Both of these influential works identify consequences of the results of automation. A great deal of thought and experimentation has been undertaken in order to understand what software is and to ascertain its effect on systems created using software. As a result of this work, a very strong conclusion about software can be made. This is that the complex nature of software results in inability to verify its correctness. These considerations lead to the observation that organizations which rely upon software-based information technologies to manage their information resource are reliant upon high risk systems.
Organizations are dependent on systems which are neither reliable, nor correct.
In this section, special considerations of software not commonly pursued in the management literature are introduced. Software is a logical product which uses discrete functions to achieve some desired effect. A number of authors have identified a number of factors which are unique to software. Influences contributing to the unreliable nature of software include, but are not limited to, human lack of understanding of discrete functions and poor software development practices. Most assume the failure rate is reduced whenever an error is corrected.