ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book illustrates how entrenched corporate cultures and expensive company systems are being challenged by social. It explains why hierarchy and status impede decisions, and why the new era of networked decisions will help organisations become and stay agile. James G. March, Professor Emeritus at Stanford University, highly respected for his research on organisational decision making, describes a series of problems specific to organisational decisions in his book A Primer on Decision Making. The systems used by businesses today for improving decision making are almost exclusively about delivering information. Analytic applications and business intelligence (BI) systems are evolutions of executive information systems (EIS) and decision support systems (DSS) before them. Social tools are eliminating cultural and organisational barriers so that more decisions can involve more people more of the time.
