1. IST 301: Information and Organizations
Wei-Fan Chen, Ph.D.
The Penn State University
Wilkes-Barre Campus

2. Week 4: Processes in Organizations
Review: the who’s the boss problem
The roles of organizational processes
Definitions of organizational processes
Conceptualizations of processes
Case study: Restaurant service
Based on the reading: Crowston and Short: Understanding Processes in Organizations. Unpublished manuscript: Syracuse University. 18 pages.

3. Answer to the “who’s the boss” problem
Dr. Chen’s boss is NOT ___________
Dr. Chen’s bosses are
_____________

4. The roles of organizational processes
Organization Science
Organization design IT
Structures
Processes (modeling, supply chain management)

5. Definitions of organizational processes
Premises:
Thinking about processes is a good way to understand organizations
Thinking about processes helps to define organizational activities more accurately.
Goal:
Improve E+E of an organization
What is the main purpose of this article?

6. Definitions of organizational processes
What people actually do in organizations
Any activity (or group of activities) that takes an input, adds value to it, and provides outputs to customers

7. Conceptualizations of processes
Processes as ways to accomplish goals
Processes as transformations of inputs to outputs
Processes as sequences of activities
Identifying activities
Relevance
Top-down
Bottom-up

8. Case study: Restaurant service
Seinfeld- The Soup Nazi
What is the most important factor resulting in a successful restaurant?
What types of restaurants? (pp.2-3 on Reading#3)
How different? Pros and cons?
How to collect data?
Observation
Interview
Document analysis
Five processes identified: order-cook-serve-eat-pay
Interdependencies among processes

9. Review questions
What are the roles of organizational processes?
What are the definitions of organizational processes?
What are the conceptualizations of processes?
What do you learn from the restaurant service case study?

10. In-class activity
According to the activities in restaurant service identified on p.6 in the article, design (or plan) a restaurant information system for the Michigan chain store. Consider the following components:
System requirements (H/W and S/W)
Database systems, Web servers, etc.
Don’t consider budgets this at point.
Is any organizational change necessary to comply with to the new IT implementation?

11. Homework (week 5- reading#3)
Based on what you have learned from the reading#3, propose your own ideas to save this restaurant: Levanti's Italian Restaurant
Complete Horst Schulze’s talk and write-up a reflection report.