These case studies are provided for students who are studying the MIS course at the University of York. You can gain access to the case studies from the links below. If you are not a student on the MIS course, you are welcome to use them for teaching and non-profit use. If you wish use these case studies, please contact me first - case.study@chris-kimble.com.
The interviews used in these case studies are edited and anonymous versions of the interviews used in C. KIMBLE and K. McLOUGHLIN. - Computer Based Information Systems and Managers Work. New Technology, Work and Employment, 10(1), March, 1995, pp 56 - 67. ISSN 0268-1072. Further details of this work can be found here.
If you wish to research the issues raised in these case studies further, you may find the links on the MIS links page or some text books from the MIS books section of some use to you.
All of the case studies have the same form. Each contains:
The case studies are intended to be group exercises. You should:
Case Study One is the smallest of the case studies (25 pages) and looks at the problems that a chemical company (Company Y) experienced when it attempted to implement a particular type of information system (MRP II) in its plants. The case study is based on five interviews with directors and senior managers in the company. You should note that each interview only contains part of the whole picture and are spread over a period of 18 months.
Case study two is larger (67 pages) and is split into two documents: the background (22 pages) and the interviews (45 pages). The case study is about (a) the effects that the introduction of the Customer Service System (CSS) had on the way that BT were able to manage their business and (b) the way in which CSS affected the way in which those managers worked. The background material consists of general background material on BT and some press cuttings on BT. The interviews are edited transcripts from interviews with six managers at BT. Again, each interview only contains part of the whole picture although in this case all of the interviews were conducted at the same time.
The final case study is larger again (72 pages) and is also split into two documents: the background (18 pages) and the interviews (53 pages). The case study is about the effects of the introduction of a network (LAN) and messaging system (e-mail) into the Central Post Office in Newcastle upon Tyne. The background material consists of general background material on Royal Mail and some press cuttings. There are eight interviews all of which were conducted at the same time. As before, each interview contains only part of the whole picture.