Information Systems: A Manager’s Guide to Harnessing Technology—Version 1.1 by John Gallaugher

  • Description
  • Table of Contents
  • About the Author
  • Supplements
Publication Date: Apr 2010
License: Creative Commons
ISBN 10: TBD
ISBN 13: TBD

Guess what?, John Gallaugher's 1.0 version of Information Systems: A Manager’s Guide to Harnessing Technology is available for adoption now! Click here to learn more.

Listen to a podcast of John discussing his textbook.

Information Systems: A Manager’s Guide to Harnessing Technology is intended for use in undergraduate and/or graduate courses in Management Information Systems and Information Technology.

One of BusinessWeek’s "Professors of the Year", John Gallaugher of Boston College, brings you a brand new Management Information Systems textbook that teaches students how he or she will experience IS from a Managers perspective first hand through interesting coverage and bleeding-edge cases.

Get involved with John's community by visiting and subscribing to his blog, The Week In Geek, where courseware, technology and strategy intersect and joining his Ning IT Community site where you can get more resources to teach Information Systems.

Shockingly, at a time when technology regularly appears on the cover of every major business publication, students find IS among the least appealing of management disciplines.

The teaching approach in Information Systems: A Manager’s Guide to Harnessing Technology can change this. The text offers a proven approach that has garnered student praise, increased IS enrollment, and engaged students to think deeper and more practically about the space where business and technology meet. Every topic is related to specific business examples, so students gain an immediate appreciation of its importance. Rather than lead with technical topics, the book starts with strategic thinking, focusing on big-picture issues that have confounded experts but will engage students. And while chapters introduce concepts, cases on approachable, exciting firms across industries further challenge students to apply what they've learned, asking questions like:

Why was NetFlix able to repel Blockbuster and WalMart?
How did Harrah's Casino's become twice as profitable as comparably-sized Caesar's, enabling the former to acquire the latter?
How does Spain's fashion giant Zara, a firm that shuns the sort of offshore manufacturing used by every other popular clothing chain, offer cheap fashions that fly off the shelves, all while achieving growth rates and profit margins that put Gap to shame?
What's an IPO and can a technology alternative push out investment bankers and insiders to the benefit of entrepreneurs and small investors?
Why is Google more profitable than Disney?
Is Facebook really worth $15 billion?

The Information Systems course and discipline have never seemed more relevant, more interesting, and more exciting. Gallaugher's textbook can help teachers make students understand why.

  • About the Author
  • Acknowledgments
  • Dedication
  • Preface
  • Chapter 1: Setting the Stage: Technology and the Modern Enterprise
    • Section 1: Tech’s Tectonic Shift: Radically Changing Business Landscapes
    • Section 2: It’s Your Revolution
    • Section 3: Geek Up: Tech Is Everywhere And You’ll Need It to Thrive
    • Section 4: The Pages Ahead
  • Chapter 2: Strategy and Technology: Concepts and Frameworks That Separate Winners from Losers
    • Section 1: Introduction
    • Section 2: Powerful Resources
    • Section 3: Barriers to Entry, Technology, and Timing
    • Section 4: Key Framework: The Five Forces of Industry Competitive Advantage
    • Section 5: Key Framework: The Value Chain
  • Chapter 3: Zara: Fast Fashion from Savvy Systems
    • Section 1: Introduction
    • Section 2: Don’t Guess, Gather Data
    • Section 3: Moving Forward
  • Chapter 4: Netflix: The Making of an E-Commerce Giant and the Uncertain Future of Atoms to Bits
    • Section 1: Introduction
    • Section 2: Tech and Timing: Creating Killer Assets
    • Section 3: From Atoms to Bits: Opportunity or Threat?
  • Chapter 5: Moore’s Law and More: Fast, Cheap Computing and What It Means for the Manager
    • Section 1: Introduction
    • Section 2: The Death of Moore’s Law?
    • Section 3: Bringing Brains Together: Supercomputing and Grid Computing
    • Section 4: E-waste: The Dark Side of Moore’s Law
  • Chapter 6: Understanding Network Effects
    • Section 1: Introduction
    • Section 2: Where’s All That Value Come From?
    • Section 3: One-Sided or Two-Sided Markets?
    • Section 4: How Are These Markets Different?
    • Section 5: Competing When Network Effects Matter
  • Chapter 7: Peer Production, Social Media, and Web 2.0
    • Section 1: Introduction
    • Section 2: Blogs
    • Section 3: Wikis
    • Section 4: Electronic Social Networks
    • Section 5: Twitter and the Rise of Microblogging
    • Section 6: Other Key Web 2.0 Terms and Concepts
    • Section 7: Prediction Markets and the Wisdom of Crowds
    • Section 8: Crowdsourcing
  • Chapter 8: Facebook: Building a Business from the Social Graph
    • Section 1: Introduction
    • Section 2: What’s the Big Deal?
    • Section 3: The Social Graph
    • Section 4: Facebook Feeds—Ebola for Data Flows
    • Section 5: F8—Facebook as a Platform
    • Section 6: Advertising and Social Networks: A Work in Progress
    • Section 7: Beacon Busted
    • Section 8: Predators and Privacy
    • Section 9: Walled Garden or Open Field?
    • Section 10: Is Facebook Worth It?
  • Chapter 9: Understanding Software: A Primer for Managers
    • Section 1: Introduction
    • Section 2: Operating Systems
    • Section 3: Application Software
    • Section 4: Distributed Computing
    • Section 5: Writing Software
    • Section 6: Total Cost of Ownership (TCO): Tech Costs Go Way beyond the Price Tag
  • Chapter 10: Software in Flux: Partly Cloudy and Sometimes Free
    • Section 1: Introduction
    • Section 2: Open Source
    • Section 3: Why Open Source?
    • Section 4: Examples of Open Source Software
    • Section 5: Why Give It Away? The Business of Open Source
    • Section 6: Cloud Computing: Hype or Hope?
    • Section 7: The Software Cloud: Why Buy When You Can Rent?
    • Section 8: SaaS: Not without Risks
    • Section 9: The Hardware Cloud: Utility Computing and Its Cousins
    • Section 10: Clouds and Tech Industry Impact
    • Section 11: Virtualization: Software That Makes One Computer Act Like Many
    • Section 12: Make, Buy, or Rent
  • Chapter 11: The Data Asset: Databases, Business Intelligence, and Competitive Advantage
    • Section 1: Introduction
    • Section 2: Data, Information, and Knowledge
    • Section 3: Where Does Data Come From?
    • Section 4: Data Rich, Information Poor
    • Section 5: Data Warehouses and Data Marts
    • Section 6: The Business Intelligence Toolkit
    • Section 7: Data Asset in Action: Technology and the Rise of Wal-Mart
    • Section 8: Data Asset in Action: Harrah’s Solid Gold CRM for the Service Sector
  • Chapter 12: A Manager’s Guide to Networking and Telecommunications (Coming Spring 2010)
  • Chapter 13: Information Security: Barbarians at the Gateway (and Just About Everywhere Else)
    • Section 1: Introduction
    • Section 2: Why Is This Happening? Who Is Doing It? And What’s Their Motivation?
    • Section 3: Where Are Vulnerabilities? Understanding the Weaknesses
    • Section 4: Taking Action
  • Chapter 14: Google: Search, Online Advertising, and Beyond…
    • Section 1: Introduction
    • Section 2: Understanding Search
    • Section 3: Understanding the Increase in Online Ad Spending
    • Section 4: Search Advertising
    • Section 5: Ad Networks—Distribution beyond Search
    • Section 6: More Ad Formats and Payment Schemes
    • Section 7: Customer Profiling and Behavioral Targeting
    • Section 8: Profiling and Privacy
    • Section 9: Search Engines, Ad Networks, and Fraud
    • Section 10: The Battle Unfolds
John Gallaugher
John Gallaugher

John Gallaugher is an Associate Professor of Information Systems at Boston College's Carroll School of Management. His excellence in the classroom was recently recognized by BusinessWeek, who ranked him as one of the top undergraduate business professors in the country. Prof. Gallaugher's research focuses on technology for competitive advantage, electronic commerce, network effects, and global information systems. His work has appeared in the MIS Quarterly, Communications of the ACM, Electronic Markets, the International Journal of Electronic Commerce, Information & Management, Information Society, and the Journal of Business Venturing, among others.

Prof. Gallaugher serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Electronic Commerce in Organizations and has served as a reviewer for MISQ, CACM, Management Science, and ISR. He publishes the Week in Geek - a digest of technology news.

Prof. Gallaugher is a recipient of the Boston College Distinguished Teaching Award and has been recognized for his excellence in teaching by the Syracuse University Graduate School, Beta Gamma Sigma – the management honor society, and BusinessWeek. Podcasts of many of his lectures are available for free over iTunes. He also serves as the faculty advisor for the Graduate TechClub, has co-led the MBA International Management Experience (IME) to Europe, co-leads the IME Asia Experience, and he is the founding faculty member for both the graduate & undergraduate TechTrek West programs.

Prof. Gallaugher has consulted to several organizations including Accenture, Alcoa, Brattle Group, ING Group, Staples, State Street, the U.S. Information Agency, and he has partnered with Duke Executive Education. His comments on business and technology have appeared in The New York Times, National Public Radio, The Seattle Times, the Associated Press, eWeek, The Daily Yomiuri (Japan) and The Nation (Thailand), among others. He has also worked and studied in the former Soviet Union and has conducted information systems research in Shanghai, China. He was born and raised in northern New Jersey, earned his undergraduate degree and MBA at Boston College, and earned his Ph.D. in Management Information Systems from the Syracuse University School of Management. His wife Kim is also a graduate of Boston College and Syracuse University and is currently a speech pathologist in the greater Boston area. The Gallaughers have two children, Ian and Maya.

  • Instructor Manual

    The Instructor Manual will help guide you through the main concepts of each chapter such as learning objectives, key terms and takeaways. Many also include explanations and answers to chapter exercises.

  • Solutions Manual

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  • PowerPoint Lecture Notes

    A PowerPoint presentation highlighting key learning objectives and the main concepts for each chapter are available for you to use in your classroom. You can either cut and paste sections or use the presentation as a whole.

  • Test Item File

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