The Laws of Information Systems

Chandra S. Amaravadi
Abstract

Routine scientific activity consists of observing a phenomenon of interest, theorizing about it and carrying
out tests. Laws are definite and interesting relationships among variables that are by-products of this
activity. They are the basis for knowledge in a discipline and serve to give it its identity. Laws are
common in scientific disciplines such as Mathematics and Chemistry. Applied fields such as engineering
are characterized more by the application of knowledge while humanistic disciplines such as
management tend to be characterized by paradigms or complex relationships between amorphous
variables. Information systems is an amalgamated discipline that shares some characteristics with
sociology, engineering as well as with scientific disciplines. To the extent that it is a science, we have a
number of laws and theories; to the extent that it is engineering and sociology, we have a number of
paradigms and principles. In this paper, a number of laws, paradigms and principles concerning
information systems and its development are discussed. The subject of these range from transaction
volumes to the nature of good systems. They invite further elaboration, testing, analysis and refutation.

Keywords: Laws of Information Systems, Laws in Social Sciences, Technology Laws, Software Design
Principles, Software Development Principles, Information System Paradigms, Information Systems
Philosophy

Theories, Laws and Paradigms scientist to postulate the wave theory of light i.e.
different waves traveling at different velocities
Knowledge in a scientific discipline, is generated in
‘bend’ when passing through a denser substance.
a cyclical process. Scientists study a phenomenon
This could further lead to the hypothesis of
of interest according to the paradigm or worldview
‘interference’ of wave patterns. Testing this would
to which they have been exposed. They theorize
confirm the wave theory of light and would lead
about the phenomenon in order to explain
to laws concerning the velocity of light. However,
interactions among variables causing it. The theory
attempting to explain photo electricity2 from the
leads to a set of propositions or hypotheses, which
wave paradigm results in a major anomaly, that of
are then tested. Anomalies result when a theory
explaining the release of electrons. This could
fails to explain some of the phenomena. In this
result in a paradigm shift i.e. quantum physics
case, the theory is modified. Major changes to the
(Kuhn, ibid).
theory or new theories result in new paradigms,
which repeats the process (Kuhn 1963). Laws are Laws are found in abundance in the natural
definite and interesting relationships among sciences as well as in more abstract disciplines such
variables (Carnap 1966) are a by-product of the as mathematics. They are described in the
progress of normal science. They result from the textbooks of the discipline and have certain
verification of theories. Thus, explaining the characteristics. First, relationships are formal and
phenomenon of prismatic refraction1 could lead a are often described mathematically. The identity:

Chandra S. Amaravadi E = nhf

Department of Information Management and where
Decision Sciences E is the energy of the photon,
College of Business and Technology
n is an integer (1,2..)
Western Illinois University
h is Planck’s constant, and
Macomb, IL 61455
f is the frequency.
explains the energy radiation exhibited by a black engineering, we can expect that knowledge will be
body at different temperatures and wavelengths. based on application of theory. The idea of
This is the law of black body radiation (Alcyone “functional decomposition” (Yourdon and
2004). A second characteristic of laws is that no Constantine 1979) for example, can be traced to
one law is universal, each is valid only under application of systems theory. To the extent that
certain conditions (Carnap 1966). Newton’s laws the IS discipline resembles sociology, we can
of motion for instance, apply to most earthly expect paradigms and imprecise relationships. The
bodies, but do not apply to very large masses or to Technology Acceptance Model (Davis 1989) and
subatomic particles (Dirac 1982). Thirdly, laws the information system’s Implementation Success
serve to predict a phenomenon. Avogadro’s (IS) Model (Delone and McLean 1992) are
hypothesis for instance, predicts that equal volumes examples of these. The Implementation Success
of gases under identical pressure and temperature Model, for example predicts that implementation
conditions will contain equal number of molecules success is a function of six factors including
(Alcyone 2004). Theories on the other hand are system quality, information quality, usage and
explanative. The particle theory of light explains satisfaction, individual and organizational impacts.
the phenomenon of photo electricity. Light Described below are a set of laws, theories and
particles impacting on a photoelectric material principles in the information system’s discipline
displace electrons according to the energy of that are a result of observation and experience on
emission. One final characteristic of laws is that the part of the author. Many are commonly
they are not usually obvious. For example, the recognized phenomenon that have not been
statement that all doves are white, assuming it were formally codified as laws.
true, would not be designated as a law. On the
other hand it is not obvious that the number of I. The Law of Transaction Volumes
electrons in an atom of an element is equal to its
atomic number (ibid). The volume of transactions will increase with the
stage of development of a society.
Laws in a discipline fulfill a very important role.
They give a field its identity. In fact the majority This is a variation on Kardashev’s law. The
of knowledge in a field is derived from laws and Russian physicist Nikolai Kardeshev postulated
their applications. Applications of the laws will be that the stage of advancement of a civilization was
regarded as principles, although these can be characterized by its total energy consumption/
derived experientially as well. “Engineering energy output. A type I civilization produces 1016
mechanics” for instance, involves applying watts, a type II, 1026 and a type III, 1036 watts
Newton’s laws of motions to physical structures (Kardashev 1964). Thus the more advanced the
such as bridges and buildings (Timoshenko and civilization, the greater the energy consumption.
Young 1995). Laws and paradigms specify “rules The stage of development of society can similarly
of the game” to new entrants to the field and pose be characterized in terms of the volume of
challenges to innovative thinkers. transactions; the more developed the society, the
greater the number of goods and services
Information system is an amalgam of disciplines produced/consumed and therefore the greater the
and therefore has characteristics of sociology, number of exchanges occurring. We are witnessing
science and engineering combined (Dubin 1978, this in the case of credit cards, debit cards and on-
Habermas 1984, Hirscheim and Klein 1994, line transactions. Worldwide electronic and credit
Yourdon and Constantine 1979). To the extent transactions totaled $213 billion in 2000 and are
that it is a science, we have a number of laws and expected to be around $393 billion in the year 2010
theories. Moore’s law (Moore 1965) and the theory (EpayNews.com 2004) (Please refer to Figure
of transaction costs (Coase 1937) are prime 1).Visa alone processed 43 billion transactions
examples of these3. To the extent that it is world wide, last year (Visa International 2004).

130 Journal of Management Research

The growing use of the web compounds this or society, will always exceed its information
phenomenon (Holly 1996) because each web processing capabilities.
transaction generates 7-8 internal transactions in
the form of credit, inventory, accounting and Organizations will always have more information
shipping transactions (Stair and Reynolds 2003). than they can process, so the processing needs will
always exceed the processing capabilities. The
information processing needs of an organization
or a social system are almost infinite and demand
is elastic. This has been witnessed at a very basic
Transaction Volumes

250 ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○

level in the case of personal computers and

200 ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○

•Europe
○ ○ ○ ○ ○

hardware. No matter how fast the hardware,

(Billions)

150 ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○

software has traditionally expanded in

100 ○ ○ ○ ○ ○
• ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○
••America
○ ○ ○ ○ ○ functionality5 to exploit the hardware (Mardesich
Asia
• 1999). This phenomenon is also evidenced in the
50 ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○

• case of more mundane physical systems such as

0 freeways. The more the freeways, the greater the
2000 2010
traffic. When basic processing needs are met, one
Years
or all of these events occur to devour the excess
Figure 1: Global Transaction Volume capacity: the volume of information processed
increases, the nature of the application changes, the
usage of applications increases, or higher order
needs in the form of processing data relationships
II. The Law of Symbol Systems4 or simulations with the data arise. As an example,
The symbol systems by which messages are encoded in spite of technological improvements over the
grow more complex as a society evolves. last decade, Internet search engines have been
inundated both with more frequent requests as well
A corollary of the law of transaction volumes is as with the volume of information searched. The
that the symbol systems by which transactions are number of search requests for Google, the leading
encoded will grow more complex as a society search engine increased from 10 million to 200
advances. A developed society will have greater million per day over the last four years (Taylor
communication needs and will therefore require 2004). Another example is the emergence of data
more symbols to communicate. We have already mining amidst a hardware cornucopia and the need
witnessed this in the case of transition from ASCII of organizations to explore relationships among
to Unicode. ASCII was originally a seven-bit millions of records. Associative rule induction, a
character code enhanced to encode 256 characters. technique in data mining, involving only ten items
Since this did not cover characters in other (“milk,” “eggs,”.. ) and a hundred grocery records
languages and certain special symbols, Unicode will require 100*10* 210 operations (Amaravadi
was introduced. Unicode has three forms of and Daneshgar 2003). The number of operations
encoding: “byte,” “word” and “double word.” In increases exponentially with the number of items.
its fullest form, it is capable of encoding 1,065,000 Whether or not the law continues to hold in the
different characters (Unicode 2004). Though these long-term future remains a moot point, but our
seem sufficient for the present, as society develops need to process large volumes of information and
further, its technologies and commerce may test the analyze increasingly complex relationships will
million-character limit again (Amaravadi 2003). continue to drive the technology in the short term.

III. The Law of Infinite Processing Needs IV. The Law of Technological Evolution
The information processing needs of an organization Technology seeks the most efficient form, unless

Volume 4, Number 3 • December 2004 131

otherwise constrained. instance, have made it difficult for programmers to
write applications and have spelled the doom for
This means that if a particular technology has many a vendor. For a long time, programmers had
undesirable characteristics, the technology will to wrestle with the 64 K memory limit imposed by
continue to evolve until the problems are worked DOS until this problem was finally overcome with
out. The most efficient form is the one with the Windows (Fallows 1993).
fewest limitations. Classical examples of these are
in relational databases, RAM memories, storage
media and programming languages. Relational VI. The Law of “Right” Design
databases evolved from hierarchical databases Every software that involves users has a “right”
because of difficulties in organizing and accessing design.
information from the latter type systems. In the
case of storage media, the floppy disk has finally The observation that some software are very
given way to the zip disk due to constraints of size intuitive and some are exactly the opposite,
and access speed (Powell 2001). Exceptions to the suggests that every software has a “right” design
law occur if there are other constraints on the which is a combination of correct functional
technology such as inertia. The Dvorak keyboard, decomposition and correct interface design. This
MAC and Unix operating systems are well-known “right” design is evident in the case of physical
examples of technologies that were more efficient, systems such as automobile steering, brake and gas
but were constrained by inertial forces (Dvorak and pedal design. Initially these were copied from the
Merrick 1936; Fallows 1993). The extent of these horse carriage, bicycle and boating industries
inertial forces determines whether evolution will (DetNews.Com 2004), but it soon became apparent
take place or not. to designers that given the larger size and
functionality of the automobile, the pedals have to
be located on the floor and the “tiller” or “handle
V. The Law of Good Systems
bar” steering replaced with the now familiar
A good system produces benefits that are steering wheel (Two lane roads 2004). The fact
disproportionately high in comparison to the initial that it has been unchanged for decades is proof
investment. that it is the “right design” for the given
functionality. The law further suggests that poor
Another way of stating this is that a good solution designs have their roots in poor functional
produces many benefits. Information systems decomposition and the manner in which these
form the plumbing of the organization and functions are distributed into a command structure
frequently cross-functional boundaries. So a good (Sedgwick 1993).
system produces multiplicative benefits, which
often exceed the initial investment. Examples of
successful systems6 such as SABRE, McKesson VII. The Law of Efficient Information
and Walmart bear this out (Ciborra 1991). In the Organization
physical world, the interstate highway system The most efficient organization of information is
(Ourdocuments 2004) was originally designed to hierarchical.
move personnel and materials during World War II,
but has produced tremendous, indirect, non- If efficiency were defined in terms of access speed
military benefits during the post-war period. or search cost, the most efficient organization of
Among these is the growth of the automobile, steel information is hierarchical. Hierarchy is a
and motel industries (Cox and Love 1996). A recurrent theme in the information systems area. A
corollary to this is that a bad system causes hierarchical organization efficiently divides the
problems that are out of proportion to its area of search space and therefore reduces complexity.
operation. Poorly designed operating systems for Examples include hierarchy charts, menu designs,

132 Journal of Management Research

hierarchical planning, tree organization for data, execution. However, such control must reside with
hierarchical indexes and hierarchical web designs. the user, in the form of ability to set defaults,
The law suggests a hierarchical design where large rather than with the system.
number of functions or large number of
information items are involved. The organization IX. The Law of Complex Interfaces
of websites and display of search results from
search engines are applications that lend There cannot be a simple interface to a complex
themselves to this design. system.
Complex systems are those with numerous
VIII. The Law of Interconnected Systems components or functions. Examples of such
An interconnected system cannot be controlled. systems are CASE tools, ERP systems, and
Language Extraction Systems (Cunningham et al.
An interconnected system is one where data or 2001). The law states that complex systems cannot
processes are linked together with other data or have simple interfaces. This can be seen as a
processes and executed as a whole. A simple variation on the Law of requisite variety, which
example of this is where a spreadsheet file and a states that variety in a system must be at least as
word processing file are linked together. A system great as the diversity in the environment in which
that is interconnected is difficult to control unless it exists (Ashby 1956). This and the observation
each “interconnect” is individually controllable. of many complex systems such as controls for
Consider the following scenario in a system to commercial jets suggest that the law of requisite
process electronic transfer of funds. Assume that variety extends to interfaces to complex systems.
a large deposit in an account ‘A’ results in smaller Natural language interfaces will appear to challenge
transfers to accounts ‘B,’ ‘C’ and ‘D.’ If for some this law, but even here sophisticated symbol
reason a user does not want the transfer to be systems (such as math, latitude/longitude) would
carried out to ‘B’, but to ‘C’ and ‘D’, and control be needed to carry out complex tasks. The law of
has been provided only on the transfer from ‘A,’ technological evolution further suggests that this is
the operation will result in a transaction failure. the ultimate direction for all system interfaces.
Thus control needs to be provided at the points as
indicated in figure 2 below. The corollary to this X. The Principle of Information
is the control principle, every operation of the system Independence
must be controllable. The ability to control all
operations does not imply that all operations will Users should be able to access their information
be controlled, as this would greatly slow down regardless of where it is physically located.
This principle is based on the concept of “location
independence,” in databases which states that users
B
must not be concerned about where the data is
Deposit physically located as long as they can access it
○

A C
○

(McFadden, Hoffer and Prescott 2002). Similarly

○
○

○
○

the principle of information independence states

○

○
○

D
○

that in non-database settings, the user must not be

○
○

○
○

○
○

concerned about whether their information is

○
○

○
○

1 2 3 4
○

○
○

located at work or at home. Nowadays, many

○

○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○

Control Needs to be employees carry their work home and sometimes

Proveded at 1, 2, 3 and 4 carry out personal errands from the work place. To
Figure 2: The Control Principle Showing the
the extent that these errands are carried out
Points at which Control Needs to be Provided electronically, it would be advantageous for
companies to provide the physical interface

Volume 4, Number 3 • December 2004 133

between workplace systems and personal that the passenger will be connecting to another
computer systems. Thus an employee at work flight on a different airline, there is no hope at all
should be able to access a valuable phone# or an for the airline to resolve the problem or for the
email address in his/her personal computer system traveler to correctly reach his/her destination. The
at home and vice versa. accommodation of soft information provides for
irregular transactions.
XI. The Law of Irregular Transactions
XIII. The Law of Qualitative Decision
Information systems (which process transactions)
which cannot process irregular transactions are
Models
doomed to fail. It is impossible to calculate outcomes in a decision
situation that involves qualitative variables.
If IS success were narrowly defined in terms of
transaction success, the failure to process irregular This law has been derived from the theory of
transactions will amount to failure of the system. computability and is motivated by the author’s
An irregular transaction is a transaction whose experience with cause mapping (Axelrod 1976).
parameters and constraints vary from the normal According to computability theory, a problem is
type of transaction. Examples of these are the computable if it is possible to design an algorithm,
request for a child safety seat in a car rental if the algorithm is efficient/tractable and finally if
reservation or a request in a university the solution state is discernible (Linz 2001). The
environment, to register for two courses which are most obvious limit to computability in a decision
scheduled for the same time period. Such ‘soft’ situation is if the decision variables are qualitative;
failures may result in lost sales or will require extra in this case, an outcome cannot be accurately
processing on the part of the organization. The calculated, hence the law of qualitative decision
average firm spends $20-$40 to resolve each models. Even in the physical sciences, there are
problematic transaction (Scheier 2003). Thus limits to computability. For instance, Heisenberg’s
organizations will be motivated to have systems uncertainty principle predicts that it is impossible
which can handle irregular transactions. to determine simultaneously the mass and velocity
of a subatomic particle (Alcyone 2004).
XII. Soft Information Principle
Information systems must incorporate soft XIV. The Law of Mental Models
information. The system’s model must not exceed the user’s mental
model in complexity.
Most of the traditional transaction processing
systems handle only structured information. If Users will use a system if they feel comfortable
there are problems with the transaction, with it. The first stage of usage is formulating a
organizations invest considerable time to resolve mental model of the system, which is the user’s
them. Consider the case of an international conceptualization of the system’s functions. The
traveler whose ticket has been issued manually by system’s model is the actual organization of system
a travel agent. The onward journey was booked functions. If users are unable to form a mental
by the travel agent, but due to system constraints, model after a reasonable amount of interaction
the return journey was not booked directly, but with the system they will not feel comfortable with
sent to a consolidator. The return journey would it. Thus the system’s model cannot exceed the
require two flights, but due to errors on the user’s mental model or else other resources (such
consolidator’s side, only part of the return journey as training) may need to be expended on the user.
was booked on one airline. If there is no In the end such systems may be unsuccessful
indication on the reservation for the return journey (Sedgwick 1993).

134 Journal of Management Research

XV. Apportionment Principle systems field. IT personnel are bound to the
information sharing principle whenever they
Tasks which can be carried out by the system should
undertake systems development in an organization.
be carried out by it.
Cognitive apportionment is a universally XVIII. The Principle of Information
recognized principle in designing user interfaces. It Ownership
simply means that the system must carry out as
much of the processing burden as possible Owners of information must have access to it.
(Fjeldstad and Konsynski 1986). Simple examples This may be seen as a corollary to the Information
of apportionment are choice lists and option boxes Responsibility principle. Owners of information
in GUI interfaces while more sophisticated will ultimately need to use it, and therefore
applications could include product buying information access must be provided to them. In
suggestions on an e-commerce site or suggestions a bank situation, information about a customer’s
to improve queries in on-line databases. account must be made available to the customer.
Further, they ought to have the ability to change
XVI. The Principle of Sharing User this information.
Information
All desktop systems must share information about the Conclusion
user. As noted earlier, laws are a result of “observe,”
This may be seen as a corollary to the “theorize” and “test” cycles. Knowledge in a
apportionment principle. In order to minimize the discipline is frequently based on explication and
user’s effort in entering the information, all application of laws. To the extent that information
desktop systems must share common information systems is not a true science, we do not have a set
about the user. Many systems do offer the of laws from which the field is derived. In fact
capability to define a profile, but unless this were we have a reverse situation in our field, where it is
shared or organized more intelligently, users will the application area (“systems development”) that
have to continue typing their information is well defined. It is not surprising that many of
repeatedly. the laws described above revolve around the
development of systems as this is the primary
application area of the discipline (Chatterjee 2001).
XVII. Information Responsibility Principle Such laws include the “Law of good systems,”
Those who have information are obliged to share it “The law of right design,” “The law of complex
with those who need it. interfaces,” and “The Law of interconnected
systems.” These laws can have important
The concept of “information responsibility” is a implications. The “law of right design” for
key principle in the information-based firm. In his instance, suggests that every software has a correct
article, the “Coming of the New Organization,” design which designers must “find” through a trial
Drucker (1989:p89) explains the term information and error process, by manipulating different
responsibility, as follows: “Who in this designs. The “law of interconnected systems”
organization depends on me for what information? suggests that designers must provide more control
And on whom, in turn, do I depend? Each over the system’s operations to users. Obviously,
person’s list always includes superiors and the laws are far from being precise. There are no
subordinates.” Information responsibility requires magic formulae to determine the number of
people who have knowledge to share it with those objects required for an application or number of
who need it. It is obviously a very basic, but icons to place on a window. It is unlikely if this
implicitly understood principle in the information state of affairs will ever be achieved. The laws

Volume 4, Number 3 • December 2004 135

explicated here serve to embody the culture and inviting further analysis, refutation, elaboration and
philosophy of the information systems’ discipline, extension.

Notes
1. Light refracts when passing through a prism resulting in dispersion of colors.
2. Photoelectricity refers to the release of electrons when light strikes a photosensitive material.
3. Both of these are borrowed from other disciplines, Moore’s Law from Electrical Engineering and Transaction Cost theory
from Economics.
4. Readers may recall Newell and Simon’s symbol system hypothesis which postulates that a system of symbols and processes
to generate their interpretation are necessary and sufficient conditions for intelligent systems (Newell and Simon 1981).
The Law of Symbol systems is somewhat related to this idea although it is intellectually closer to Shannon’s information
theory.
5. The author concedes that in some cases, software has expanded without improvements to functionality.
6. These are also referred to as Strategic Information Systems.

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