Introducing information management : an information research reader (2005)
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- Footnote
- Chun Wei Choo focused on environmental analyzability and organizational intrusiveness in an effort to theorize and to highlight intricacies in scanning as managers attempt to deal with uncertainty and complexity in their environment. Correia and Wilson used a case-study approach to examine managerial scanning in 19 companies; 47 semistructured interviews were performed in an effort to develop a grounded theory of scanning. Because of the grounded theory approach, the authors did not use statistical sampling but rather utilized principles of maximum variation sampling and theoretical sampling. Categories and relationships that emerged from the grounded theory approach were utilized to build a model of the environmental process. Judith Broady-Preston presents an interesting discussion on balanced scorecard as a way to keep track of successful strategies and their impact on various areas of organizational performance, including finances, innovation and learning, and customer perceptions. Yet, although there have been three efforts to clarify the purpose of a balanced scorecard, the concept remains unclear, along with a role that information professionals can play in its successful application in organizations. France Bouthillier and Kathleen Shearer set review case studies of five private and five public organizations to bring out elements, practices, and benefits associated with knowledge management (KM). As stated by the authors: "generally speaking, IM involves the integration of a variety of activities designed to manage information and information resources throughout their life cycle" (p. 150). The authors say that the focus of KM initiatives, as opposed to the focus in IM initiatives, tends to be on "knowledge-sharing methodologies such as communities of practice, virtual collaboration and expert databases" (p. 150). In the chapter "The Nonsense of Knowledge Management" revisited by Wilson, he states that communities of practice are at the heart of methodologies for KM. And natural arenas for KM and communities of practice are various disciplines in education and departments in the medical field because of the collaborative spirit in these two fields. But, he also repeats his criticisms that beyond these arenas, there is no such thing as KM in business where competition is the norm rather than collaboration. He emphasizes that a common problem in the KM community is the treatment of knowledge as a thing or a commodity, when in reality, knowledge is a complex and dynamic process. The chapter also provides additional evidence from analysis of various publications that show KM as a fragmented field and as a business fad, according to Wilson.
Allen strikes a realistic note of the institutional importance of trust across teams of academics and administrators, and subsequently of the political behavior of academics and computer services administrators/ managers and the relation of the latter to information strategy formulation. Research was conducted at 12 university sites, information strategy process documents were analyzed, and 20 informants were interviewed at each site. The study's research focused on cross-case analysis (instead of an iterative approach to collection and analysis of data), research was longitudinal, and a grounded theory approach was employed. According to the author, findings confirm a similar position taken by Pettigrew (1977): "development of information strategy is the outcome of negotiated political relations" (p. 177). And for such negotiated political relations, the author concludes, trust is a necessary ingredient. It is important to reiterate that IM's scope requires a diversity of study methods and methodologies to address all issues involved. A multiplicity of information and IM definitions and the number of local and global issues that must be addressed, along with information's significance as resource and/or commodity in different types of organizations, necessitate diversity in information research. Each chapter has demonstrated a need to cover many aspects of IM and to ensure that there is as much clarity in that effort as possible, and yet differentiation of IM from other related fields such as KM clearly remains a top issue. As with any other effort to define a field's boundaries, the task at hand is not easy, but while definitions and boundaries are being worked out, there is always an opportunity to engage in fruitful discussions about scope and critical issues in information research."
