between
environment component, and solution generation targeting to generate a design solution by resolving a
group of chosen conflicts. The generated solution will become a part of the new product environment for
the succeeding design (Zeng, 2011). The environmental analysis is the initial and fundamental activity. One
of the key methods of this activity is to conduct semantic analysis of the informal natural language
descriptions, the MIS definition in our case, through Recursive Object Model (ROM) based on the work of
Zeng (2008), which reveals the customer’s real intent and the complete requirements of MISs as products.
Starting from the ROM, we will be able to identify conflictions among the environmental component
constraints. The constraints and undesired conflicts, are actually corresponding to the “crisis” in business
communities, such as Gorry & Morton Scott identified in their work (1971), in the existing environment.
As the third activity of EBD, a set of environment conflicts will be chosen to be resolved. After ROM is
generated, some questions should be asked to make every object in the ROM diagram clear (Wang & Zeng,
2009). These three activities work together progressively and simultaneously to generate and refine the
design specifications and design solutions (Zeng et al, 2012).

5.2. The application of EBD in the analysis of MISs evolution

5.2.1. A modified MIS definition

When viewing MIS as an IT product, the definition of MIS presents its product requirement, which will
lead our study of MIS to EBD. To this end, the classical MIS definition should be adapted and used because
we are investigating the MIS evolution since its early stage. The aforementioned Definition 1 set emphasis
more on system and functions while Definition 2, on information. Combining the two definitions, it may
be reasonable to define MIS as: an integrated, man/machine system for providing uniform information to
support the operations, management, and decision-making functions in an organization.
Following the three major steps of EBD analysis, we will identify and detail these requirements one
by one.

5.2.2. Environmental analysis

At first, a ROM diagram is generated as shown in Fig. 3. The main objects are “system” and “information”
since they have the most constrained relationships in the ROM diagram. Furthermore, the most critical
environment objects are “operation”, “management”, and “decision making” due to the potential conflicts
of “supporting operation, management AND decision making.” These five objects constitute the major
environment components.

5.2.3. Conflicts identification and solution generation through Q & A

Then some questions should be asked about the above major environmental components to specify the
constraints and objects with conflicts. Taking the “system” as an example, we should ask the questions to
the unclear constraints “integrated” to analyze the hidden environmental variables. The questions could be
raised as “what do you mean by integrated?”, “what do you mean by the man/machine system?” To make
it clear, we listed all related questions in Table 1.
Through answering these questions, the crises will be identified and corresponding solutions will be
generated.
Based on EBD, the object “operation” could be regarded as the starting environment component,
therefore we attempt to analyze and answer Question 4 first.
Q4 What do you mean by operation?
Before traditional MIS was developed, the computer hardware and software was mostly used to deal
with the operational applications, or transaction processing (TPS), or equivalently, the data processing
(EDP) , which involved such transactions as accepting a customer order, making a payment, producing
 Zhang / The Evolution of Management Information Systems: A Literature Review 67

business documents, conducting accounting affairs, and saved the human effort in conducting the repetitive
operations in an organization.

Table 1. The question asked based on the initial ROM diagram

Question No. Question Content

Q1 What do you mean by integrated?
Q2 What do you mean by man/machine?
Q3 What do you mean by uniform?
Q4 What do you mean by operation?
Q5 What are the management (activities)?
Q6 What are the decision-making functions?

an
system man/machine

integrated

provide

information uniform

supporting

and

operation decision
management
making

Fig. 3. An initial ROM diagram for the MIS objectives.

Q1 What do you mean by integrated?

However, different business transactions are actually linked with each other in an organization, and
different TPS therefore faced the data sharing problem when the organization was viewed as a whole. As a
result, the integration of different TPS into some across function systems came to serve as the solution.
Examples of such kind of integration were given as production MIS, marketing MIS, and personnel MIS,
etc., which could be regarded as MIS sub-systems.
During the 1960s most organizations designed and implemented centralized computing systems to
automate their inventory control systems. The integration of different TPS, or MIS’s sub-systems’ functions
was still limited and could not eliminate the barriers between different functions of operation and thus
couldn’t tackle with the coordination problem in an organization (Giachetti, 2004).
68 Zhang / The Evolution of Management Information Systems: A Literature Review

In the classical definition of a MIS, the term “integrated” was closely associated with the concept of the
“Total Systems.” As a matter of fact, the Total Systems Concept was regarded as an advanced approach in
the design of the MIS for optimum integration of information (Heyel, 1973). At that time, the MIS had even
been called Total Management Information System, which intended to be the company’s only information
system. However, in the point of view of Gorry & Scott Morton (1971), the “totally-integrated-
management-information-systems” idea was a poor design concept. Dearden (1972) stated that the
objective of meeting the information needs of all managers in the firm with a single system, that is, “a single,
completely integrated super system -- a MIS -- to help it govern every aspect of its activity”, was impossible.
The emphasis of MIS should be on “addressing needs of subsets of managers”. He told the widespread
feelings of frustration of MIS during that time (Ackoff, 1967, Hershman, 1968, Dearden, 1966).
The need for software specifically designed for manufacturing operations led to the development of
MRP, MRP II, and ERP packaged application. By examining the history, it could be inferred that the
concept of ERP has evolved from simple inventory management systems to MRP and MRP II (Orlicky,
1975; Vollman et al., 1997; Chung & Snyder, 2000).
As the backbone of information technology for planning and controlling a manufacturing enterprise,
which was used to be the key functions classical MIS actually performed, MRP systems were developed in
the 1970s, followed by the introduction of the MRP II systems in 1980s. With a common database, the
MRP II systems possessed the capacity to coordinate operations across different functions in a company
and started to take over the MIS’ responsibilities of transaction processing.
Based on MRP and MRP II, enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems appeared in the late 1980s with
the power of enterprise-wide inter-functional coordination and integration (Rashid, et al, 2002; Holland &
Light, 1999). ERP systems is featured with “One database, one application ... across the entire enterprise”
(Tadjer, 1998; Al-Mashari, et al, 2003), namely, “one integrated solution” in an organization (Chung &
Snyder, 2000; Gable, 1998; Waston, et al., 1999).
And ERP can be used not only in manufacturing companies but in any company that wants to enhance
competitiveness through effectively using information (Umble, et al, 2003). During the 1990s ERP systems
even became the de-facto standard for replacement of legacy systems in large, and particularly multi-
national companies (Parr and Shanks, 2000). Davenport (1998) states that the business world's embraced
of ERP systems, or the enterprise systems as he called, may in fact be the most important development in
the corporate use of information technology in the 1990s.
Therefore, the answer to Q1could be as the following: “this system integrates TPS into MIS subsystems,
and furthermore, integrates MIS subsystems into MRP, MRP II and ERP”. With this answer, the integration
through TPS, MIS to ERP is displayed in Fig. 4.
In terms of integration, ERP seems to successfully meet the expectation for traditional MIS. With the
generation of ERP, the MIS system is able to support enterprise wide TPS functions well, and the conflict
between “supporting operation, management AND decision making” is partly addressed this way, as
showed in Fig. 5.
However it is of importance to understand that ERP has not realized the dream of “totally management-
information-systems”, rather, as explained earlier, it only integrated some sub-systems of MIS which were
transaction processing related. As a result, for many years, ERP platforms had only transaction-processing
capabilities and some basic capabilities including simple reporting, and simple analysis (Turban, et al, 2011).
In the description of ERP objectives, researchers just stopped with the identification of its management
report functions (Lonzinsky, 1998). Decision support was even not explicitly recognized as a major reason
for the implementation (Holsapple & Sena, 2005).
 Zhang / The Evolution of Management Information Systems: A Literature Review 69

ERP ERP

MRP II MRP II

Integration
MRP
MRP

MIS Sub-systems

TPS

Fig. 4. The integration through TPS, MIS sub-systems to ERP.

an

integrate TPS system man/machine

generate provide

MRP/MRPⅡ/ERP information uniform

supporting

and

decision
operation management
making

Fig. 5. An updated ROM diagram for the MIS objective: integration perspective.

In other words, ERP is the integrated system representing the first type of MIS definition classifications
in Section 2.3. As for MIS, it also “designated a specific category of information systems to serve
70 Zhang / The Evolution of Management Information Systems: A Literature Review

management activity” (Laudon &Laudon, 2012), which fall into the second category of the aforementioned
MIS definition classifications.
Further question with Q1 could be “How to integrate?” Based on the conceptual model proposed by
Blumenthal (1969), which described an integrated architecture and framework for organizational ISs,
Giachetti (2004)’s four- layer integration framework was analyzed along with some more recent works on
system integration, or information integration, in the enterprise environment (Vernadat, 2002; Lee, et al,
2003; Lim, 1997; Kosanke, et al, 1999; Spencer, 2002; Jhingran, et al, 2002; Roth, et al, 2002), and
presented as a framework of system integration with five inter-related layers, namely, physical, data,
application, business process/function, and presentation, in which the higher level integration could be
implemented based on the lower levels, in the work of Zhang (2007, 2008).
Q5 What are the management (activities)?
A widely accepted view classified the management activities into three levels: the operational control,
the management control and strategic planning (Anthony 1965; Gorry & Morton, 1971). The operational
control means “assuring specific tasks are carried out effectively and efficiently”; the management control
means “assuring resources are obtained and used effectively and efficiently in the accomplishment of
organization objectives”; and the strategic planning means “deciding on objectives of the organization, on
changes in those objectives, on resources used to attain these objectives, and on policies that are govern
the acquisition, use and disposition of these resources”. (Gorry & Morton, 1971)
Q6 What are decision making functions?
A general process for any decision making activities was described by Simon (1977), namely,
intelligence, design, and choice. The information support for programmed or un-programmed decision-
making is needed from operational control level to strategically planning level using structured or
unstructured data (Sprague, 1980).
The traditional MIS focused on providing managers with structural, periodic reports using much of the
information from accounting and transaction systems (Power, 2003). A MIS is able to support the operation
control by coordinating different TPS as it can help solve the data sharing problem in different TPS.
Meanwhile, “management information systems also designates a specific category of information systems
serving middle management” (Laudon & Laudon, 2012, p47).
In the late 1960s, a new type of information system, model-oriented DSS, became practical (Power,
2003). The term “decision support systems” appeared in Gorry and Scott Morton’s work (1971) and it was
first defined as a system “to focus on managers’ decision support activities and needs while expanding their
capabilities.” (Keen & Scott Morton, 1978). By the late 1970s, DSSs had involved diverse systems which
used data, both structured data and unstructured documents (Swanson & Culnan, 1978) and models to help
managers analyze semi-structured problem.
Gorry and Scott Morton (1971) conceived DSS as systems that support any decision –makings that are
semi-structured or unstructured. This definition was soon narrowed down to semi-structured managerial
decisions (Keen & Scott Morton, 1978); a scope that survives to this days (Arnott & Pervan, 2005), which
actually provided a perception of traditional DSS.
As of early 1980s, with the potential of PDSS and GDSS, “most of the existent published works coincide
in their understanding of DSS as tools to aid decision-making with problems that are not well structured”
(Vierck, 1981). Actually from those early days, it was already recognized that DSS could be designed to
support decision-makings at any level through operations to strategic planning in an organization (Powell,
2003), which means DSS has developed into a collective term, DSSs, to include, traditional DSS, PDSS,
GDSS, and later on, EIS, and so on.
Even the relationships of DSS and MIS were debatable (Naylor, 1982; Watson & Hill, 1983) and the
descriptions of DSS had kept migrating through early 1970s to early 1980s (Sol, 1987). Distinguished from
traditional MIS, a DSS is decision focused and able to perform decision making functions which the MIS
couldn’t make.
The emergence of DSS and its early evolution is presented in Fig. 6.
As a summary and further discussion of Q5 & 6, it is of note the “intelligence” of traditional MIS started
to draw the attention of the researchers in 1970s and 1980s. To expand MIS’s role from a “servant” to
 Zhang / The Evolution of Management Information Systems: A Literature Review 71

“helper” to decision maker, “intelligent” MIS should be built (King, 1973). “A complete system designed
to collect data, process them into information, and convert them into intelligence suitable for goal-setting
and strategy determination” could be developed by expanding the typical MIS with operation-oriented data
base to a system with strategic intelligence capability (Johnson & Derman, 1970).
However, here comes the confusion in the expansion of traditional MIS in term of the transition from
data to information, and so on. Besides the above mentioned data ->information-> intelligence transition in
Johnson & Derman’s study , the advancing from “data focus” -- EDP, “information focus” -- MIS, to
“decision focus” – DSS was also discussed and displayed in the “Connotational View” and it was
immediately doubted(Sprague,1980). Actually, it is confusing to see “intelligence” or “decision” follow
data – Information in terms of the data - information transition/hierarchy.
Based on the critical thinking and analysis of the roles and relationships of data, information, knowledge,
wisdom, and intelligence (Ackoff, 1989, Sharma, 2008, Tuomi, 1999; Alavi & Leidner, 2001; Frické, 2009;
Ahsan & Shan, 2006; Firestone & McElroym, 2003) and their functions in decision support activities (Choo,
1996; Delic & Daya, 2003), Zhang (2007, 2009, 2010) came to the conclusion that human intelligence is
associated with business administration activities in implementing decision-making function. In other
words, human intelligence is “projected, or mapped, to” business administration through decision-support
information systems”.

man/machine
DSS

integrate TPS system PDSS and introduce

GDSS

generate generate

MPR/MRPⅡ/ERP provide DSSs

information uniform

supporting

and

decision
operation management
making

Fig. 6. An updated ROM diagram for the MIS objective: DSSs for decision making.

Thus, the TPS/MIS/DSS framework of Sprague’s could be modified as: the operational control is data
focused and corresponding to the Transaction Processing System; the management control is information
focused and corresponding to the Management Information System, and the strategic planning is knowledge
72 Zhang / The Evolution of Management Information Systems: A Literature Review

focused, and corresponding to the Decision Supporting System. The whole framework can be seen as a
Matrix Model in Fig. 7.

Strategic
knowledge DSS
Planning

Management
Information MIS
Control

Operational
Data TPS
Control

Fig. 7. The evolutionary perspective of the classical TPS/MIS/DSS framework.

However, to be more accurate, the early DSS, which is specified in Fig. 7, was not yet a knowledge
based decision support system, rather, it was a transition system from information-based to knowledge
based system (Zhang, 2010).
Q3 What is uniform information?
Traditional MIS counts on the information from operational databases to support both transaction
processing and decision making activities. Underlying the idea of totally integrated MIS system, it was
expected that a “company wide database” was able to provide uniform information. Just like the concept of
MIS as the “Totally Integrated –Management-Information Systems", “company wide database” was also a
“misleading notion” as it was a poor design concept (Gorry and Scott Morton, 1971). In practice, a TPS is
often designed in an independent fashion aiming to support a particular organizational function. This
resulted in traditional MIS which used mostly internal data lacked data integration across functional areas,
which in turn, becomes a severe limitation when attempting to satisfy the needs of top-management for
“comprehensive, company-wide information”(Millet, et al, 1992).
ERP extends the concept of shared database to all functions within a company. Like its MRPII ancestors,
ERP systems rely on a common database throughout the company. By entering data only once at the source
and making it accessible to all functions in an organization, ERP allows each function to interact with one
centralized database. Besides a unified view of the business that encompass all functions and department,
ERP provides another major benefit, that is, “an enterprise database where all business transactions are
entered, recorded, processed, monitored, and reported” (Umble, et al, 2003).
However the dream of comprehensive information didn’t become a reality until the data warehouse
emerged in 1990s. The roots of building a data warehouse lies in improved database technologies. Rather
than having data scattered across a variety of systems, a data warehouse integrates the data, both internal
and external, into a single repository, and provides “comprehensive data”. All users and applications access
the same data.
Similar to the situation of ERP, whose integration doesn’t mean the total MIS system, the data
warehouse is not “a single source of data for all processing”, or “single-database-serving- all-purposes
including transaction processing and MIS/DSS reporting” (Inmon, 2002), or, in other words, “uniform
information” as expected of traditional MIS. Rather, a data warehouse is “simply a set of databases created
to serve as dedicated source of data to support decision-making applications” (Gray and Watson, 1998;
Cooper et al., 2002). Other researchers also regarded data warehouse as a solution for integrating data from
 Zhang / The Evolution of Management Information Systems: A Literature Review 73

diverse operational databases for ad hoc use, such as the support of decision making process and business
intelligence (Inmon, 2002; Inmon & Hackathorn, 1994; Kimball, 1996).
Based on the above discussion, Fig. 8 shows the way how data warehouse, later on BI, was generated,
and functions to support decision making activities.

man/machine
DSS

integrate TPS system PDSS and introduce

GDSS

generate generate

MPR/MRPⅡ/ERP provide DSSs

information unify

supporting data warehouse

and

management decision
operation
making

Fig. 8. An updated ROM diagram for the MIS objectives: data warehouse for decision making.

Q2 what do you mean man/machine?

Man/machine actually meant “user/machine” (Davis, 1985), and the interaction, between them.
Commonly used interchangeably with terms as man-machine interaction, computer and human interaction,
human-machine interaction (Booth, 1989), the concept of Human Computer Interaction/Interfacing was
automatically represented with the emerging of computer, or more generally machine, itself (Karry, et al,
2008).
Generally speaking, such issues concerning HCI as user attitudes, perceptions, acceptance, and use of
IT have been among the long standing issues and major themes of MIS research since early days in
computing (Lucas, 1975), along with studies on programmer cognitions and end user involvement in
systems development (Zhang, 2005). It has strong “skill” and “behavior” components (Card, et al., 1984),
and targets to improve the interactions between users and computers by making computers more usable and
receptive to the user's needs (Olson &Olson, 2003; HCI in Wikipedia, 2012).
It would be reasonable to reach a conclusion that HCI is about human behaviors in using computer
systems, or ISs, and aims to improve the performance of ISs. In straightforward way, it is associated with
74 Zhang / The Evolution of Management Information Systems: A Literature Review

different ISs, but not, and doesn’t leads to, an independent information system as discussed in this
contribution.

5.3. A summary of section 5

Through our discuss in Section 5 so far, the crises traditional MIS faced are graphically presented and
can be observed as conflicts generated in the initial ROM diagram in Fig. 3. And the answers to each of
these questions have been making efforts to explain how the solutions were generated in practice.
Before we end Section 5 with an attempt to explain why the crises of traditional MIS emerged, it may
be of benefit to take a look at if the definitions and descriptions of MIS continued to be of help with our
understanding of how these crises were addressed conceptually. To this end, here we also list two definitions
of MIS in 1980s for a comparison with those in 1970s:
“MIS is an integrated, user/machine system for providing information to support operation,
management, analysis and decision-making functions in an organization. The fact is that it is an integrated
system does not mean that it is a single, monolithic structure; rather, it means that the parts fit into an
overall design” (Davis, 1985).
“In the simplest, most straightforward terms, MIS deals with all the informational and decision making
activity associated with operating an organization. It I is the desire of those working in the MIS area to
encourage better organizational efficiency and effectiveness through facilitating information provision and
decision support to management” (Dickson, 1981).
Comparing the two definitions of Davis in 1974 and 1985, respectively, we noticed that he further
explained the integration feature of MIS, and overcame the limits of “a–single-integrated-system”
perception brought about to traditional MIS vision. Dickson used a general definition, which was able to
accommodate the evolution of MISs, but alone it couldn’t make justice to the diversity and complexity of
MISs.
The goal of the traditional MIS was to make information in transaction processing systems available to
management for decision-making purposes. The design vision of such a system was not regarded as
reasonable, and in practice, the ideal MIS was not successful, either.
The contributing factors to MIS’s failure might involve that the management didn’t understand how his
information system worked, only how to use it; or, the managerial understanding was separated from design
understanding (Swanson, 1974).
However the main causes of this failure may lies in the reality that the 1960s was the era of mainframes,
punch cards, etc. the relational database were years away(Watson, et al, 1997, p10). Initially Codd(1970)
proposed the relational data model for databases in 1970. To be of support in practice, a database was
expected to be serve as a single source of data for all processing in 1970s, and “single-database-serving-
all-purposes including transaction processing and MIS/DSS reporting” in 1980s (Inmon, 2002). However,
even database has set a great impact on both business transaction processing systems and decision support
systems(Shim, et al., 2002), no single database could serve both operational transaction processing and
analytical processing at the same time (Inmon, 2002). This coincides with the conflict analysis based on
Fig. 3, and the solutions given in Fig. 5, 6, and 8.
The ways of addressing the crises traditional MIS faced were observed by some researchers as “some
applications have infringed on the familiar MIS landscapes, Enterprise resource planning (ERP) software
and executive information systems (EIS) both provide packaged modules and programs that perform the
same functions as traditional MIS, but with greater functionality, flexibility, and integration.” (Helms,
2009).

6. The Two-Dimensional Intelligence-Integration Framework: Development and

Consolidation
Since the representative definitions of MIS/MISs are able to facilitate the discussion of the evolution
of the systems, in the previous parts of this contribution, we have first conducted an analysis of MISs, or
 Zhang / The Evolution of Management Information Systems: A Literature Review 75

ISs evolution starting with a traditional MIS concept. By applying EBD methodology, the concept of
traditional MIS has been modified, the crises of traditional MIS as “a total integrated management-
information-system” faced have been identified and the solutions have been generated.
Given the above, we can now further our research by expanding our work to how the MIS Pyramid
can be transformed and an intelligence-integration two-dimensional framework can be built based on the
transforming, which will solve our remaining concerns with all the four Research Issues and achieve the
purpose of this paper.

6.1. The transforming of MIS pyramid and the introducing of intelligence dimension
Fig. 7 actually leads to the transforming of MIS pyramid, as shown in Fig. 9.

Strategic
Planning/DSS

Management
Control/MIS
Operational
Control

TPS

intelligence
Data Information Knowledge Wisdom

Fig. 9. The transforming of MIS pyramid and the introducing of intelligence dimension.

Now we give a further explanation of the transforming and the introducing of the intelligence dimension.
With the transforming, the confusion specified in Sprague( 1980)’s can be cleaned up. In addition, instead
of the “collapse” of the “Information Pyramid” (Friend, 1992) due to the introduction and development of
EIS, this transformed pyramid can accommodate, or even predict the future advancement of DSSs. More
importantly, the transforming also shows the interconnection of systems in the evolutionary process in
practice. As an example, Watson et al (1997)’s explanation of EIS has provided a proof of this
interconnection and thus validated the transforming. He held that there should not be “unrealistic
expectations of EIS” even it offers great potential. As a picture of the real world, “TPS are still required.
Furthermore, most EIS need to access the summary report the TPS generate. MIS will still supply reports
that serve well-defined information needs while some of the reporting and query capabilities of MIS will
be incorporated into the EIS, especially if it spread downward in the organization. DSS are still used to
analyze specific, poorly-structured decision-making tasks. While some DSS applications remain outside of
the EIS, others are integrated into it, thus providing both analysis and information display capabilities.
Expert systems(ES) may add intelligence to the EIS, but many ES applications stand alone(p12).”

6.2. The transforming of MIS pyramid and the introducing of integration dimension
As a matter of fact, the EDP and traditional MIS, as the ancestors of DSS, were not just “data focus” or
“information focus” along the intelligence dimension, they were, at the same time, featured with “integrated
files”, and “integration of EDP jobs” as also specified by Sprague (1980). Obviously, the integration didn’t
extend to traditional DSS after MIS, rather, it extended to ERP, which also rooted in EDP/TPS as
demonstrated in our analysis of Fig. 4. The integration dimension is thus formed based on both the above
76 Zhang / The Evolution of Management Information Systems: A Literature Review

transforming and the transition described in Fig. 4. As a result, a two dimensional framework is built in Fig.
10.
Integoation

ERP /
Extended ERP
Integrated
DSSs

MIS DSS

TPS

Intelligence
Data Information Knowledge Wisdom

Fig. 10. The two dimensional framework of intelligence and integration.

During the 1990s ERP vendors added more modules and functions to the core modules, which gave
birth to the “extended ERPs” (Rashid, et al, 2002), or ERP II in Gartner Research’s term (Bond et al, 2000).
ERP II is basically an extension of the traditional ERP systems (Weston Jr., 2003), which included all areas
of a company ranged from the order management, manufacturing, human resources, financial systems, to
the distribution with external suppliers and customers, and linked into a tightly integrated systems with
shared data. When successfully implemented, the potential benefits of the systems include the ability to
view and manage the extended enterprise of suppliers, alliances, and customers as an integrated whole
(Escalle et al, 1999). In practice, enterprise system developers have started to develop supply chain
management(SCM) and customer relationship management (CRM) systems in an attempt to seamlessly
link front office and back office applications to enhance competitive advantages since 1990s, which
represents the trend of ERP through 1990s to early 2000s (Chen, 2001).
With SCM and CRM extensions, ERPs are becoming the e-business backbone for organizations doing
online business transactions over the Internet. ERP software has even been termed as “business integration
in a box” or “megapackages” (Glass, 1998) as tightly “integrated, thereby closely coupling systems”
(Alvaraz, 2002). With the application of new integration technology such as software componentisation,
Enterprise Application Integration (EAI), service-oriented architecture (SOA) and web services, “a
common observation on the future trends in ERP is its further expansion in scope.” (Moon, 2007) In other
words, ERP’s “tight integration” is “generalized” in the Internet environment , which means ERP has
formed huge systems-on-promise through integrating more( rather than more integrated).

6.3. The positioning of integrated DSSs and Business Intelligence (BI)

6.3.1. Integrated DSSs

Continuing our prior discussion on DSS and data warehouse, we now try to position DSSs and BI in the
framework.
 Zhang / The Evolution of Management Information Systems: A Literature Review 77

To fulfill the commitment of traditional DSS with respect to the support of all structured, semi-structured,
and unstructured decision making at all the three levels of management, various decision-support
applications –EIS, GDSS, and online analytical processing (OLAP), etc., have emerged and expanded the
original concept of DSS(Watson & Wixom, 2007) over the years,. In addition, artificial intelligence (AI)
techniques have been applied to decision support and there systems are normally called intelligent DSS.
Knowledge-based decision support systems have used techniques from artificial intelligence and expert
systems to provide smarter support for the decision-maker and began evolving into the concept of
organizational knowledge management (Shim, et al., 2002; Paradice & Courtney, 1989). This shows the
proofs of evolutionary advances of individual stand-alone DSSs on the intelligence dimension (Zhang, 2007,
2010).
Similar to traditional MIS, “DSS is not a homogenous field” (Arnott & Pervan, 2005). However,
different from MIS concept which was originally an umbrella, or collective term, a DSS has been evolving
into a collective concept DSSs. Based on contemporary practice, DSSs has been organized into five DSS
categories, including communication driven, data driven, document driven, knowledge driven, and model
driven decision support systems (Turban, et al, 2004).
The DSSs need to increase intelligence through integration.. As a long standing issue, integration has
been discussed in early works, such as Turban and Watkins’ (1986). While the importance of integration
of DSS has been recognized after the traditional problem solving DSS experienced some challenges of
interesting declining in the 1990s (Claver, et al, 2000), and the criticism of ”stand-alone” DSS and the need
for closely coupled DSS has been noticed, the different types of integration between various DSS systems
have been widely discussed and new concepts, frameworks, architectures, and applications for DSS
integration have been introduced since late 1990s (Marakas, 1999; Nemati, et al, 2002; Bolloju, 2002;
Mladenic, et al, 2003).
In the point of view of the author of this contribution, the collective concept DSSs, could also be termed
as “integrated systems” (Zhang, 2009, 2010). The integrated DSSs represent the integration of different
decision-making information systems with an essence of function integration, and intelligence increases
through the integration, which is an ongoing process along the intelligence and integration dimensions in
the framework (Zhang, 2007, 2010). Liu et al (2010) addressed the integration for decision support systems
from multiple perspectives and held that integrated DSSs can provide improved support for decision makers
to make more rational decisions

6.3.2. Business Intelligence

Originally coined by Gartner Group in the mid-1990s as a collective term for data analysis tools, mainly
including data warehouse, data mining and OLAP (Gartner, 1990), BI has its roots in the MIS reporting
systems of the 1970s (Turban, et al, 2007; Barrs & Kemper, 2008) and uses transaction data; However, “as
data passes from the operational environment to the data warehouse environment, it must be integrated”
(Inmon, 2002). Data warehouse is a repository for integrated data. “BI converts data into useful information
and, through human analysis, into knowledge”. (Nagash, 2004) BI is a data-driven knowledge-based
decision support system.
At the same time, BI is “a contemporary term for EIS” (Arnott & Pervan, 2005). It is even more
frequently used than DSS and has practically replaced EIS (Carlsson & Turban, 2002). Furthermore, BI
assists in strategic and operational decision making (Negash, 2004). As a matter of fact, BI is now
“commonly understood to encompass all components of an integrated management support infrastructure”
(Barrs & Kemper, 2008), which means it is able to support all decision making activities. Successfully
supporting managerial decision-making is critically dependent upon the availability of integrated, high
quality information organized and presented in a timely and easily understood manner. Data warehouse, or
BI, “have infrastructure, and thus have emerged to meet this need” (March & Hevner, 2007).
Through the above detail analysis of MIS evolution on the integration and intelligence dimensions we
now offer the overall picture of the evolutionary process in Fig. 11, which is actually a consolidation, with
some minor modification, of the framework proposed by Zhang (2007, 2010).
78 Zhang / The Evolution of Management Information Systems: A Literature Review

6.4. The limitations of the framework

In Section 5.2.3, a five-layer framework of integration was introduced. Different types of integration of
EDPs, MIS, DSS, ERP and BI systems at the five levels were also discussed by Zhang (2007, 2008, 2010).
In addition, Liu et al (2010) detailed the idea of Integrated DSS with an attempt to address the integration
issue for decision support systems from multiple perspectives including data and information integration,
model integration, process integration, service integration and presentation integration. However details of
these types of integration can’t be shown in the current framework.

Fig. 11. The evolution of MISs in the intelligence-integration framework.

7. The Future of MISs

In the 21st century, the Internet, the Web, and telecommunication technology can be expected to result
in organizational environments that will be increasingly more global, and connected, which will be setting
tremendous impact on every aspect of IT sector and making MISs becoming more and more Internet
enabled and inter-organizational. Major business applications are now delivered online as Internet service
rather than just boxed software systems (Laudon & Laudon, 2012), to make them more flexible, and capable
of integration with other systems. Meanwhile, the emerging IT approaches and solutions, such as SOA and
cloud computing, have been further facilitating the enterprise systems’ implementation.
The SOA’s “loose-coupling principle” for enterprise-wide and cross-enterprise applications (Arsanjani,
2002), combined with the web services’ powerful implementation technology for realizing the SOA
promise of maximum service sharing, reuse, and interoperability (Kreger, et al, 2003), makes it an emerging
approach that addresses the requirements of loosely coupled, standards-based, and protocol independent
distributed computing (Papazoglou, et al, 2007). Cloud Computing has been envisioned as the next-
generation architecture of enterprise. Staying with Software as a Service (SaaS) , which has also been long
referred in such architecture as SOA, it moves the application software and databases to the centralized
large data centers(Wang, et al, 2009), thus give more application providers the choice of deploying their
product as SaaS without provisioning a datacenter (Armbrust, et al, 2009). As a result, consumers will be
easier to access applications and data from a “cloud” anywhere in the world “on demand” (Buyya, et al,
2008; Buyya, et al, 2009). Moving beyond the just- “in-house implementations” (Russell, 2010),
 Zhang / The Evolution of Management Information Systems: A Literature Review 79

organizations are on their way to seek best practices as well as develop technology roadmaps for integrating
the cloud applications with their in-house applications, or dividing the applications between in-house and
on the cloud (Marston et al, 2011).

7.1. The future of ERP/extended ERP

o On the integration dimension:
The ERP/Extended ERP will function as both the systems-on -promise and the systems-on- demand,
which represents the two trends in ERP/Extended ERP’s evolution along the integration dimension. In
practice, enterprise application vendors are not only “delivering enterprise solutions, enterprise suites, or e-
business suites, be created to make the CRM, SCM and ERP systems to work together” but also “utilize
Web service and SOA to make enterprise applications easier to implement” (Laudon & Laudon, 2012).
Research by literature review in ERP areas has showed that, with a shift from theory to implementation
(Al-Mashari, 2002), the number of publications on the implementation of ERP was the greatest in the time
span of both 1997 to 2000 and 2000 to 2006 either as a phrase of ERP lifecycle (Esteves & Pastor, 2001)
or one of the major theme in the broad background of multi-disciplinary review of ERP research (Moon,
2007). In practice, many large corporations were in the process of undertaking the project on the
implementation of packaged enterprise systems, namely, the ERP systems, since mid 1990s (Davenport,
2004). However it was also revealed that the implementing ERP systems became a new myth, or actually
new challenge/crisis/conflict MISs faces at that time (Mabert et al, 2001; Helo et al, 2008), as it is such
“a complex, lengthy and expensive process” with multiple factors involved (Moon, 2007; Botta-Genoulaz,
et al, 2005).
To address the conflict, ERPs/Extended ERPs are also provided as “systems-on-demand” (Koslowski
& Str¨uker, 2011). Global leaders in business software solutions, such as Epicor Software Corporation ,
announced their cloud computing solutions (Epicor Software Cooperation, 2011), which displayed the
production features including end-to-end on-demand and the simplicity of SaaS ERP; while researchers
also discussed the potentials of integrating ERP systems into cloud computing (Elragala and Haddarab,
2012).
o On the intelligence dimension:
For a long time, ERPs/Extended ERPs have merely focused on and been succeeded in supporting the
key business processes and functions in a standardized way and through integration. However, they need
to pay great attention to support the decision making process as that has been actually also the expectation
for ERP systems soon after the systems came into being (Davenport, 1998; Li, 1999).
ERP gains intelligence through integration. There is an increased recognition that business intelligence,
which integrated many of the EIS, DSS, and expert systems concepts, is becoming a necessary component
in the second generation of enterprise systems, such as ERP, as well as in extremely integrated enterprise
systems that include CRM and e-commerce components (Turban, et al, 2002). The ERP/BI integration, or
combinations, has been applied not only to financial decisions, but also marketing, HR and various areas
of manufacturing (Turban, et al, 2011). In terms of the intelligence enhancement of ERP systems,
integrating the crowd of Decision 2.0 into ERPs to facilitate the decision making process is one of the future
targets (Elragala & Haddarab, 2012).

7.2. The future of BI

Serving as a data-driven decision support systems, BI are featured with tight integration for intelligence
in decision making. As a collectively term that combines architectures, tools, databases, analytical tools,
applications, and methodologies (Raisinghani, 2004), BI have been involving those information systems
including OLAP, data and mining, DSS/ESS, data warehouse, CRM marketing, GIS, knowledge and
management (Negash, 2004) , and capable of doing support decision making EIS/ESS, DSS, financial
reporting, digital cockpits and dashboards, workflow, alerts and notifications, predictive analytics, etc.
(Turban, et al, 2011). The most sophisticated BI products, which serve as on-promise systems, include most
80 Zhang / The Evolution of Management Information Systems: A Literature Review

of these capabilities; others specialize on only some them. There is a trend for using all-in-one-stop
comprehensive systems, such as Oracle BI Integrated System (Turban, et al., 2007; Oracle Corporation,
2010).
Similar to the situation of ERP, BIs, as systems-on-premise, have some limitations in terms of
implementation, such as high implementation fees, and long implementation periods. Companies are
turning to the on demand BI model based on cloud computing (Turban, et al, 2011). Solutions called Cloud
BI or Software as a Services BI or BI services on demand are increasingly popular (Mircea et al, 2011).
Integration of a Cloud BI solution has special interest for organizations that desire to improve agility while
at the same time reducing IT costs and exploiting the benefits of Cloud Computing (Bowen, 2009; Mircea
et al, 2011), or for the development of Next-era BI (Henschen, 2008; Mircea, 2008), which is expected to
be proactive, pervasive, and performance-oriented.

7.3. The future of DSSs

o On the intelligence dimension:
Trends in all the five categories of DSS are emerging, for example, data-driven DSS continuously use
faster, real-time access to larger, better integrated databases; knowledge-driven DSS are usually more
sophisticated and comprehensive (Helms, 2009), which represents the development directions of well-
established but standalone DSS systems.
o On the integration dimension:
With respect to the implementation, DSS is increasingly integrated with other organizational systems
such as ERP, CRM, or more specialized data warehouse.
From general integration viewpoint, the future trends of DSS includes: generality and extensibility of
the integration approaches and processes implemented in an Integrated DSS; flexibility versus reliability,
i.e. the tradeoffs between loose integration and tight integration of data and models; and from IDSS to a
generic integrated decision support environment (Liu, 2010).

8. Conclusion
To conclude this contribution, the author would highlight the evolutionary processes of MISs as the
following:
(1). The traditional MIS was fragmented but these “fragmented” are not disjointed.
With the attempt to meet the expectation/requirement of “a total integrated management information
system”, traditional MIS has broken down into various specialized IS systems. They have distinguished
advantages to meet different business management requirements, and strong capacity to perform the same
functions as MIS with greater specialty, and integration. In addition, they have been advancing
independently while still being interconnected in their evolutionary process by adding intelligence to their
ancestor systems or by integrating with other systems or system components.
(2). The core parts of MIS or MISs, which are depicted by the MIS Pyramid, remain stable while
the whole systems dramatically expanding.
The MIS Pyramid remains unchanged in the evolutionary processes of MISs regardless of the great
diversity and complexity MISs has displayed in the past decades. The introduction of the two dimensions,
intelligence and integration, has transformed the Pyramid, and led to a framework to accommodate the
dynamic evolutionary development of MISs.
(3). Systems-on- promise can also been implemented as systems- on-demand in the digital
environment.
Co-existing with the boxed “on-promise” systems, such as ERPs/Extended ERPs, DSSs, or BI, there are
also some unboxed, “on-demand” systems which are “loosely integrated”, or “loosely coupled” from
different systems or system components. The integration and coupling increases the flexibility and
functionality and also facilitates intelligence adding to these “on promise” systems. While conceptual
modeled and graphically presented in the framework, they will come out as dynamically grayed-in and
 Zhang / The Evolution of Management Information Systems: A Literature Review 81

grayed-out “small packages” which are positioned in the framework according to the intelligence and
integration levels they are able to achieve.

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Author Biography
Xiaojuan (Julia) Zhang is currently a Professor at the School of Information Management, Wuhan
University, China. She has earned a doctorate in Management Science, and master’s degrees in both
Computer Science, and Library and Information Science. Her research interest includes information
systems, information management and knowledge management. Professor Zhang has, serving as PI or Co-
PI, conducted five research projects at international, state and provincial levels, and published over 50
academic papers and two books. She has been a Fulbright program scholar in the States.
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