Kenneth C. Laudon was an American professor of Information Systems at the Stern School of Business at New York University and a leading scholar on the social, political, and economic impacts of information technology. He earned his undergraduate degree from Stanford University and a Ph.D. from Columbia University. Laudon authored several influential books examining computing, democracy, and privacy, including Computers and Bureaucratic Reform, Communications Technology and Democratic Participation, and Dossier Society, in which he introduced the concept of data-driven identity. His widely cited article Markets and Privacy proposed that individuals hold property rights over their personal information, a foundational idea in modern privacy debates. He also co-authored major textbooks such as Management Information Systems: Managing the Digital Firm and E-commerce. Business. Technology. Society, used internationally. Laudon remained an influential voice in information systems scholarship until his death in 2019.
While studying in an accredited introductory information systems course, Essentials of Management Information Systems by Laudon and Laudon challenged my understanding about information systems with a focus on business structured by economic theory. The relevant book by Laudon and Laudon instructing from a bottom-up approach similar to the economics book by Tyler Cowen and Alex Tabarrok, Modern Principles of Economics, is probably a product related to Kenneth C. Laudon having a background in economics; this is useful for understanding specific cases and then applying the lessons learned to business proposals with information systems collectively constraining the solutions for normal science. When working with this text, my suggestion to the reader would involve seeking an integration of research about ethics related to information systems; the relevant book by Laudon and Laudon has a chapter on ethics for business, but detailed business ethics are increasingly relevant in all aspects of business.