  The posting below was made by group member PK on August 1. Generally, it provides background information and arguments useful for both sides of the debate. Overall, however, the posting positions itself for a decentralization of organizational information systems. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * According to Wall (n.d.), Information systems are major part of today’s businesses. It is becoming a controversy that Information systems should be whether centralized or decentralized. Generally, Information systems can be centralized, decentralized, partly centralized, and partly decentralized.
As Carl assigned to me, I would like to explain why the management and control of IS should be decentralized. However, I still want to explain briefly information about centralized system. So, it could help our teammate to get some ideas about centralized system too. Wall stated that Decentralized systems provide flexibility, independence, empowerment, and service orientation to individual business units or departments. On the other hand, centralized systems allow an organization to allocate its all IT resources to one particular business department like IS department that provides IT services to the whole company. Its approach is including control, efficiency, and economy.
It also allows a company to save its cost when the company centralizes its system. There are many advantages of decentralized information systems. First of all, an autonomy system that brought by decentralizes information systems provide a company organizational flexibility and responsiveness. Second, the startup costs for decentralized information systems are relatively low. Third, an organization can tailor and scale the system to meet individual needs. Fourth, the most important advantage is decentralized IS providing organization flexibility.
Due to the fact that each individual unit control their own IS. As a result, multiple computer systems are involved. If one of its network systems fails, the other system will still be able to run. Lastly, decentralized information systems also provide company benefits of increased accountability, motivation, and management responsiveness. However, there also are disadvantages for decentralized information systems. First, decentralized system lack a centralized control.
This can lead to the second disadvantage which is duplication of resources. Because of multiple computer systems, the company has many duplicated resources. In addition, decentralized information systems cost the company more than centralized information systems. Even though decentralized systems have some disadvantages, they still provide more advantages to organizations. For efficiency, decentralized information systems allow users to directly control there IS budget and their demands. In addition, decentralized information systems also reduce costs and risks of a whole system breakdown.
In addition, decentralized systems reduce top-down communication, flatten organization hierarchies, and increase innovatively responsive. In order to achieve this goal, a organization has to break free of any bureaucratic constraints. ReferenceWall, P. (n.d.). Centralized versus Decentralized Information Systems in Organizations. Retrieved June 21, 2004, from urlLink http://emhain.wit.ie/~pwall/CvD.htm 
