Information management (IM) is the appropriate and optimized capture, storage, retrieval, and use of information. It may be personal information management or organizational. Information management for organizations concerns a cycle of organizational activity: the acquisition of information from one or more sources, the custodianship and the distribution of that information to those who need it, and its ultimate disposal through archiving or deletion and extraction.
This cycle of information organisation involves a variety of stakeholders, including those who are responsible for assuring the quality, accessibility and utility of acquired information; those who are responsible for its safe storage and disposal; and those who need it for decision making. Stakeholders might have rights to originate, change, distribute or delete information according to organisational information management policies.
Information management embraces all the generic concepts of management, including the planning, organizing, structuring, processing, controlling, evaluation and reporting of information activities, all of which is needed in order to meet the needs of those with organisational roles or functions that depend on information. These generic concepts allow the information to be presented to the audience or the correct group of people. After individuals are able to put that information to use, it then gains more value.
Information management is closely related to, and overlaps with, the management of data, systems, technology, processes and – where the availability of information is critical to organisational success – strategy. This broad view of the realm of information management contrasts with the earlier, more traditional view, that the life cycle of managing information is an operational matter that requires specific procedures, organisational capabilities and standards that deal with information as a product or a service.
History
Emergent ideas out of data management In the 1970s, the management of information largely concerned matters closer to what would now be called data management: punched cards, magnetic tapes and other record-keeping media, involving a life cycle of such formats requiring origination, distribution, backup, maintenance and disposal. At this time the huge potential of information technology began to be recognised: for example a single chip storing a whole book, or electronic mail moving messages instantly around the world, remarkable ideas at the time.Evans, C., 1979. The Mighty Micro, London: Victor Gollancz. With the proliferation of information technology and the extending reach of information systems in the 1980s and 1990s,Venkatraman, N., 1994. IT-enabled business transformation: from automation to business scope redefinition. MIT Sloan Management Review, 35(2), pp.73–87 information management took on a new form. Progressive businesses such as BP transformed the vocabulary of what was then "IT management", so that "systems analysts" became "business analysts", "monopoly supply" became a mixture of "insourcing" and "outsourcing", and the large IT function was transformed into "lean teams" that began to allow some agility in the processes that harness information for business benefit. The scope of senior management interest in information at BP extended from the creation of value through improved business processes, based upon the effective management of information, permitting the implementation of appropriate information systems (or "applications") that were operated on IT infrastructure that was outsourced.Cross, J. & Earl, M., 1997. Transformation of the IT function at British Petroleum. MIS Quarterly, 21(4), page 403 In this way, information management was no longer a simple job that could be performed by anyone who had nothing else to do, it became highly strategic and a matter for senior management attention. An understanding of the technologies involved, an ability to manage information systems projects and business change well, and a willingness to align technology and business strategies all became necessary.Ward, J. & Peppard, J., 2002. Strategic Planning for Information Systems (3rd Edition), Chichester: Wiley
Positioning information management in the bigger picture In the transitional period leading up to the strategic view of information management, Venkatraman, a strong advocate of this transition and transformation,Venkatraman, N., 1994. IT-enabled business transformation: from automation to business scope redefinition. Sloan Management Review, 35(2), pp.73–87. proffered a simple arrangement of ideas that succinctly brought together the management of data, information, and knowledge (see the figure) argued that:
Data that is maintained in IT infrastructure has to be interpreted in order to render information. The information in our information systems has to be understood in order to emerge as knowledge. Knowledge allows managers to take effective decisions. Effective decisions have to lead to appropriate actions. Appropriate actions are expected to deliver meaningful results.
This is often referred to as the DIKAR model: Data, Information, Knowledge, Action and Result.Venkatraman, N., 1996. Managing IT resources as a value center, IS Executive Seminar Series, Cranfield School of Management The recognition that information management is an investment that must deliver results can be important to organisations that depend on information and good decision-making for their success.Bytheway, A., 2015. Investing in Information: the Information Management Body of Knowledge, Geneva: Springer
Theoretical background
Behavioural and organisational theories It is commonly believed that good information management is crucial to the smooth working of organisations, and although there is no commonly accepted theory of information management per se, behavioural and organisational theories help. Following the behavioural science theory of management, mainly developed at Carnegie Mellon University and prominently supported by March and Simon, most of what goes on in modern organizations is actually information handling and decision making. One crucial factor in information handling and decision making is an individual's ability to process information and to make decisions under limitations that might derive from the context: a person's age, the situational complexity, or a lack of requisite quality in the information that is at hand – all of which is exacerbated by the rapid advance of technology and the new kinds of system that it enables, especially as the social web emerges as a phenomenon that business cannot ignore. And yet, well before there was any general recognition of the importance of information management in organisations, March and SimonMarch, J.G. & Simon, H.A., 1958. Organizations, Wiley argued that organizations have to be considered as cooperative systems, with a high level of information processing and a vast need for decision making at various levels. Instead of using the model of the "economic man", as advocated in classical theorysee Opp, K.-D., 1985. Sociology and economic man. Zeitschrift für die gesamte Staatswissenschaft/Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics, pp.213–243 they proposed "administrative man" as an alternative, based on their argumentation about the cognitive limits of rationality. Additionally they proposed the notion of satisficing, which entails searching through the available alternatives until an acceptability threshold is met - another idea that still has currency.Winter, S.G., 2000. The satisficing principle in capability learning. Strategic Management Journal, 21(10-11), pp.981–996
Economic theory In addition to the organisational factors mentioned by March and Simon, there are other issues that stem from economic and environmental dynamics. There is the cost of collecting and evaluating the information needed to take a decision, including the time and effort required.Hedberg, Bo (1981), "How organizations learn and unlearn", in: Nyström, P.C. & Starbuck, W.H., Handbook of Organizational Design, Oxford University Press The transaction cost associated with information processes can be high. In particular, established organizational rules and procedures can prevent the taking of the most appropriate decision, leading to sub-optimum outcomes.Mackenzie K.D. (1978), Organizational Structures, AHM Publishing CorporationMullins, L.J (1993), Management and Organizational Behaviours, 3rd ed., Pitman Publishing This is an issue that has been presented as a major problem with bureaucratic organizations that lose the economies of strategic change because of entrenched attitudes.Wigand, Rolf T., Picot, Arnold and Reichwald, Ralf (1997), Information, Organization and Management: Expanding Markets and Corporate Boundaries, Wiley & Sons
Strategic information management
Background According to the Carnegie Mellon School an organization's ability to process information is at the core of organizational and managerial competency, and an organization's strategies must be designed to improve information processing capabilityCyert, R.M. & March, J.G., 1959. A behavioural theory of organizational objectives. Modern Organization Theory, Wiley, New York, pp.76–90 and as information systems that provide that capability became formalised and automated, competencies were severely tested at many levels.Morton, M.S.S., 1991. The corporation of the 1990s: Information technology and organizational transformation, Oxford University Press It was recognised that organisations needed to be able to learn and adapt in ways that were never so evident beforeSenge, P.M., 1990. The fifth discipline, Doubleday and academics began to organise and publish definitive works concerning the strategic management of information, and information systems.Earl, M.J., 1989. Management Strategies for Information Technology, Upper Saddle River, NJ, USA: Prentice-Hall, Inc. Concurrently, the ideas of business process managementHammer, M. & Champy, J., 2009. Reengineering the Corporation: Manifesto for Business Revolution, A, Zondervan and knowledge managementNonaka, I. & Takeuchi, H., 1995. The knowledge creating company: how Japanese companies create the dynamics of innovation, New York, NY, USA: Oxford University Press although much of the optimistic early thinking about business process redesign has since been discredited in the information management literature.Belmiro, T., Gardiner, P. & Simmons, J., 1997. Business process re-engineering—A discredited vocabulary? International Journal of Information Management, 17(1), pp.21–33 In the strategic studies field, it is considered of the highest priority the understanding of the information environment, conceived as the aggregate of individuals, organizations, and systems that collect, process, disseminate, or act on information. This environment consists of three interrelated dimensions which continuously interact with individuals, organizations, and systems. These dimensions are the physical, informational, and cognitive.Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, U.S. Army (2012). Information Operations. Joint Publication 3-13. Joint Doctrine Support Division, 116 Lake View Parkway, Suffolk, VA., p. 18.
Aligning technology and business strategy with information management