Research Proposal on Information Management
How And Why Are Organizational Strategies And Routines For Information Management Activities Developed And Maintained?
Table of contents:
1. Introduction
2. Strategic change choices
3. Tacit and explicit knowledge
4. Knowledge management strategies and activities
5. Knowledge management and strategic change
6. IT and knowledge management strategies
6.1. Generic capabilities of information technology for knowledge management
6.2. IT and explicit or tacit knowledge
6.3. IT and knowledge management strategies
7. Focus of IT for strategic change
8. Managerial and research implications
9. Conclusion
References
Background
Information management has developed much interest in every sphere of life in the recent years, having great significance in the business management or organizational administration. It is very important to look back into the series of factors which caused the enhancement of information management strategies in the current age. With the advent of information technology, IT-based economy has enhanced the significance of the information management how to deal with skillful competencies and organizational strategies to promote this new segment of organizational management. Knowledge management, the very conceptual ideas shift out towards information management, developing the information system via implementation of effective managerial tools (Al-Hawamdeh, 2002).
In different organizations, knowledge management launches new dimensional strategies which relates with information management in order to improve the quality of communication, dissemination of up-to-date information within the organizational communities. Information technology has brought great innovation in developing the organizational and managerial strategies of the organization. How this transformation occurs? How an agrarian society changed into the information society? The transformational elements within society are found due to the accumulation of knowledge and information through centuries (Al-Hawamdeh, 2002). It is observed that if we have more knowledge, we prone more to disseminate this information within the organization. The key factor of economic progress is to establish a better linkage between informative knowledge production and dissemination via products and services of an organizational corporate. In the modern era, the role of information management & technology is very instrumental part of economic productivity and prosperity (Al-Hawamdeh, 2002).
Knowledge management is an amalgamation of multi-dimensional experiences, values, deep insights and contextual information which develops a concrete framework for the evaluation and incorporation of the latest information and innovative experiences. Knowledge management helps the organizations to develop routines, practices, norms and processes. Knowledge of books and journals can be captured by individuals who communicate with each other and this knowledge transforms into information, a useful or applicable knowledge. The skillful knowledge can be transferred from one person to another via effective tools of interaction. In this way, information management tackles with the specific knowledge that can be captured, managed and processed by the expert managers (Al-Hawamdeh, 2002).
Sveiby (1996) introduced the IT track and the people track approach to knowledge management which focuses on the organizational tactics of information management. Information management systems are constructed on the basis of knowledge management tools, data-mining and artificial intelligence by implementing IT technologies. The knowledgeable data-mining is tackled with the expertise of managers of information system. The basic knowledge management has wider-ranged activities of assessing, improving and transforming the individualistic behavior and human skills (Al-Hawamdeh, 2002).
In the modern era, nobody may deny the importance of information management and systems, based on the techniques and methods of processing and managing information. The information systems help the people for interaction with each other within the workplace where information data is handled with the implementation of IT technologies. Technology plays an instrumental role in disseminating and exchanging information which is helpful for administering complex and uncertain information with factual statistics and effectual organizational strategies (Al-Hawamdeh, 2002).
IT-based organizations help the individuals to have face-to-face meetings with great coordination of the organizational members in the workplace. Information technology helps to prepare a catalogue of all organizational members according to their professional expertise in order to facilitate the managers of the organization how it would be accessible to right people for knowledge-sharing. IT-based communication via E-mails or video-conferences is more effective to sustain the continual connection between conversations; particularly it is much feasible for those who locate at distant places. There is another key technology, known as collaborative technology which enhances collaboration within the organizational members in the workplace where such collaborative tools enable the professionals of the organization to work mutually and virtually without considering any geographical location. Web technology launches new system of developing website or portals of the organizations which can tackle substantial piece of information, having accessibility and reliability for its users (Al-Hawamdeh, 2002).
Such latest information technologies are developed to discharge the burden of workload by implementing all technical resources for the accomplishment of managerial tasks. It is significant to distinguish between information management and knowledge management tools which are complementary to each other. Information management tools facilitate the organizations to generate, store, analyze and access data by manipulating the facts & figures. Information management tools are implemented to manipulate information data perfectly. The most distinctive features of knowledge management systems are the development and communication of information data while information management tools are electronic & paper-based information. In order to integrate both explicit and tacit knowledge, there is need of establishing such kind of knowledge management system via contextual and collaborative technologies. Data technologies are developed to deal with the facts & figures numerically while knowledge technologies deal with textual data. There is a need of human interaction for the implementation of knowledge technologies (Al-Hawamdeh, 2002).
Information management brings revolutionary improvement and innovation within the organization by filtering, interpreting, synthesizing and pruning informative data. In future, organizational strategies would be formulated on the basis of information technology to boost up the performance and discipline via well-organized feedback from colleagues, users and headquarters. If there is effectual information management, it would leave positive impact upon the organization image by enhancing business opportunity. According to the management consultants and IT vendors, information management tools play advantageous role for the documentation of organizational data and other managerial activities in the proper manner (Al-Hawamdeh, 2002).
Preliminary Review of the Literature
If the organizational managers want to improve information management, there is need of acquisition of knowledge and information about the specific events, trends, performance and efficiencies within the environment of the organization. It is very significant to monitor the environment of the organization to get information analytically about the competitors, customers, suppliers and workers for decision-making process in the organization. The main goal of evaluating all information data is to assess the very nature of all encountered factors, leaving deep impacts upon the organization (Choo, 1999). It is very important to look for information by the individuals within the organization to enhance the knowledge and understanding of the specific issue. Why information data is collected? It helps to elaborate an issue with perfect solution or decision is perceived by the organizational managers. The main purpose is to retrieve information systematically, related with an issue in order to establish a basis for decision-making or course of action (Choo, 1999).
For developing the environmental scanning system, domain experts and IT specialists, knowledge workers in an organization play vital role as they have all business information and knowledge which can be organized into useful and applicable resources by building the technical infrastructure to improve information management (Choo, 1999).
“Domain experts transform information into intelligence that can guide action and decision making. They are not just consumers of the end products of scanning but active participants in the collection and analysis of information. Information specialists add value to information in various ways to signal its significance and enhance its accessibility and utility. IT specialists implement systems that accelerate and simplify the movement and sharing of information (Choo, 1999).”
The scanning function is very supportive tool for managing information as information management comprises the network of six interconnected processes i.e. acquiring information, identifying information, organizing and storing information, creating information products or services, propagating information and using information. Information acquirement is the basic organizational activity, involving all participants by coordinating all information data collection networks at the workplace. Information data is stored and organized in order to facilitate both searching and browsing information from central database (Choo, 1999).
Information management is the process by which those who formulate policies to guide those who have to follow them. The proliferation of computers and cyber-networks has brought a great revolution to establish close relationship between the customers and suppliers of the business organization. Information management has developed an interrelated affinity between public institutions & private organizations and individuals (Strassmann, 1991).
Nowadays, there are enormous potentialities of communication technologies to address the organizational issues at public and private levels which have bewildered the organizational members how to organize a diversity of information data while maintaining its unity. Information management is defined as a process of organizing the information data and resolving all issues which are encountered by the managers of the organization. “With the proliferation of computers, information systems have become inseparable elements of all management acts (Strassmann, 1991).”
Information technology or computer technology has launched new avenues of creating, distributing, maintaining and developing information. Computer networks have made it easy and accessible for the customers, employees and employers and citizens in order to make decisions exclusively (Strassmann, 1991). As a result all old working relationship has been transformed into new one. With the advent of information technological era, the IT specialists and analysts, IT coordinators, managers, chief executives and lawyers have become consumers of IT products to improve their intra-organizational communication. “The management of information is then seen as federated arrangement for cooperation of delegating the maximum authority over technology to those who actually need to use information so that they may remain competent managers (Strassmann, 1991).”
In the 21st century, information management is the key to economic success for any organization or enterprise by deploying all technical sources with great practicability and accessibility. For IT specialists, formulation of information management policies is very similar to the establishment of organizational strategic plans. “Information technology strategy plans in the absence of business policies are symptoms of policy-making avoidance by top executive management (Strassmann, 1991).” For the successful and effective information management, the policy-makers should establish such precise principles for information governance and competitive collaboration by giving opportunity to discuss and share all up-to-date information. Information management is interrelated with the context of business management. It is very difficult to isolate information management from business management. The strategic business plan can be beneficial with the investments in the domain of information technology. IT consultants help the managers of the organization for compiling and elaborating information data and IT management concepts. If business management is flawed, there would be no use of establishing high-quality information systems (Strassmann, 1991).
There is a need of developing IT vision or roadmap of an organization by modernizing its all strategic plans effectively, it would be supportive for the alignment of all information resources via such business strategic policies and investment decision. An IT strategic plan comprises of the mission of the organization, major business process, IT challenges, guiding principles are very significant to enhance the resources of the organization like human resources, infrastructure and funding which are required to manage, assist and pay for the projects (Melvin, 2009). The effective strategic plans are identified by the interdependencies within organization and across the modernization of projects which gives full assurance how these modernized projects are managed and understood via exclusive information system solution and integration. It is very significant for the organization how it identifies the targets, resources and dependencies in accordance with its strategic vision (Melvin, 2009).
An organization should build and follow a portfolio-based conceptual approach of investment management or IT investments are chosen, monitored and controlled according to the perspectives of the organization. In this way, decision-making power is related with an organizational business plans and strategic objectives by investing perfectly. An organization should be evaluated in terms of its well-defined plans how it would proceed, retrieve and safeguard electronically by keeping its maintenance intact at the hour of disaster or some minor technical faults (Melvin, 2009). Disaster recovery plans should have potential to address all aspects of the recovery like how to implement operational processes of the business by motivating personnel. The managers of the organization should prefer the business recovery procedures by highlighting the potential issues in the particular fields like data retention, network availability, and speed of recovery and application availability (Melvin, 2009).
Technological innovation is very effectual to boost up the quantity of the information data and faster communications. The availability of information can be beneficial for human resources via information technology (Information-age values-gap, 2010). Human information behavior is functional within the areas of information science and it plays vital role to develop our understanding of human information interaction. “Clearly, information systems would be most effective if their design is informed by an understanding of the human-information interaction of their intended users (Fidel and Pejtersen).”
There is need of evaluating the information behavior in the context of designation of information systems. Human-information interaction is an intricate phenomenon due to the variable innate human cognitive processes and intrinsic environment in which humans are leading life to interact with the modern world of information technology. “Cognitive Work Analysis has proved highly effective in investigating the complex and dynamic nature of the context and the phenomena that human information behavior research addresses (Fidel and Pejtersen).”
Planning is key managerial process to determine how the particular tasks of the organization should be accomplished by arousing such queries like how, at what cost, whom and when etc. Planning is very significant to determine the organizational objectives and goals for achieving success in future. “Planning is the process of determining organizational aims, developing premises about the current environment, selecting the course of action, initiating activities required to transform plans into action, and evaluating the outcome (Arulraj, et al, 2010).”
There are four main types of planning which are implemented by the managers of the organization including strategic, contingency, managerial and tactical. The organizational strategies are pre-determined guides for decision-making which set up the boundaries or limits within which the course of action should be taken. “Strategic planning has been defined as that which has to do with determining the basic objectives of an organization and allocating resources to their accomplishment (Arulraj, et al, 2010).”
A strategy gives new orientation to an organization for achieving its mission that’s why a strategic plan is considered as a roadmap for attaining the strategic long-term results. There is much difference between the strategic plan and real results but here is need of boosting up the organizational performance by engaging all people as key part of the strategy (Arulraj, et al, 2010).
There are many controversial statements about the management whether it is an art or science or skill and philosophy. There is no perfect model of organizational management which can be sustainable, encompassing all managerial environments and situations. Management can be taken as the critical assessment of a situation and the methodical selection of main objectives, the logical development of strategies for the attainment of these goals, organizing the requisite resources, cogent design, direction, organization and control of the course of actions to specify the procedures (Arulraj, et al, 2010).
Being influential and responsible managers, they need to get all current & relevant information which is found in books and journals and chief executives who are widely spread within organization. The managers have to make decision on the basis of this kind of information which is insufficient and incomplete. Additionally, the managers have to cooperate with the subordinates, superiors, peers, and all other people over whom they have no authoritative control in formal manner (Arulraj, et al, 2010). There are several factors which leave deep impacts upon the managerial leadership like level of management, function of the unit, budgetary capacity, size of the organizational unit, lateral interdependence, financial and managerial crisis and organizational life cyclic phase. Information management systems depends upon four kinds of activities of the managers in which they are directly involved e.g. getting and giving information, establishing and preserving relationship, decision-making and influencing people (Arulraj, et al, 2010).
Information life-cycle management is defined as sustainable storage strategy which develops well-balanced storage and managerial information with the dynamic changes of the business values. Information life-cycle management tools are very assistive in maintaining organizational activities more agile, reducing business risk, estimating storage management costs, organizational profiteering shares, and effective controlling information system to enhance competitive advantages. Every organization has its own practical vision for the deployment of information lifecycle management strategies. “A business value integration layer providing the linkage between business processes and storage management, tying business processes to policy, data classification, and security. A storage management integration layer linking intended actions and the actual outcomes of storage management actions (Information lifecycle management maturity model, 2005).”
An information management comprises the activities of optimization data processes & tools, retention management and data protection. An information management model provides an ideal roadmap for assessment of organizational efforts and financial investment for the optimization of investment. The information life-cycle management would be more supportive for the organization in order to avoid the pitfalls which accompany the latest technological implementation (Information lifecycle management maturity model, 2005). The main objective of the organization is to promote the information life-cycle management into more productive results with the sound and basic conceptual ideals. The organizational managers may enhance profiteering shares via deployment of information life-cycle management strategic plans (Information lifecycle management maturity model, 2005).
The effective leadership of the organization is capable to mobilize the different types of knowledge which exist in the organization for boosting up its performance. It follows goals in a dynamic environment by adapting behavior in accordance with the available knowledge. The main purpose of information management is to create, organize, acquire and share all information critically by enhancing the capacity of gathering all organizational information resources and information potentialities to strengthen the organizational activities. “Information management is a cycle of processes that support the organization’s learning activities: identifying information needs, acquiring information, organizing and storing information, developing information products and services, distributing information, and using information (Choo, 1995).
The critical analysis of every information management process gives way of developing new strategies to maximize the value of information management within the organization. An organization has to develop such information system which gathers up-to-date information, data and transforms these informative resources into knowledgeable data, processes and structures which generate good revenue and services, offered to consumers of the organization. “Information creation, acquisition, storage, analysis and use therefore provide the intellectual latticework that supports the growth and development of the intelligent organization (Choo, 1995).”
The main managerial staff of information management should have up-to-date information, manipulating information data so perfectly like information technologists. Information management should address environmental and situational contexts of information resources for sharing effective information among the group of participants to resolve all technical issues within the situational crisis. An authoritative way of managing information is to indulge all organizational members for gathering information in order to develop an effective information data network. “Information acquisition planning should therefore include the creation and coordination of a distributed network for information collection (Choo, 1995).”
The applicable information technological strategies would be facilitated for organizing and preserving information data efficiently. The wide-ranging focus is to launch and uphold an information infrastructure that models the flow and contract of information, and speed up the processing of data and communiqué. IT specialists play an instrumental role in developing and managing information technology in the modern era (Choo, 1995). IT specialists have been known as proficient revolutionaries who have give new trend of computer-based information systems which radically enhance the efficiency and productivity of the operational and managerial workmanship. The organizational members are not satisfied with transactional data framework but they also demand to simplify the use of informal, chaotic information data by implementing information technologies which are depended upon the collection of organizational information resources (Choo, 1995).
In private sector, Web-based and intranet technologies improve the connectivity in order to facilitate the knowledge-sharing process among all organizational members at workplace. But information datacenter or technical platforms are not sufficient to retain and deliver all kinds of information, boosting up the effective knowledge management. “It also involves developing a supportive culture, with appropriate incentives, that causes the use and augmentation of knowledge management tools to become an instinctive part of everyone’s thought processes (Liebowitz, 2004).”
Establishing an assistive culture is the key factors of knowledge management strategy as some private organization offer some incentives for the promotion of knowledge-sharing and retention in the traditional manner. For effective information management, there is a need of active contribution of employees to utilize knowledge in the organizational information datacenters in order to enhance and evaluate individualistic performance (Liebowitz, 2004).
Information management efforts can be more effectual, improving the efficiency and productivity of the organization. How there is organizational management failure occur? It happens due to some factors like insufficient managerial leadership and involvement, chaotic form of management plans. Information management objectives should be cleared and integrated to achieve all goals according to the strategic vision of the organization. “Establish a separate broad-based group of individuals as a knowledge management organizational infrastructure to develop knowledge management systems, provide educational forums on knowledge management, and act as analyzer and disseminator to insure that appropriate information is being made available throughout the Center (Liebowitz, 2004).”
IT specialists perform like a catalytic mechanism for knowledge-sharing via online community which enhances the interconnection among the community members by developing new ideas and connections. The online community is involved in capturing, leveraging and sharing knowledge by searchable online repository systems. There is need of developing knowledge repositories to capture via multiple process of decision making or information management with the implementation of varied methodological strategies (Liebowitz, 2004).
The managerial staff should provide incentive reward for the employees how they can be motivated for knowledge-sharing processes. For the effective information management plan, there is need of communities with practical and learned capability, integrated and codified knowledge constituents and knowledge retention components. “They typically prefer systems-oriented, structured, process-driven methods which indicate favoritism for a “codified” strategy for knowledge management (Liebowitz, 2004).”
For generating greatest productivity and efficiency, it is very significant to transform strategic plans into the individualistic actions by motivating people with the exclusive enthusiasm. For the enhancement of the sustainability and capability, the organizational corporate designate their action plans and strategies which help them to achieve success. There is a need of the motivational leadership or value-based leadership which enhance the sustainable performance and dynamic growth of organizational planning. Real leadership is required to compete effectively and deliver growth. “People look to leaders to bring meaning, to make sense of the seemingly unquenchable demand for results and the need for individuals to find purpose and value (Strategy Implementation and Realization, 2010).”
Effective and authoritative leadership helps to translate strategic plans into productive results, involving the organizational members of the organization. Strategic plans should runs into course of actions via exclusive performance, strategic projects, and motivational involvement of the departmental members. The ultimate objective is to enhance organizational approach which may translate strategic intent into productive and effective results. “The real need is to creatively and systematically unfold the strategy, bring it to life by creating integrated action plans across an organization that ensure all functions and divisions are aligned behind it (Strategy Implementation and Realization, 2010).”
The business organization should clarify all strategic plans for operational units, following symbolic vision by the team, managers, directors and team members. For enhancing the performance management, the development of IT systems are essentials to mobilize the collaborative and competitive organizational staff members. “It must acknowledge and enable emotional contracting with all staff, which is so vital for linking individual commitment and activity to the attainment of organizational plans(Strategy Implementation and Realization, 2010).”
Strategic planning is taken as a planning how to measure performance and review budgetary programs within the fiscal limits of the organization. Technically, the organizational effectiveness can be influenced due to some technical drawbacks in the information systems. The efforts of organizational managers are very significant for the best practices to control all kinds of mechanisms which may encounter with the good qualities of administrative leadership (Fairholm, 2009). If such mechanism of strategic planning should be overcome ultimately otherwise there would be dilemma for the information system centers. By observing such realistic approaches of the information management, the strategic and conceptual plans are developed to fill the gap, overcoming all drawbacks with the help of well-experienced and well-qualified IT experts. Information management helps to integrate the strategic and traditional planning or thinking, significant performance and distinctive interaction within the organizational workplace (Fairholm, 2009).
The efficient managers of the organizations strive hard to enhance the organizational effectiveness at any costs. The efforts of managers are very beneficial if they work according to their budgetary capacity to achieve all targets in the most useful and logical manners. Strategic plans are very effectual if these are followed by the managers within the limits, facing the dilemmas of the organizations (Fairholm, 2009). The objectives of the strategic planning are very similar to the organizational leadership, focusing upon the tactics of the specific organizations. The well-defined objectives and appropriate goals can be developed according to the basic requirements of the organization. Strategic plans have direct linkage with the effective leadership and management (Fairholm, 2009).
It is very difficult to define the strategic planning perfectly due to the lack of theoretical and literary competency. There is quite difference between traditional and general strategic planning or thinking. Before designing the plans, the managers should recognize the patterns and relevant issues of information management, demonstrating considerate impacts upon the business productivity of the organization according to the global events. The strategic planning should be first priorities in order to be realistic and flexible implementation of plans by achieving the productive results (Fairholm, 2009).
The managers should designate plans and budgets for maximizing the information resources in order to address all strategic issues by ensuring the progress on right track. The managers should have potentialities to anticipate all kinds of impediments and opportunities subtly while developing plans or work on such strategic plans. The administrative staff of the organization should engage themselves in healthy activities to improve all information management processes by eradicating all types of incompetence to accomplish the tasks of the organization (Fairholm, 2009).
The organizational managers should determine clear objectives and set priorities by identifying weakness and strengths in accordance with the organizational vision and long-term perspectives. There should be comprehensive understanding of the strategic goals by prioritizing working capability in alignment. Whenever the administrative staff formulates some policies and plans which are assessed in accordance with the strategic routines and long-standing perspectives. The information management center should develop such work plans, based on strategic priorities in broader sense, supporting the valuable projects and organizational strategies. The organizational strategies are maintained and allocated all information resources in correspondence with the organizational mission or vision, reviewing emergency plans for dealing with unexpected situations or problems (Fairholm, 2009).
According to Wilson (1994), the managers should improve all previous strategic planning models for better strategic management how actions should be taken according to the missionary priorities of the organization. The fundamental objectives of the organization are assumed according to the nature of the business by the explicit information management in order to obtain productive results by effective efforts. After reviewing the strategic plans, the organizations should be clarified about the right course of action in the context of recent external and internal matters by monitoring all information systems (Fairholm, 2009).
What would be future perspectives of visualizing strategic plans how and why and when there will be implementation of all such plans, designed by the capable managers to tackle all kinds of eventualities. Such conceptual and strategic approach demands the clear vision, based on appropriate assumptions, critical analysis, communicated and monitored through administrative and informative center of the organization. “Ultimately, this approach endeavors to foresee or forecast various potential futures and from those potentials choose the most appropriate which are often called missions or visions that anticipate specific goals (Fairholm, 2009).”
Briefly, the organizations are bound to enhance potential and sustainable role of the specific vision and objectives of the organization by deploying all techniques which highlight the close relationship between the productive outcomes and concrete milestones via gradual development of the procedural and statistical reports. The strategic plans or routine works of the organization should be evaluated in every perspective for the accomplishment of the organizational tasks, formulating, controlling and guiding the organizational workplace (Fairholm, 2009).
The basic principles of gathering, communicating, storing and using information are the significant elements of organizational and operational activities of the organization. The implementation and administration of the information technologies are the very basis of the organizational progress, particularly in fields of computing and consultancy. The organizational experts of IT departments have capabilities of securing, assessing and retrieving information (Feldman and March, 1981). The practical awareness of the significance of the information is revealed by research-oriented personnel who can understand and improve the application of information systems via assistance human resources. What is human behavior about the information processing in the cognitive, perspectives of economic and cybernetic theories? There is a close alliance between the study of information management and the study of choice or decision-making to comprehend the information behavior of IT specialists (Feldman and March, 1981).
For improving the decision-making power, the basic framework of information management systems is established to enhance the value of information, having informative data coherence with great reliability, exact cost and precision. The information applications are analyzed and gathered to enhance the value of decision-making. The gathering of information gives ritualistic assurance how the human behavior exists for decision-making power by representing the exclusive competence and affirmed social virtue (Feldman and March, 1981).
The use of information and collection of information data is the instrumental part of the efficiency of the organizational manager who makes decisions perfectly in a specific situation. The considerable features of information use are very significant in this scenario in the case when there is no reliable alternative for evaluating the knowledgeable capacity of organizer or manager; the salient features of information like gathering and storing are applied as implicit measures of the quantity and quality of information. For instance, being the first to have information and, having additional and diverse information designate the propinquity of an individual or organization to significant information sources (Feldman and March, 1981).
Information management is consisted of four kinds of functionalities and activities like planning, leading, organizing and coordinating activities within the information systems. There should be managerial leadership qualities in the administrative staff of the organization like identifying the goals, establishing the vision and guiding capacity how to accomplish arduous tasks (McNamara, 2010). There should be strong interpersonal affinity between employers and employees for having good working relationship in the workplace so that the employees can work honestly and dedicatedly by establishing compensation systems, organizational policies and procedures, employee motivation etc. good performance management comprises exclusive goals, measuring tools to indicate how these goals can be achieved by continuous attention and feedback, having corrective actions and activities among the groups of employees and organizational communities (McNamara, 2010).
Organizational change occurs due to the widespread latest communication methods in the field of business, leadership and information management with the advent of information technologies, evolving the life-cycle of the organization. The managers and IT experts continually engage in such activities of accomplishing the adventurous tasks of the organization successfully. Improvement of the diverse action plans is often an instructive experience for your customer as members of their organization initiate to understand a more methodical approach to their scheduling and day-to-day activities. As with other activities during information management, plans can diverge extensively in how they are developed (Organizational Change and Development, 2010).
The information technological revolution has been very important as the convergence of data processing, automation and communication has opened new horizons of interaction, inter-organizational information processing and giving new trends of establishing business on IT-based infrastructure of the organization. The cost-effective computing systems have given new orientation to organizational management for revolutionizing traditional business systems. Entrepreneurs can see the potential use of information management systems with new resources which may enhance the comparative profiteering ratio of the business organization (Earl, 2003).
Information management allows us to improve the organizational performance, by having better control, effective coordination and decision-making power, providing new added-value services. According to Frohman (1984) suggests the four step framework of integrating technological issues into the business strategy (Earl, 2003).
1. The administrative supervisor should identify the inherent competence of the organization in technical sense.
2. There should be perfect knowledge about the appropriate technological methods which contributes the proper business success.
3. There should be perfect coordination between the technological implication and business mission
4. There should be alignment and improvement of the information systems which may ensure the successful support of the organizational strategic maintenance (Earl, 2003).
Information-sharing is directly related with the developmental practices in the organizational communities which experience some obstacles in social & economical growth. Commonly, the organizational managers aim to improve the status of developmental projects and address all such limitations which are big hurdles against the application of information techniques. The organizational administrators provide direct access to information sharing data of the specific development projects via valued added services & products of the organizations (Meyer, 2009).
Information technological applications are significant to solve or alleviate all problems of the organizations. In the modern era, dominated by information technology, it is explicable that organizational managers aim at developing all operational systems of the organization on the basis of information technology for information-sharing in the reliable manner. In advanced countries of Europe, the accessibility of internet, dissemination of information has revolutionized entire organizational systems of the different organizations by enhancing the opportunities of availability of information according to the expectations of users (Meyer, 2009).
That’s why it is not astonishing if community informatics are evolving as set of information practices which are associated with the application of information and communication technologies for individual, social, economical, cultural development within the communities so that the communities may participate in larger sectors of social, cultural, economical and political setting for achieving the collective goals. By the implementation of information technologies, the governmental and other private organizational sectors find a perfect solution to share information with the target population. When knowledge-sharing process occurs across the cultural boundaries, the information behavior would be different from culture to culture and society to society (Meyer, 2009).
If we observe the evolutionary process of information behavior, it would be considerable that the information behavior of native people evolved for years, based on the social & economical conditions of the traditional culture. The people of old times used to exchange information of everyday life at a time when there were no more indigenous information systems. Consequently information practices were evolved how to collect, access, assess, store, apply and communicate information according to the basic requirements of the traditional and social trends. “Information mechanisms used by indigenous people to control information flow have everything to do with affective responses such as beliefs, motivation, trust, acceptance or resistance (Meyer, 2009).”
In modern era of technological advancements, information and communication technology has great significance within short period of time. Information & communication has been permeated into the business environment, becoming the source of success and progress for the modern corporation due to its efficient infrastructure. The internet has become main source of development and innovation for both developed and developing countries (Information and Communication Technology in Education, 2002). Technological developments have brought great revolution in the working relationship of the organization with great competencies in decision-making and critical thinking, communicating effectively and handling of dynamic situations Information technology is known as the technological applications of the informatics in the social organization, a perfect combination of informatics technology with other associated communication technology (Information and Communication Technology in Education, 2002).
If someone observes, there is a great difference between information management and knowledge management according to the concept, data, knowledge intelligence, information etc. information data is defined as the basis of reasoning, estimating and discussing the given information or reception of knowledge, knowledge is defined as gained knowledge after understanding the truth or fact via reasoning and applying the knowledge (Bouthillier and Shearer, 2002).
Information is defined as the facts & data organized to enhance the value of the specific truths and beliefs, perspectives and conceptual judgments, methodologies, expectations and know-how. That’s why the information can be taken as data, made more valuable in the context of knowledge management, a specific set of concepts, actions and consequences, derived from some experience or inference. In other words, knowledge is very near to action while information can be taken as documentation of any kind of information (Bouthillier and Shearer, 2002).
Generally, information management and knowledge management require a high-quality human involvement; its objectives are very diverse. The basic goal of information management is to make certain that information is gathered and retrievable while the basic aim of the knowledge management is related with the organization outcomes. After gaining knowledge, it should be stored, retrieved and shared. Knowledge-sharing process is involved in transferring knowledge from one person to another as it is the major preoccupation with the information management, addressing all issues related with this literature of information in different manners (Bouthillier and Shearer, 2002).
The subject of information management is entirely new domain in the management sector, explaining the research-based development of the projects whose potential is overlapped with knowledge management and its all weaknesses or strengths are practiced in different organizations. Analyzing experiential support is surely a valid approach for reckoning building blocks of theoretical concepts to sustain the development of up-to-the-minute scientific domain. Information management is taken as varied organizational practices, demanding the changes in policies, routines, strategic plans and organizational structures (Bouthillier and Shearer, 2002).
There are trivial differences in the practices of information management between private (voluntary) and public organization. Voluntary organizations use information for internal knowledge-sharing, targeted in the particular spheres of the organizations while the information management initiatives are much concerned with managing the business or knowledge-sharing administration. The private or voluntary organizations use knowledge management for both external and internal information-sharing within the organization and knowledge management initiatives are taken for managing the product-related knowledge in public sector (Bouthillier and Shearer, 2002).
The Information Technology Laboratory (ITL) of USA sponsors the US economy and volunteering programs for public welfare by facilitating all technical leadership to establish standards infrastructure, developed by tests, reference data, implementation of theoretical methods, and technical analysis of information technology. Organizational and managerial standards and guidelines are based on the effective security and privacy of receptive unstipulated information in central computer systems (Risk Management Guide for Information Technology Systems, 2002).
Every organization strives hard to target a particular mission. In this digital era, as organizations use computerized information technology (IT) systems to practice their information for better sustainability of their missions, risk management plays an instrumental role in safeguarding an organization’s information databases. An effectual risk management process is an significant module of a thriving IT security program. The primary objective of an organization’s risk management process should guard the organization and its capability to execute their mission, not just its IT assets. As a result, the risk management process should not be handled principally as a technical function carried out by the IT experts who maneuver and administer the IT system, but as an indispensable management function of the organization (Risk Management Guide for Information Technology Systems, 2002).
The purpose of performing risk management is to facilitate the organization to achieve its Mission, by improved securing the IT systems that accumulate, process, or transmit organizational information; by allowing management to make knowledgeable risk management plans to substantiate the expenditures that are part of an IT budgetary resources; and by assisting management in approving IT systems on the basis of the sustaining documentation, resulting from the presentation of risk management (Risk Management Guide for Information Technology Systems, 2002).
Risk management is the procedure that allocates IT managers to balance the operational and financial costs of protective measures and attain gains in mission competence by shielding the IT systems and data that hold up their organizations’ missions. This process is not exclusive to the IT setting; definitely it pervades decision-making in all areas of our daily lives. Take the case of home security, for instance. Different people decide to have home security systems deployed and recompense a monthly fee to a service provider to have these IT systems supervised for the better security of their property (Risk Management Guide for Information Technology Systems, 2002).
The managers accountable for business operations and IT procurement procedure should play a dynamic role in the risk management practice. This administrative staff is the individuals with the influence and accountability for making the trade-off pronouncement necessary to mission achievement. Their contribution in the risk management procedure facilitates the attainment of appropriate sanctuary for the IT systems, which, if managed appropriately, will offer operation efficiency with a negligible disbursement of resources (Risk Management Guide for Information Technology Systems, 2002).
The organization’s workforce is the consumers of the IT systems. Exercise of the IT systems and data according to an organization’s policies, guidelines, and principles of performance is decisive to justifying risk and defending the organization’s IT resources. To reduce risk to the IT systems, it is necessary that system and application users be facilitated with safety consciousness guidance. Therefore, the IT safekeeping trainers or protection/focus professionals must comprehend the risk management procedure so that they can build up suitable training materials and integrate risk evaluation into teaching programs to instruct the end users (Risk Management Guide for Information Technology Systems, 2002).
It is observed that non-profit or voluntary organization or third-sector organizations have been continuing their best practices rather than business world. It is the slogan of third-sector organization that here is “no money, no mission,” but they fail due to financial instability to stay for long-lasting. “An increasingly competitive business environment, with shrinking support from government and private donors, dictates that nonprofits acquire the efficiency, flexibility, innovativeness, and discipline traditionally represented in the competitive for-profit sector (Landsberg , 2004).”
Research Questions and Objectives
After giving historical background and critical analysis of information management literature, I would like to discuss the research questions and objectives of my research works. Firstly, the main question is how, and why, do Board members in a voluntary youth organization encounter, seek, store, retrieve, share, create and use information individually and collectively for their organizational tasks? According to Chauvel et al (2000) knowledge in workplace is defined as the capability of organizational members how to move ahead and act effectively, directed by the managers, potential coworkers and proactive youthful individuals. There is need of improving knowledge-based considerations according to the modern trends so that the new organizations may share, seek, store create, retrieve and use information with the systematic use of information resources at the workplace (Chauvel et al, 2000).
Secondly, how, and why, are organizational strategies and routines for information activities developed and sustained? If we review the origins of information management and strategies, there are many historic perspectives to reveal how organizational strategies are maintained via systematic procedures of information systems. There is need of perfect information management theory in the view of psychological, economical and social prospects how information technologies influence the human behavior when some information activities are initiated by the workers at the workplace. Information management and organizational strategies are developed by the continuous learning process how the employers experience the potential managerial issues on daily basis to maintain the new strategies of the organization. The organizational strategies are developed on the basis of competitive forces, operational and managerial practices, accessibility of information technology and knowledge management approaches (Chauvel et al, 2000).
Thirdly, how in the context of socio-historical background, British voluntary youth organizations dealing with peace, democracy or sustainable development? Tomorrow’s leading managers are today’s youth who wants to uphold the culture of peace and dialogue at regional, national and international levels, exploring the mechanisms of youth organizational strategies how to take initiatives for better end results (Youth Cooperation for Culture of Peace and Dialogue, 2006).
The educational background and instrumental role of the youth organization leads to the world’s future, having their own specific views and opinions being major part of world’s population. What would be the qualities of youth leadership and organizational strategies, such qualities are followed as:
· Culture of peace through education.
· Sustainable fiscal and social growth.
· Value for all human rights.
· Parity between women and men.
· Democratic participation.
· Perceptive power, tolerance and harmony.
· Participatory communiqué and the free flow of information and knowledge.
· International peace and security (Youth Cooperation for Culture of Peace and Dialogue, 2006).
The British voluntary youth organizations are much interested to utilize all information resources for supporting the efforts of youth with the specific demands of peace & democracy. There are specific incentives for the voluntary youth organizations which motivate them to work together from various regions and countries without considering any ethnic or religious background. The youth organizations would like to participate in different projects, seminars, campaigns, conferences, training programs, educational programs if they are provided with all information resources, training programs for their encouragement (Youth Cooperation for Culture of Peace and Dialogue, 2006).
Research Plan
I choose my case study approach by using three multiple methodological ways to collect all information. By observing information activities, I have developed some information strategies and policies by attending board meetings and performing role model in the virtual discussion with the board members. For reviewing the information management strategies and activities of the participants, I have conducted interviews with different board members. I have direct access to all organizational documentation process which helps to enhance my understanding about the institutional and organizational values or vision. Such kinds of methodological plans have enabled me to portray a real picture of the organization with its routines, strategies, collective and organizational activities which are related with the theoretical and research-based understanding. I have paid attention on the information activities and behaviors of the board members rather than all organizational coworkers or staff which enhances my knowledgeable studies how to conduct interviews within the organization as an active surveyor and how to perceive the developmental process from novice to well-experienced members.
Furthermore, I presuppose that strategy and policy development would be most noticeable at this level. This option has let me to go deeper into the stances and actions of a few, but it also means that I cannot simplify my findings to all members of the entire organization and that I cannot with certainty find nuances between levels in the organization. Since most Board members have been dynamic local members, they will reveal their behavior as local members as well, but from a new viewpoint. I have interviewed the members of both Boards to onward their mail discussions within the Board to me as well and to be included in their Board mailing list. I also have observed all postings at a new “Board forum” for virtual discussions, started when Second Board took office. The messages are analyzed in a prearranged way, where sender, receiver (in the case of the e-mails), whether the topic of the message dealt with any information activities or policies, and the aim of the message, such as sharing peripheral information, sharing personal or internal information, seeking information, etc.
In order to learn more about the organizational context, its history, values, and rules, as well as about which information products were created, I have acquired internally and externally targeted documents about the organization’s aims, history and activities and regularly checked the organization’s website. I have also arranged all documentation before and after Board meetings as well as specific policy documents in order to trace information routines and both implemented and non-implemented information policies which would compare them to documented decisions.
Using the infrastructure of an activity system developed in the theory, I have codified the transcripts of the interviews and observations in the data analysis software . In a first step, I have codified the texts using different information activities (seeking, storing, retrieving, sharing information, and creating information products) that can be included in the information management activity as codes. In a second step, I have examined the resulting collections of quotations and arranged them according to aspects in the information activity systems: subject, object, tools and resources, division of labor, values, and rules. I have used the result to construct a description of the context and the ongoing information activities in Youth For Peace. I have evaluated the organizational documents in part to find further occurrences of information activities, in part to shape a richer description of the general structure, division of labor, rules, history, and values within Youth For Peace. Of course, the subsequent descriptions both of Youth For Peace as an organization and especially of their information activities are my constructions as a researcher. I have strived to affirm all descriptions on many different statements and occurrences in the material and not to ignore statements and occurrences that could contradict my material.
The specific methodologies are applied in every organization to facilitate the sharing of information and codify all data of information in perfect manner. Information practices, filling up questionnaire by forums, and expert databases for knowledge-sharing are the methodologies used during the study of the information management. The multiplicity of methodologies discloses the a range of strategies that are used in information management projects to fit specific organizational requirements and to support particular missions. Some strategies of information managements are very sophisticated, engaging the varied knowledge agents for active roles or complicated expert database while some methodological strategies are very simple like forum discussions with board members. “All the case studies required the use of particular technologies facilitating exchanges and collaborative work, involving collective consumption and use of knowledge (Bouthillier and Shearer, 2002).”
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