The term organisational informatics was first proposed by Rob Kling ^[1]

Organisational or organizational informatics is fundamentally interested in the application of information, information systems and ICT within organisations of various forms including private sector, public sector and voluntary sector organisations. When we focus solely upon the private sector organisation we are engaging with business informatics.^[2] Organisational informatics could also be seen as a sub-discipline of social informatics.

Organisational informatics is interested not in ICT, information systems, information and organisations in isolation but in their interaction and in the effects that emerge from such interaction. As such, the area draws much of its analytic focus from the concept of system and the application of systemics. Three types of organisational system and their interaction are considered: activity systems, information systems and ICT systems.

Organisational informatics also builds its conception of the relationship between three types of organisational system around a detailed consideration of the concept of information. Hence the concept of information system is central to the area.

Business organisations are considered as systems of activity which rely on systems of information. Within the modern business, information systems, in turn rely on systems of technology, particularly systems of information and communication technology (ICT). The distinctions between these three types of business system are as follows:

An activity system is a logical collection of activities performed by some group of people in pursuit of some goal. The key output of an organisational activity system is therefore activity or action. Another term now used as a synonym for an activity system is organisational or business process.

An information system is a system of communication between people. Information systems are systems involved in the gathering, processing, distribution and use of information. The key output of an information system is clearly information which is used to support activity systems in organisations.

An ICT system is an organised collection of hardware, software, data and communication technology designed to support aspects of some information system. An ICT system outputs data for interpretation as information within some activity system.

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