1. Chapter 1 - Information Management: Setting the Scene
Erik J. de Vries
Universiteit van Amsterdam Business School, Amsterdam
The Netherlands
Ard Huizing
Universiteit van Amsterdam Business School, Amsterdam
The Netherlands
Abstract
Is information management in need of a new identity? Now that ICT has become ubiquitous and many
technology related activities are sourced from outside companies, the emphasis of information
management shifts to what its name implies: the management of information as a business and societal
resource. Because of the many ICT and market related management notions involved in today’s
information management, the field struggles with its identity. This chapter presents an outline of the
book. Several authors pinpoint the roots of information management’s identity crisis, but most
contributors focus on providing alternative notions, perspectives and vocabulary to set the scene for
tomorrow’s information management. In reviewing the different book sections and their chapters, we
highlight a number of themes and relevant questions that emerge from all contributions. We end this
chapter with our rationale explaining how the book has been composed and describing its main
characteristics.
Information Management’s struggle with identity
The central question in this book is: what is the identity of information management now that ICT is
ubiquitous and increasingly sourced from independent, specialized ICT services and software companies?
In the next chapter of this volume Maes argues that information management struggles with its identity
because it is rooted in different disciplines. Maes further argues that ICT experts have assumed
responsibility for many of the issues related to the management of information in the recent past,
approaching the issue primarily from a technological perspective. By using notions such as business-ICT
alignment, ICT strategy, architecture and sourcing, the management of information technology has
become almost synonymous with the management of information. Now that ICT is increasingly sourced
from specialized ICT service and software companies, the lack of information related notions and the
over-emphasis on technological notions become apparent. Furthermore, the key concept to managing ICT
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2. in relation to business needs - strategic alignment - perceived by many people as the central issue in
information management, has also been heavily criticized. In the next chapter, Maes asserts that
alignment is a misleading term and in the book section on ICT, strategy and identity, Brigham and Introna
(chapter 12) then challenge the basic assumptions underlying alignment and finally, Introna proposes an
autopoietic approach as an alternative view in chapter 11.
In many organizations, information management struggles with a legacy of technology related
notions and language. Information management is approached by general management in that language
and is still being held responsible for ICT performance. Assuming that identity is set by notions of
oneself in relation to one’s social environment, getting expressed and reinforced in the language spoken,
information management is in a genuine identity crisis.
This crisis is further reinforced by a strong tendency among general, information and ICT
management to think in market terms, as Huizing points out in chapter 6. Take, for instance, the
traditional definition of information management: ‘the gathering, storage, refining, and distribution of
information’. It is supply-driven and appears to stop at ‘information distribution’, metaphorically
understood as throwing the information over the wall to the eager information users. As Huizing states,
the combination of such market terminology with technological notions further commoditizes the concept
of information, such that it degenerates into only a marketable product. Bryant warns us in chapter 5 that
such terminology also gives rise to ideas like the mechanical transfer of information between anonymous
senders and receivers. In organizations where general management has taken such an operational,
technological and instrumental vision on information related issues, information management runs the
risk of being viewed by the organization as merely the functional management of information systems
responsible for the operational control of change requests and ICT procurement.
The problem is that such a view conceals information usage related issues such as the following:
• The role and function of information in social processes;
• The centrality of information and communication in establishing the identity of
organizations and its strategic positioning;
• The relation between information and communication processes and the division of labor
(in and between organizations), specialization and resulting coordination and contracting needs;
• The role and function of information in innovation processes and the fact that information
and communication processes themselves are subject to innovation;
• And the design of organizational or technological structures in which people have to live
and work and of which they become inseparable parts.
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3. Setting the Scene for future Information Management
As articulated by the editorial board, the central mission of the book series Perspectives on Information
Management is to enhance the profession of information management by advancing scholarship and by
enriching professional development in a way that is relevant and that makes valuable contributions to
society and its institutions. This vision becomes operational in this first volume by setting the scene for
the IM discipline given its current situation in the broader domain of management and organization.
In chapter 2, Maes provides us with an integrative framework for information management in
which we can position issues which are central to the field. He defines information management as the
management discipline concerning strategic, structural and operational information-related issues, and
relates the (external and internal) information and communication processes and their supporting
technology to general business aspects. His framework explicitly acknowledges issues related to
information and communication and of (infra) structural arrangements, such as business processes,
infrastructure, architecture, etc. The structure of this volume is inspired by the actual and emergent issues
Maes describes and summarizes in figure 3 in the next chapter: identity, sourcing issues, customer-focus
and flexibility of systems and design. These issues are taken as the most prevalent ones in the field for the
coming years and together with two sections on information management in general, these issues set the
context for the remaining sections of the book.
The volume is divided into this introductory chapter, chapter 2 in which Maes puts forward his
integrative framework, two sections on information management in general, followed by four sections on
the actual and emergent issues in information management: ICT, strategy and identity; ICT (out)sourcing;
customer oriented innovation; and design. All members of the Editorial Board of the new book series
Perspectives on Information Management have contributed chapters to this volume and all sections have
been coordinated by Editorial Board members. Every section starts with a short introduction in which the
section coordinators introduce the section topic, they note how these topics are relevant to the information
management field, and they introduce the individual chapters in these section.
This introductory chapter addresses themes that recur in different sections and overall arguments
on how the sections contribute to the changing identity of information management.
The first section on information management in general provides a more general historic context
to the field, reminding us of what information management was before ICT. Black (chapter 3) recognizes
three different occupations that have been involved with information management in the past: the
managers of mechanization (leading to centralized departments as early as 1935, who could be viewed as
the predecessors of current ICT departments); the librarians, who have lost the battle with their
successors, the information officers who are the third group. The information officers defined themselves
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4. as managers, abstractors and communicators of information that was packaged in a variety of formats,
stressing the importance of their subject knowledge and taking an activist approach to users. Brunt
(chapter 4) describes the work of these professionals in central registries in the British intelligence service
during the period of the two world wars. He shows how the purpose of the intelligence service and ‘the
aspects of the world’ which needed to be reflected in their (index) systems, determined the intelligence
work.
From this historic context it seems that the rapid advances of technology over the last decades and
its associated specialization have forced managerial attention on the mechanization part of the field. It
should be acknowledged, however, that the contemporary content structuring work we now see in the
field of content management systems and databases resemble the work of central registries and
information officers as described by Brunt and Black. The components of information work (e.g. the
work of the information officer and later, the information scientist) as described by Black, reminds us of
what information management could be if we put less emphasis on its technological aspects. Moreover,
Tony Bryant (chapter 5) reminds us of the ‘actual behavior’ of managers and employees towards
information and the limitations of ‘engineering models’ when it comes to understanding such behavior.
In the second section on information management in general, Huizing discusses the disadvantages
of the generally accepted objectivist and market notions on information (in chapter 6) and provides us
with an alternative perspective on information from subjectivist sociology and anthropology (in chapter
7). Applying microeconomics to deepen our understanding of objectivism and applying practice-based
social theory to do the same for subjectivism, he poses the question of whether or not a sound and solid
basis for information management can be found in either perspective. In both cases, the answer is
negative leading us to the inescapable assertion that both objectivism and subjectivism are needed for an
integrative approach to information management – the one is better off when informed by the other. Choo
(chapter 8) adds to this by examining a number of subjective psychological processes negatively affecting
the sharing and processing of information in organizational groups, such as management or project teams.
He also indicates how information management can help reduce such subjectivity in group discussions
and improve intersubjective information use in organizational teams.
Chapter two and the first two sections on information management in general add to our search for
a new identity of information management by providing a framework to position the field and its main
subjects of interest; by historical contextualization; and by a critical examination of the assumptions
underlying the central notions of information management, contrasting these core notions with alternative
ones. The chapters jointly provide a vocabulary to discuss the current state of information management
and the need to search for and develop a new identity for information management that better fits current
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5. times. This vocabulary is enhanced in the next four sections, which are more focused on current central
issues in the field: ICT, strategy and identity; ICT (out)sourcing; customer oriented innovation; and
design.
In chapter 5, Bryant recalls an important question from Stafford Beer (1981) that is highly relevant to
information management, which could be reframed in current terminology as: ‘Given ICT; what is the
nature of our enterprise?’ This question addresses a central issue in information management and
answering this question will direct a search for this field’s new identity. The question resonates in
different sections and contributions throughout the book.
The underlying theme of the third section is that ICT, strategy and identity should not be viewed
as separate phenomena but as phenomena mutually constituting each other; that is, as phenomena that are
inseparably interwoven, making each other possible. When ICT, strategy and identity are mutually
constitutive, alignment becomes an impossible issue, because how could inseparable phenomena be
aligned? Consequently, the notion of alignment, which is considered by many to define information
management’s identity, is at stake in this section. Furthermore, despite the popular view of Nicholas Carr
(2003), ICT does matter, because it constitutes us and our organizations, as argued by Introna (chapter 9).
This view is illustrated in Wigand (chapter 19) and Slagter et al (chapter 20) in their chapters in the
section on customer oriented innovation where they describe how people express and reinforce their
identities in Web 2.0 and how they become ‘Cyborgian’ in Second Life. The concept of strategy is
understood in this section as choosing to choose, to take a stand (in chapter 10 by Ilharco). Strategic
changes are seen as both ambiguous and paradoxical, creating hospitable or hostile relations between the
new and the existing practices instead of being seen as a the result of strategic alignment or top down
planning (Brigham and Introna, chapter 12). New technology for example, is thought of as an ambiguous
stranger, an image which is so aptly illustrated by the way companies react to Web2.0, as described by
Wigand. The real work of strategising then is not top-down alignment but the continual questioning and
interpreting of the relationship between ‘the guest’ (the new technology) and ‘his host’ (the organization).
Bryant’s question also resonates in the book’s final section. Using the case of 3D technology in the
construction industry, Boland (chapter 21) demonstrates that the relationship between information
systems and the organization, in which these systems are conceptualized, is mutual. The organization
imposes its structure upon the technological system, but new technologies provide opportunities for
restructuring as well, making former, traditional organizational arrangements obsolete. Gal et al (chapter
22) provide a similar logic in showing that technology as a boundary object is influenced by the identities
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6. of the organizations using these objects, and that these identities are also influenced through these
boundary objects. Like Boland, they base this assertion on a case study conducted in the same
construction industry. The idea in both contributions could be interpreted using Ciborra’s (1993) idea that
technology enables other contractual arrangements. As organizations can be seen as contractual
arrangements and ICT can be perceived as ways to arrive at new contractual arrangements (according to
institutional economics (Wigand et al 1997)), implementing new ICT requires that organizations
reconsider how they are organized.
Another central theme in information management that spans various sections and chapters of this book is
the transformation of organizations and systems into customer-oriented ones. This theme is central to
information management, because it assumes that organizations establish mechanisms for information
sharing and sense making with their external partners, customers and partners in demand driven supply
chains. Terms that are associated with customer orientation are market intelligence and research,
customer/user requirements, (mass) customization, customer centered innovation, blurring boundaries
between production and consumption, prosumer, user generated content, user communities, human
centered design, etc. The main idea behind all of these terms is that customers have information about
their use context, which needs to be shared with producer’s information on production contexts (von
Hippel 2005). Combining both types of information is by no means trivial. This challenge is readily
apparent when we reflect, for example, on the inevitable problems in information systems development,
and on new product or new service designs. The consequences of this combining are twofold. Firstly, the
producer is compelled to become actively involved and to become more familiar with the world of the
customer or vise versa. Secondly, the producer can never meet the demands of all customers and therefore
he has to restrict himself to a particular amount of flexibility in offering products and services.
Both consequences are dealt with in the next section on customer oriented innovation. De Vries
(chapter 18) illustrates that service innovation is interactive (with customers and business partners) and he
further illustrates that service positioning in the market can be strengthened by ad hoc innovations that
respond to customer specific requests. De Vries also demonstrates that management trade-offs need to be
made between the degree to which one is willing to service its customer and the service positioning
strategy of the business unit to avoid ‘strategic drifting’. Finally, he shows that through innovations
companies could migrate from one positioning strategy to another, but that this is not without its
consequences and management trade-offs. In the same section, Segers et al (chapter 17) reinforce De
Vries’ idea of service innovation being interactive and show its inter-disciplinary nature, its lack of clear
organization such as, for example, R&D in the manufacturing sector, and its lack off cooperation with
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7. academia and governmental agencies. Moreover, this section illustrates that information management
should anticipate drivers for service innovation that are different from technological advances. The
contributions of Wigand on Web2.0 in general (chapter 19) and of Slagter et al on Second Life in
particular (chapter 20) pinpoint current trends that are by no means merely technological but are also
social and economical as well. Both chapters indicate the interesting phenomenon of citizens already
possessing information on the use context of a new trend where companies have yet to find out what to do
with it.
The theme of customers having to share information on their use context with producers bringing
to bear their information on production contexts is revisited in the section on design. Hovorka and
Germonprez (chapter 23) articulate design principles to design flexible, tailorable systems that could be
adopted by users to different use contexts. Conceptually, at least, several of their design principles are
quite similar to the ones that are used in service development, suggesting that a set of universal principles
is actually available. Avital (chapter 24) goes one step further in proposing design principles for
generative systems, systems that are conducive to innovative processes.. The chapters of Hovorka and
Germonprez, and that of Avital both deal with design exercises in which the designer tries to anticipate
use contexts, which are unknown at the moment of design. As service delivery becomes increasingly
dependent on ICT systems and infrastructures, empirical grounding of these design principles might lead
to interesting new avenues in service delivery, design and innovation.
So, one theme addressed in this volume is that ICT does matter because it is mutually constitutive with
strategy and identity. A second theme is the problematic nature of the exchange of information on use and
production contexts. These two themes also play an important role in sourcing relationships. The degree
to which strategy, identity and technology are mutually constitutive determines whether the technology
can be outsourced and if so what kinds of contracts and organizational arrangements should be used to
govern it. In the section on ICT (out)sourcing, Hirschheim and George, Willcocks et al and Cumps et al
discuss some of the considerations that are needed, using the language of the resource based view or
transaction costs economics. Based on their 17 years of research, Willcocks et al additionally indicate
which contractual arrangements and management practices are appropriate under which circumstances.
Hirschheim and George have an intriguing parallel with the contributions of both Boland and Gal et al in
the designing information and organizations section. One wonders how sophisticated ICT based
outsourcing relationship management tools can provide new contracting opportunities which alter
organizational arrangements in outsourcing relationships, as Boland’s and Gal et al discuss for the
construction industry. In this case, Bryant’s question could be reframed as follows: “Given this
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8. technology, what could be the nature of our outsourcing arrangements?” The second theme, the sharing of
information in use contexts with that of production contexts, is important in any discussion of sourcing
relationships as well. In sourcing relationships, information managers, now being part of the use context,
need to share their information with ICT service suppliers, in that way enabling these ICT service
suppliers to make sense of how technology is used in their company. Cumps et al describe this need to
share information between the outsourcing organization and the technology service providers. They
demonstrate how information management could be organized to increase the likelihood that outsourcing
becomes a success for two typical outsourcing situations,
Conclusion and outlook
Information management means that superior information use rather than sophisticated data production is
recognized as the predominant source for increasing the value information management adds to the
business. Consequently, information management needs to focus on information and communication
processes, within organizations, between organizations in supply chains, with customers, in professional
communities and in social networks. It further acknowledges that information and communication
processes could be enabled or limited by (infra)structural arrangements, which implies that information
management must assume responsibility for this topic as well. Having knowledge of ICT is not sufficient
anymore, but it is still indispensable because technology, identity and strategy are so tightly interwoven.
Information management deals with questions such as:
- given this technology; what is the nature of our enterprise or of myself?;
- given this technological design how could we design relationships between
organizations?;
- how does my company or this group of citizens share information between our use
contexts and our production contexts?;
- how to design systems, infrastructures or service concepts that provide enough flexibility
to anticipate unknown future usage?;
- how could we share information about use contexts with our ICT provider’s production
contexts and how do we govern sourcing relationships?
These issues and questions set the scene for information management for the coming years. We need a
language that is bound to these issues and questions, not one that is linked to the management of ICT.
With such a language we can build a new identity.
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9. What is interesting about these issues and questions is that many of these are familiar among many
departments and even organizations, indicating that information management is a shared responsibility of
many (line) managers in similar ways as HRM, financial management or marketing. Those who have job
titles such as CIO, Information Officer or information manager should anticipate being responsible for
areas that are beyond their direct control and that of their teams or departments. This responsibility is far
reaching, and impacts a variety of stakeholders including citizens, clients, employees, shareholders, the
Board, technology providers, governing institutions, the environment/ecology or society at large on a
wide range of issues such as privacy, business continuity, (inter-organizational) infrastructure,
sustainability, projects and programs, budgets, ethical and legal issues, technology assessment,
governance, quality and conformance. We should expect that subsequent volumes in this series will take a
close look at several of these responsibilities, against the background of the scene set in this volume.
Justification and references
This volume has been edited in close co-operation with the Editorial Board of the book series Perspective
on Information Management. To set the scene according to ideas shared by the Editorial Board, all Board
members contributed chapters to this volume and all sections have been coordinated by Editorial Board
members. The introductions to each chapter have been written by one of the coordinators. The
coordinators were:
Section one, the CIO before ICT: Tony Bryant.
Section two, rising above objectivism and subjectivism: Ard Huizing.
Section three, ICT, strategy and identity: Lucas Introna.
Section four, ICT (out)sourcing: Guido Dedene and Rudy Hirschheim.
Section five, customer oriented innovation: Erik de Vries.
Section six, designing information and organizations: Michel Avital and Kalle Lyytinen.
From the early start, the Editorial Board took a Kantian approach to this volume, as is also taken in the
chapter of Hovorka and Germonprez to which we refer for further explanation. Our idea was to approach
the topic of the identity of information management from different angles and disciplines to come to an
overall picture consisting of some core issues and intriguing questions. Contributions to this volume have
been made from disciplines which information management traditionally builds on such as information
systems, computer science, information science/library science, economics and management, but also
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10. from less adjacent disciplines such as philosophy, sociology, anthropology, history, technology studies,
architecture and design, and even music. Part of this approach has been to involve CIO's of international
companies and governmental organizations in the development of the ideas. First ideas on this volume
have been discussed with 20 CIO’s from several large European companies and governmental
organizations, out of which several of the topics discussed in this volume emerged. We intend to continue
this close cooperation with practice for future book volumes.
The sections are self contained and can be read independently. We used two chapter formats: full papers
and short papers. Short papers were meant to be cases, illustrations or positioning papers. As a result, the
nature of the chapters differs. Some provide overviews (like the ones of Maes, Huizing, Hirschheim and
George, or Willcocks et al.). Other chapters are built on cases (like Brigham and Introna, de Vries,
Dedene and Heene or Gal et al). Black and Brunt are typical historical studies. Hovorka and Germonprez
base design principles on a literature study. Introna’s chapter on becoming technological has a
contemplative character and Avital’s chapter is a typical positioning paper. When it comes to
methodology, we have deliberately chosen not to include extended methodological paragraphs in the
chapters to keep the book accessible to practitioners. In some chapters some methodological specifics are
outlined in appendices. As the topic is approached from different angles, methodology is pluralistic as
well, ranging from analytical research to archival research, qualitative methods (mainly case studies) and
quantitative research.
All works of others referred to in this chapter are works contained in this volume and can be found in the
contents of this volume, except for:
Beer, S. (1981). The Brain of the Firm: Managerial Cybernetics of Organization; Allen Lane.
Carr, N.G. (2003). IT doesn't matter, Harvard Business Review, 81 (5), 41-49.
Ciborra, C.U. (1993). Teams, Markets and Systems, Business Innovation and Information Technology.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hippel, E. von, (2005). Democratizing Innovation. Cambridge, Massachusettes: MIT Press.
Wigand, R., Picot, A. and Reichwald, R. (1997). Information, Organization and Management, Expanding
Markets and Corporate Boundaries. West Sussex, England: John Wiley & Sons.
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