ANALYZING THE INFLUENCE OF OFFICE AUTOMATION IN IMPROVING MANAGERS DECISION MAKING IN MAZANDARAN MEDICAL SCIENCE UNIVERSITY, IRAN

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1 ANALYZING THE INFLUENCE OF OFFICE AUTOMATION IN IMPROVING MANAGERS DECISION MAKING IN MAZANDARAN MEDICAL SCIENCE UNIVERSITY, IRAN GHASEM ABEDI *, AZIZOLLAH KENARINEJAD**, ASGHAR NADI GHARA*** * Health sciences research center, Mazandaran University of medical Sciences, Sari, Iran. **Employee of Mazandaran University of medical Sciences, Sari, Iran. (Corresponding Author) *** Health sciences research center, Mazandaran University of medical Sciences, Sari,Iran. ABSTRACT Pinnacle Research Journals 1 We live in the fascinating age of knowledge and information, the unbelievable acceleration era of technology & creativity.thanks to accessing the computers and technologies and advanced media getting universal, there is no country to be able to run the 21st century economy without the 21st electronic infrastructure. Aligned with this, one of the important factors in managers' decision making is information.having accurate, right and up-to-date information results in accelerating decision making and prevents making many incorrect decisions. The present study aims mainly to analyze the effects of the office automation on improving the managers' decision making in Mazandran Medical Science University.The subgoals of the research are to identify an appropriate comprehensive automation system in order to inform managers,to analyze the effects and the achieved results of automation system on the management decision making,to investigate & identify the effective factors in the office automation system getting successful in terms of providing the pertinent information like accuracy, being timely and economical,studying the office automation effects on the managers' decision making process enhancement and proposing some strategies to uplift the automation system performance for exploitation. In this study, the office automation system(oas) is set forth as having specifications such as the number of letters issued, the number of letters imported, perception, and use time as independent variable and the managers' decision making enhancement with characteristics such as accuracy, precision, being timely and economical as the dependent variable. The study method is descriptive & causalcomparative and the results indicate that the automation system has positive effect on the managers' decision making accuracy increase.the automation system has positive impact on the precision rise of the managers' decision making. The automation system has positive effect on the managers' decision making being timely.the automation system has positive impact on the managers' decision making being economical. KEYWORDS: Process, Office Automation, Effectiveness, Decision Making, Technology

2 INTRODUCTION With the growing development of communications and the emergence of variety of communication flows, the communication networks have covered all people's lives affairs and business also is seen in diverse parts worldwide in different styles (goods production or services) is not excluded in this respect. Via business communications getting more sophisticated and developed, in order not to lose their input resources (information), the organizations have inevitably created systems inside themselves to use the information available surrounding them optimally and through suitable processing, they offer these information pieces to their customers in order to satisfy them. In fact, the highly competitive business environment and this setting transformation in the 1990s doubled the necessity of focusing on information systems. For this reason, the discussion over office automation as a kind of information systems gets more important increasingly, so that today the organizations are maximally prepared most of the time to cope with the internal & environmental changes that have benefitted from a high degree of automation. Pinnacle Research Journals 2 Population growth & social life appearing are such factors that create organizations; earlier, the organizations were so primary and all their affairs were done in person but little by little, through the urban growth and the rural immigration to cities and also the social life getting more expanded, the organizations got completed and this issue has got more in the 21st century so that they are not comparable with the primary ones.with rapid growth of accessing computers and novel technologies, no country can operate the 21st century without electronic structure (Rezaeeian,2002). The operation stages in the organizations is the way that the tasks used to be done within some days are carried out in minutes or even in seconds today along with the best quality and this denotes the effectiveness of information technology in the organizations,this way,operating affairs with the minimum time & costs and maximum speed & precision along with secure technology has attracted the organizations attention by which the integrity & order of the organizations and the feasibility of exchanging information are provided. Of the other factors enabling an organization against the other organizations is performing the affairs with high precision and speed where the office automation systems (OAS) can realize this goal well (Sarrafizade, 2004). Office automation consists of formal & informal electronic systems related to generating information communication between the individuals inside & outside the organization and vice versa (Raymond, 1998). By utilizing office automation, it means creating electronic communications through transmitting data, text or letter, sound or picture inside the organization and with the coorganizations,this is done by office automation tools or programs including word processors, ,electronic bulletin boards, voice mail, image processing system,group writing system or video conferencing.among the mechanized systems,the office automation systems are the significant part of the existing systems in the market operating in private or state organizations comprehensively or are under establishment. Every day the users of this system are added and the organizations are rapidly substituting their traditional & manual systems with the modern & mechanized ones.the appropriate software & hardware conditions have created the expectation for paper-free correspondence to facilitate the users' tasks and also accelerate doing the interorganizational office affairs (Shahidi, 2005). The evolution that office communications & correspondence have undergone in the economic organizations and institutes is so much fast that the slow and time consuming processes aren t

3 any loner accepted as before. Accordingly, it is imperative to provide some tool in order to be used for doing the office processes fast & accurately. For this purpose, using OAS as a novel method accelerates the task flow, in the one hand and by collecting the data set of the organization activities & classifying them, it paves the suitable ground for accelerating daily affairs, on the other hand. Automation software as a part of management information integrated system set has been designed and produced through analyzing the activities of public sector's organizations, industrial and commercial institutions and it can properly meet the mentioned requirements. In the multi-boxed puzzle of power, what matters is that it is no longer focused on the power in the institutions (like authority), organizations or the symbols controllers. Power spreads and degenerates in the global networks of wealth, information and images as a system with different geometry and non-material geography but it never get destroyed (Mallekian, 2006). The increasing expansion & development of computer science and global approach to it in all fields and bewildering achievements of the forerunners of this industry in acquiring what previously was like dream have all significant role in the increasing development of the industry of our country. And by timely recognizing the conditions for being equipped with this technology and its requirements in the organization like office & financial automation, the harbinger organizations connect themselves with the direction and path linked with the world civilization highway since they will get away from the path towards development & progress in the future if they ignore this great transformation (Green, 2002). This research & its results can be effective to shed light on the strong & weak points of the OAS and to remove the OAS probable contradictions in the followed organization. Main Body This study is applied in terms of goal and regarding the data collection, it is considered as descriptive-analytical and post-event causal method and it has been the first quarter of This research has been done in three subsets of Mazandran Medical Science University: Pinnacle Research Journals 3 -The educational department of Mazandran Medical Science University. -The health department of Mazandran Medical Science University. -The research & technology department of Mazandran Medical Science University. In this study primary Goal is analyzing the effect of office automation system on boosting the managers' decision making in Mazandran Medical Science University and Secondary Goals are identifying an appropriate office automation system to inform university managers; analyzing the effects & results gained from the office automation system in Mazandran Medical Science University; studying & identifying the factors influencing the office automation system success in terms of providing the suitable information like accuracy, precision, being timely & economical and presenting a strategy for office automation performance promotion for exploitation.

4 In this study, the independent variable refers to: the OAS making the essential information & reports available for the organization managers to make decisions, and Mazandran Medical Science University managers' decision making improvement assessed with accuracy, precision, being timely and economical is the dependent variable. The present research sample is of improbable & selective type. The main objective of the study is to assess the effects of establishing automation system on a class of other variables.yet it is critical to accept only the organization's managers as the sample members who own such a system. Based on the sample size estimation rules, statistical analysis in sampling will be judgmental (intentional) and improbable for all of the description and sample size equals the researcher's defined size. (Muller et al.2008).statistical community in this study is 120 individuals out of the various-level managers of the health department and research & technology department of Mazandran Medical Science University. To collect data necessary for this research, two methods have been employed as the following: Library Method & Field Method. Data collection tools in the current research are interview and questionnaire. Interviewing some managers and master level experts of Mazandran Medical Science University about the questionnaire's composition and general schema and the procedure behind its designing resulted in designing the study questionnaire. The present study questionnaire is the result of interviewing managers and master level experts regarding the questionnaire's composition and general schema and its designing procedure and in the general format of the study hypotheses & questions and it has been provided by applying Likert spectrum. In designing the questions, it has been tried to make the questionnaire's questions very lucid. The general format and Likert spectrum scoring for the questions are as it follows: general format: very low, low, average, high, very high. Scoring: Pinnacle Research Journals 4 The questionnaire's content validity means that the questions assess the same concept as they study aims to assess and finally, by their information, it is possible to accept or reject the hypotheses. The current study-based hypotheses are assessed by the questionnaire's information and its validity has been verified by a body of experts in this field and then distributed. The questions' reliability means that if the questionnaire is distributed several times, its output data should be the same.the questionnaire's reliability has also been estimated via alpha- Cronbach.By taking pre-test, the alpha-cronbach is estimated and if it is within the desired range, the questionnaire's reliability is confirmed. Alpha-Cronbach close to 1 leads to the questionnaire's reliability verification. The questionnaire's reliability analysis is given in table 1:

5 Table 1- The questionnaire's reliability assessment. Study variables Alpha-Cronbach 0.85 accuracy 0.78 precision 0.77 being timely 0.81 being economical 0.79 improvement To carry out the obtained data test, 30 completed questionnaires have been analyzed by SPSS software and the results indicate that SPSS software output alpha-cronbach has been 0.78 for decision making accuracy, 0.77 for its being timely, 0.81 for its being economical and 0.79 for its improvement. Pinnacle Research Journals 5 After the questionnaire derived data has been analyzed by Kolmorogove-smirnov test and its normality has been confirmed, the study hypotheses have been analyzed through single sample t- test and have been compared with fixed value 3(considering 5-point Likert spectrum and 3 denotes the average value of each item) and then Friedman test has been applied to rank the effective dimensions. The following table depicts single sample t-test results:

6 Table2- the study hypotheses analysis based on single sample t-test. Fixed value 3 of testing Variables Mean S.D T-Statistics Freedom Degree Probability Test result Condition Effective accuracy H 0 Rejection precision H 0 Rejection Effective being timely H 0 Rejection Effective being economical H 0 Rejection Effective improvement H 0 Rejection Effective Pinnacle Research Journals 6 As seen in the above table, the main hypothesis result is that the office automation system has effect on increasing the managers' decision making improvement with mean 3.58 and standard deviation 0.47 since the estimated t is and the probability level is lower than 0.05,as a result the hypothesis has been verified.the secondary hypotheses are this way,respectively, the first secondary hypothesis stating that the OAS has effect on the managers' decision making accuracy with mean 3.14 and standard deviation 0.50,the estimated t 3.18 and the probability level lower than 0.05 has been verified. The second secondary hypothesis suggesting that OAS influences the managers' decision making precision with mean 3.74,standard deviation 0.05,the estimated t and the probability level lower than 0.05 has been supported.the third secondary hypothesis proposing that the OAS has impact on the managers' decision making being timely increase with mean 3.73,standard deviation 0.59,the the estimated t and the probability level lower than 0.05 has been verified and the fourth secondary hypothesis implying that the OAS has effect on the managers' decision making economical potential rise with mean 3.58,standard deviation 0.47,the the estimated t and the probability level lower than 0.05 has been supported. Now after analyzing the study hypotheses, we deal with ranking the variables using Friedman test.

7 Table 3- ranking the dimensions using Friedman test Variable accuracy Mean Rank 1.65 Priority 4th precision nd being timely st being economical rd That in the above table, it is observed that from the present managers' point of view in this study, the most important & the maximum priority has been related to decision making being timely,and the least important & minimum priority has been associated with decision making accuracy. The shortage of similar studies about the research topic due to being a novel one, the shortage of data & the organization not making the information available and the respondents being careless when answering the questionnaire's questions are study limitations. Pinnacle Research Journals 7 Discussion Ranji Jifroudi Nima & Malekian Mohammad in a research titled "analyzing the office automation effect on promoting the decision making of the directors' of the governor general office & staff domain" in 2010 performed in Gilan governor general office concluded that the automation system has positive effect on the directors' decision masking accuracy increase.the automation system has positive impact on directors' decision masking being timely.the automation system has positive effect on the directors' decision masking being economical. Malekian (2006) conducted a study as "investigating the office automation use effect on the country banking system competitive potential" on Saman bank and drew this conclusion that using office automation system brings about extraordinary transformation in the country banking system.

8 Madani & Norozi (2008) in the research called "office automation systems influencing corporate communications" reached this conclusion that the office automation systems have positive role in preventing some negative and unnecessary conflicts and communications in the organization, it has also facilitated formal communications & office politics. -Yazdani et al. (2010) in the study termed "analyzing the office automation system effect on reducing costs with break-even analysis method (case study: Mazandran Paper & Wood Industries) concluded that the OA S provides an appropriate strategy to increase speed and to decrease costs related to the organizations information exchange. Saadi nejad & Barzin (2007) carried out a research as "presenting a fuzzy model for correspondence flow-based OAS productivity assessment" & drew this conclusion that in the assessment of the correspondence flow-based office automation systems productivity, some indices are qualitative, thus using fuzzy models results in the results precision getting higher. Andrew& Andew (2008) in their paper titled "Information Studio: training, designing, enclosed presentation using house automation" discovered how to combine house automated software simple electronic devices with mobile common network with multimedia projects and also found out the ability of this combination to transfer information in real time via various human sensing. John Kent (2008) in his research called "Test Automation: from recording & replaying to framework" discussed about diverse automation code structures and the competency of each one ; in addition to describing test frameworks, this paper considers this field related advances satisfactory. Pinnacle Research Journals 8 Satu Marttila (2009) in his thesis titled "House Automation, a challenge for the electric designers, contractors and electricians "set his main goal as discussing about house automation challenges and studying on the causes of this phenomenon expansion in Finland and also studying on applying working process and trade models for electrical contractors and designers and described how to gather electric designers and contractors for designing, installing and supporting house automation systems and products and mentioned the reasons behind the described plan failure as the developers' lacking knowledge about automation. Analyzing the primary hypothesis stating the effect of the office automation on improving the managers' decision making in the present study regarding the topic closeness and time closeness, it is absolutely consistent with the results achieved by Ranji & Malekian (2010).On the one hand, the study secondary hypotheses analysis all indicates the effect of the office automation on decision making accuracy, precision, being timely and economical,the results are completely in line with those obtained by Ranji & Malekian (2010). On the one hand, the results of the 4 th secondary hypothesis showing the impact of the office automation system on decision making being economical are compatible with the study results gained by Yazdani et al. (2010) based on

9 the influence of the office automation system on reducing the costs.the results of the current research are in agreement with the ones obtained by Malekian (2006) titled "analyzing OAS use influencing country banking system competitive potential "conducted on Saman bank. It is worth to train (educate) the office automation conceptual basics to the staff in its most pervasive form in state offices and in a format based on the corporate culture development. Regarding the general policies of the government on establishing Electronic Government and the strategic approach of Mazandran Medical Science University, the office automation has been addressed & in order to conduct a widespread study at national level in this field, it is recommended that instead of armature researchers, hire the professional research team possessing broad research facilities and qualified university teachers or demand the office automation expert firms for cooperation. References Pinnacle Research Journals 9 1- Andrew& Andew (2008).Key Center of Design & Cognition, Univers. 2- Daft Richardal: Theory & Organization Designing. Translated by Ali Parsian & Seyyed Mohammad Aarabi, Tehran, cultural research print, Dolan sheymon al, Garvin David, Roberto Michael: Data Technology Principles & Concepts, Tehran, Higher education & planning management research institute, Green (2001) Org/ main /English / et/et76. Htm 5- Heresi Paul, Kent Blanchard: Corporate behavior management, human resources use,14 th edition,translated by Ali Alagheband,Tehran,Amir Kabir, john kent.(2008) uk.linkedin.com/in/johnpken 7- kumar (2002) www. Seas. Upenn. edu / meam100/sillies /IntAutoSlides 8- Madani Fairborz, Norouzi Maasoume: OAS influencing corporate communications, Tadbir journal, year 17 th, NO.174, Malekian Naser: Analyzing OAS use effect on the country banking system competitive potential, State Management Master Thesis, Shahid Beheshti University, Muller J.H & K.F, Shosler & H.L Kastner: Statistical reasoning in sociology, Translated by Hooshang Naeeibi, Tehran, NEI publication, Ranji Jifroudi Nima, Taleghani Mohammad: Analyzing the office automation effect on promoting the decision making of the directors' of Gilan governor general office & staff domain" in Raymond (1998) Information System Concepts,, Mc-lead Mac Million Publishing Co,1998: Rezaeeian Ali: Management Principles, Tehran, SAMT publication, spring Roboins Stephen p.:corporate behavior,concepts, theories,applications, translated by Ali Parsian & Seyyed Mohammad Aarabi,1 st vol., Tehran, cultural research print, 1998.

10 15- Saadi nejad Soheil, Barzin Amir-Hossein: Presenting a fuzzy model for correspondence OASs productivity assessment, fifth international conference of industries engineering, Science & Industry University, Sarafizade Asghar: IT in organization, IT concepts & applications, Tehran, Amir Publication, Satu Marttila (2009). Home automation- A challenge For Electrical Designers, contractors and Electricians Shahidi Sepide: Office Automation Protocol, TAKFA journal, NO.4& 5, Taleghani Mohammad: Information Engineering & Management, Rasht, Gale Inscription publication, yazdani Amir-Abbas et al.: Studying OAS establishment influencing costs reduction with break-even analysis (case study: Mazandran Wood & Paper Industries), development & transformation management journal, NO Pinnacle Research Journals 10