During the last two decades, there have been many reports about the success and failure of investments in ICT and information systems. Failures in particular have drawn a lot of attention. The outcome of the implementation of information and communication systems has often been disastrous. Recent research does not show that results have improved. This raises the question why so many ICT projects perform so badly. Information, Organization and Information Systems Design: An Integrated Approach to Information Problems aims at discussing measures to improve the results of information systems. Bart Prakken identifies various factors that explain the shortfall of information systems. Subsequently, he provides a profound discussion of the measures that can be taken to remove the causes of failure.
When organizations are confronted with information problems, they will almost automatically look for ICT solutions. However, Prakken argues that more fundamental and often cheaper solutions are in many cases available. When looking for solutions to information problems, the inter-relationship between organization, information and the people within the organization should explicitly be taken into account. The measures that the author proposes are based on organizational redesign, particularly using the sociotechnical approach. In cases where ICT solutions do have to be introduced, Prakken discusses a number of precautionary measures that will help their implementation.
The book aims to contribute to the scientific debate on how to solve information problems, and can be used in graduate and postgraduate courses. It is also helpful to managers.

Table of Contents:
I Why do information systems fail.- 1. Introduction.- 2. Failure factors of information projects.- 3. Possible solutions to neutralize failure factors.- 4. Plan of the book.- II Concepts.- 1. Introduction.- 2. Systems.- 3. Control, policy and decision making.- 4. Some more concepts.- III The identity of management information systems.- 1. Introduction.- 2. The identity of management information systems as a scientific discipline.- 3. A (more) fundamental approach to information problems.- 4. Measures to reduce internal flows of information.- 5. Measures to reduce external flows of information.- IV The sociotechnical approach of organizations.- 1. Introduction.- 2. The sociotechnical structure of organizations: design principles.- 3. Paving the way to the sociotechnical organization: the implementation.- 4. The sociotechnical organization; its exploitation.- 5. The sociotechnical structure; a universal principle?.- 6. The principle of dialogical control.- V Information policy.- 1. Introduction.- 2. The levels of information policy.- 3. Nolan’s stage model.- 4. Task and position of the information centre.- 5. Outsourcing of ICT.- VI Project management.- 1. Introduction.- 2. Organizing information projects.- 3. The organization structure of information projects.- 4. Systems Development Methodology.- VII Design and management methods.- 1. Introduction.- 2. Information projects and project risks.- 3. General design methods.- 4. Information management and flexibility.- 5. Specific design methods.- VIII Power and the control of conflicts due to information systems and ICT.- 1. Introduction.- 2. Changes in the power structure of organizations due to new information systems based on ICT.- 3. The control of conflicts.- IX Information systems for the control of organizations;categorization and application.- 1. Introduction.- 2. Executive information systems and strategic information systems.- 3. Data base systems and document information systems.- 4. Idea processing systems.- 5. Group information systems.- 6. Decision support systems.- 7. Knowledge-based systems and artificial intelligence.- 8. Structured decision systems and electronic data interchange.- 9. Transaction processing systems.- 10. Business process redesign.- 11. Telework.- 12. The relationship between information systems and the decision making process.- X The (economic) evaluation of investments in information systems and in ICT.- 1. Introduction.- 2. Traditional capital budgeting techniques.- 3. Quantitative and qualitative factors and the evaluation of information projects.- 4. A procedure to handle the risks of information projects.- 5. The evaluation of information projects.- 6. A decision procedure for ICT projects.- 7. The mutual comparison between projects and the final decision once again.- References.