Computers In Business

COMPUTERS IN BUSINESS Also in the Macmillan Business Management and Administration series, edited by Alan Haie PUBLISHED David Brown and Michael]. Harrison: A Sociology o/Industrialisation - an introduction Terry Green andJohn Webster: Managing Mathematically Peter Haine and Ernest Haidon: Computers in Business Arthur Hindmarch, Miles Atchison and Richard Marke: Accounting - an introduction Peter Ribeaux and Stephen Poppleton : Psychologyand Work - an introduction Computers in BusinE~ss PeterHAINE Ernest HAI DON M © Peter Haine and Ernest Haidon 1978 All rights reserved. No part ofthis publication may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without permission First published 1978 by THE MACMILLAN PRESS L TD London and Basingstoke Associated companies in Delhi Dublin Hong Kong Johannesburg Lagos M elbourne New rork Singapore and Tokyo British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Haine, Pet er Computers in business. - (Macmillan business management and administration series). 1. Business - Data processing I. Title 11. Haidon, Ernest 651.8'4 HF5548.2 ISBN 978-0-333-19164-4 ISBN 978-1-349-15975-8 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-15975-8 This book is sold subject to the standard conditions of the Net Book Agreement. The paperback edition of this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by wayoftrade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher 's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. Editor's Introduction This series is a direct outcome of the opportunities and challenges created by the rapid expansion ofhigher and further education in the past decade. The expansion involved chang,es in the structure of advanced education, through the CNAA, the Polytechnics, the Regional Management Centres and the professional bodies which encouraged staff to develop new and experimental teaching. Substantial changes have taken place in the definition, scope and methodologies of the sodal, administrative and management sciences leading to modifications in the presentation of these subjects. Many new fulltime students and staff have questioned traditional approaches and methods and have established more open e:iscussion and debate on their courses. Demands for qualified manpower led to an expansion in part-time education and increased questioning by studentsin full-time jobs of the relevance of their studies. Each of these developments has had a profound impact on the structure and content of courses and given fresh impetus to the discussion and modification of curricula and teaching methods in polytechnics, universities and colleges of further education. The editor and Ciuthors of the books in this series have made a deli berate attempt to respond to these changes. The books set out to provide a comprehensive and up-to-date introduction to the ideas and methods of their subjects for special ist and non-special ist students in fields such as business and management studies, social science and administration. Their aim is to hdp students who have little or no previous knowledge of them to achieve a mastery of the scope and basic techniques of their subjects and to use them critically and with imagination for further study or for practical professional applications. They also seek to make some contribution to discussions ofteaching and learning problems in their field. Many introductory books present their subjects as a coherent body of knowledge of which the logic is self-evident and the concepts and methods clear to the careful reader. Students do not always find this so. Confronted as they are by a well-established discipline which has de