Information Landscapes: Black Boxes and Black HolesBlurring of boundaries"! Blended usage – blending of professional and personal worlds. Less control over processes and potential

© 2013 IWVI, Chair of Enterprise Information Management | 1 Prof. Dr. Susan P. Williams

Information Landscapes: ��Black Boxes and Black Holes��Seminar: School of Information Studies, Charles Sturt University��Date: March 26th 2013��

Prof. Dr. Susan P. Williams

Universität Koblenz-Landau ��Institute for Information Systems Research ��Professor of Enterprise Information Management��http://eim.uni-koblenz.de


Agenda

n SW: background and research influences

n EIM Research Programme: n Developing an Enterprise Information Management Capability

n Overview of the programme and current studies

n Information Landscapes n  theorisation of (business) information as a landscape continuously in the

process of becoming


Major influences

DISCIPLINARY INFLUENCES

EPISTEMOLOGICAL & PHILOSOPHICAL INFLUENCES

SOCIAL INFORMATICS/ INFORMATION SOCIETY • Kling • Castells

SOCIO-TECHNICAL SYSTEMS/ DESIGN • Mumford • Trist & Emery, • Tavistock Institute • Checkland • Greenbaum & Kyng

INFORMATION DESIGN & DESIGN IN CONTEXT • Alexander • Gibson • Kyng & Mathiassen • Greenbaum & Kyng • Beyer & Holtzblatt

SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIONISM & ACTION RESEARCH • Lewin • Reason • Vygotsky • Carr & Kemmis

THE LIVED EXPERIENCE • Dewey • Schutz • de Beauvoir • Merleau-Ponty • de Certeau

SITUATED ACTION • Lave & Wenger • Suchman • Hutchins • Taylor

LEARNING • Schön • Kolb • Freire • Stenhouse • Brookfield

INFORMATION MANAGEMENT • Buckland • Briet • Choo • Ciborra • Walsham

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY STUDIES • Bijker • Law • Latour

SPACE, PLACE, URBAN • Massey • Lefebvre • Thrift • Bachelard • Jacobs • Wylie



Research Programme:��

Developing an Enterprise Information Management Capability

Joint Research Programme with Dr Catherine Hardy, University of Sydney


EIM Capability Research Programme Aims

To:

n  investigate and understand the challenges that arise as organisations seek to gain business value from digital information (performance) within the constraints of increasingly complex legal requirements (conformance)

n  examine the nature and expression of information work in enterprises and

n  assist organisations to achieve their performance and conformance objectives (develop an EIM capability)

n  develop methods and tools to assist organisations achieve their performance and conformance objectives.

(specific attention to new forms and formats of business information)


EIM is not a new phenomenon

Origins in/extension of Information Resource Management (1980s)

(IRM) A philosophical and practical approach to managing government information. Information is regarded as a valuable resource which should be managed like other resources, and should contribute directly to accomplishing organisational goals and objectives. IRM provides an integrated view for managing the entire life-cycle of information, from generation, to dissemination, to archiving and/or destruction, for maximising the overall usefulness. (cf. Blass et al, 1991).


Enterprise Information Management

“Enterprise information management (EIM) is an integrative discipline for structuring, describing and governing information assets, regardless of organizational and technological boundaries, to improve operational efficiency, promote transparency and enable business insight”. (Newman & Logan, 2006).

Questions:

What happened to IRM?

How can organisations achieve an EIM capability?


EIM imperatives

GROWING VOLUMES OF INFORMATION

IMPROVING INFORMATION USE:

DERIVING VALUE FROM INFORMATION

INCREASED INFORMATION RISKS

INCREASINGLY COMPLEX LEGAL & COMPLIANCE

LANDSCAPE

ENTERPRISE INFORMATION MANAGEMENT IMPERATIVES

(cf. Fowell, 2001, Hardy & Williams, 2010, Williams & Hardy 2011)


Performance – conformance agenda



IMPROVING INFORMATION USE:

DERIVING VALUE FROM INFORMATION

INCREASED INFORMATION RISKS

INCREASINGLY COMPLEX LEGAL & COMPLIANCE

LANDSCAPE

PERFORMANCE to manage information

assets effectively so as to generate business value

CONFORMANCE to manage information risks & meet multiple, changing

compliance requirements



INFORMATION MANAGEMENT LIFECYCLE



INCREASED INFORMATION

RISKS INCREASINGLY

COMPLEX LEGAL & COMPLIANCE

PERFORMANCE to manage information assets effectively so as to generate business

value

CONFORMANCE to manage information risks & meet multiple, changing compliance

requirements

create/capture organise search/

retrieve use/

reuse evaluate retain/destroy

Across the whole information lifecycle



Evolution of EIM Capability Research

n Programme of action research

n Programme comprises a series of interlinked studies that build and elaborate on each other

n Practitioner engagement in the research through focus groups, interviews, case studies and surveys


Phase 3 Phase 2 Phase 1

Research studies

S1. EIM Issues and Challenges

Pilot survey

Hardy & Williams (2010)

S3. Information Professional

In-depth interviews


S6. E2.0 Research themes

Literature analysis Williams et al (2013)

S2. E2.0 Risks & Challenges

Focus groups


S4. EIM/E2.0 case studies

Case studies (ongoing …)

Schubert & Williams (2011,2012)

S5. EIM Capability

Online survey


S1: EIM Issues & Challenges Study of practitioners revealed:

n Organisations struggling to achieve an EIM capability

n  Multiple stakeholders/stewardship problems

n  Need to give EIM greater visibility

n  View EIM as a key business process

n  Performance-conformance challenges

n  Compliance challenges (new legislation, e-discovery )

n  Governance, risk and compliance: need for strategies, tools and methodologies.

n New technologies and applications bringing new challenges (e.g. E2.0 and new collaborative technologies) Difficulties embedding them in existing information practices (S2)

n Uncertainty around responsibilities & role of information specialist (S3)

authors

Dr Catherine Hardy Discipline of Business Information Systems, The University of Sydney, Australia E-Mail: [email protected]

Professor Susan Williams Institute for Information Systems Research, The University of Koblenz-Landau, Germany E-Mail: [email protected]

2010

DEVELOPING AN

INFORMATION

CAPABILITY

August 2010

DEVELOPING

PRACTIONER SURVEY

& FOCUS GROUP

FINDINGS

[Hardy & Williams, 2010]


S2: E2.0 Risks & challenges Aim To identify key issues that organisations are facing in regards to Enterprise 2.0/new technologies projects, specifically in regard to information management.

Research design

n  Focus group/interviews - participants all have key responsibilities for information management in their organisations in roles including records managers, enterprise architects, business analysts and project managers.

n  Represented federal, state and local government agencies, media groups and technology vendors.

n  Focus group length (c.3 hours) transcribed and coded using content analysis two cycles of topic and axial coding ��(Miles & Huberman, 1994, Saldaña 2009)


CODE CODE DESCRIPTOR

DEF-E2 Defining Enterprise 2.0

DEFE2-MM

DEFE2-MT

Multiple meanings

Multiple technologies

BOUND Blurring of boundaries

BOUND-BU Blended usage

BOUND-CC Co-mingling of content

DYNINF Dynamic changing information

DYNINF-REQ Determining requirements for information capture

DYNINF-ICAPT Capturing information from an E2.0 environment

RETPRES Retention and preservation

RETPRES-MM Multiple meanings and misunderstandings

RETPRES-AS Archives and storage

RETPRES-eD eDiscovery

MULTIMAND Multiple and conflicting mandates

SECPRIV Security and privacy of information

SECPRIV-MD Mobile devices and distributed information

SECPRIV-3RD Third party providers

IMSUPPT Support for E2.0 information management

IMITCOLL Collaboration between IT and IM professionals

INFGOV Information governance

S2: E2.0 Risks & challenges – Theme table


Requirement for greater guidance regarding usage policies and the extension of mandatory records and information compliance practices

to the newer devices and services

Blurring of boundaries

n Blended usage – blending of professional and personal worlds. Less control over processes and potential for decision processes to be unrecorded in the systems of the organisation

n Co-mingling of content – personal and business information residing on, for example, mobile devices

n Perception that the focus was on the affordances of the technology and not on the management of the information being generated

Susan P. Williams 17


Requirement to improve information capture and classification of information types

Dynamic changing information

n Determining requirements for information capture n Determining what constitutes critical business information and determining

how it should be managed

n Capturing information from an E2.0 environment n  There is a need to preserve (some) information arising from E2.0 projects.

n Major concerns about capturing information from an environment that is active and collaborative

n  Further concerns about externally hosted or generated information and the degree of control or responsibility for that information


Retention and preservation n Multiple meanings and misunderstandings

n  Users unaware of need to retain or of retention schedules. n  Establishing what is a record and what is not n  Problems of over retaining

n Archiving and storage n  Developing (or extending) archiving strategies to new types and sources of

information

n eDiscovery n  Over retaining information not just an issue for storage but for future litigation

discovery liability n  Digital preservation for future access (not just an eD matter)

Susan P. Williams

Requirement to improve archiving practices and to address over-retention problem


Multiple and conflicting mandates

n Conflicting retention mandates and schedules

n Privacy laws and personally identifiable information

n Openness reduces the possibility of practical obscurity

n Capture and use of information arising from social media (potential litigation hazards – privacy, data protection, intellectual property and disclosure laws)

n Industry specific regulations – e.g. financial industry requirements (cf. FINRA release 2010)

Requirement to map information risks and information compliance requirements to inform policy development


Information governance

getting the policies, practices and technologies implemented effectively across the whole organisation

n Well defined governance policies and processes for organisational records much less guidance for other information

n Decision and authority often left to departments

n Need for greater guidance on appropriate policies and practices for E2.0 technologies

Requirement to develop better information governance processes and practices.

Urgent need for better information audit methods and tools


Summary

Challenges/problems relate to: n Technologies and how to make effective use of them to both create

information and to control and manage information.

n Digital information itself – design and management over its entire lifecycle

n Usage of information – ensuring information is available for use AND compliant AND that policies are enacted/enforced.

n Organisational level – governance of information, information strategies and policies.

n Perceived fragmentation of roles, policies, systems and processes


This led us to look further at information work

“Life at work is a staple in our conversation, but we rarely talk about what we really do in the doing of the job. This omission extends to the professional literature on work: ... these writings do not focus on what is actually done in accomplishing a given job.”

n Julian Orr, Talking About Machines (1996:1)


S3: Professional identities of information managers

n Aim to examine the varying ways that information managers are interpreting their roles in changing information landscapes and the impact on their professional identity, using the concept of intersectionality.

n Serving two objectives n we build upon theory and practice in terms of the professional identities of

information managers, which to date has received limited attention notwithstanding the increasing attention being given to the “information management leader” (Lapkin 2011).

n we explore the concept of intersectionality and how it invokes an integrated approach in understanding the complexity of social identities and inequalities (Bilge 2010).


Research imperative: Practice & theory n  Enterprise information management (EIM) initiatives are critical – not a “discretionary

business function” n  Need for to create “specific roles around information management and governance” (eg.

Gartner – Lapkin et al. 2011) n  Recasting the role of information managers (IM) as strategic (Abell et al. 2011) and EIM

leaders (eg. Lapkin et al. 2011)

n Uncertainty about how these roles are being interpreted by information managers, and impact upon professional identity.

n  Identity has been examined in IS Research n  Walsham (1998)

n  defined professional identity as “the way in which groups and individuals within those groups, see and describe themselves in relation to their work and the work of others”

n  investigated changing identities of professional groups relating to the use of IT n  Gal and Kjaergaards (2009)

n  comprehensive review and characterisation of identity concept: limited attention in the IS field relative to management and organisational fields of research

n  need to broaden the scope of identity theory in IS research


Intersectionality research

n Intersectionality is a methodology of studying "the relationships among multiple dimensions and modalities of social relationships and subject formations" (McCall 2005)

n Prominence in feminist studies, race and ethnicity studies, study of later life

n We broadly follow a constructionist approach, concerned with the identity formation process on multiple levels n  Rather than using predetermined categories to determine meanings of identity

such as gender, racism, etc. (Prins 2006)

n Used primarily as an analytical tool based on the four level analysis framework of Anthias (1998).


Analytical framework

Experiential “focuses on the experiences of persons (within specific locatable contexts, say … in the work place …) of being defined as different, identifying as a particular category”

Intersubjective “arises from the level of intersubjective relations: the actions and practices that take place in relation to others (including non-person actors such as …the social security system …)”

Organisational “focuses on the institutional and other organisational ways in which the ontological spaces are played out: for eg, … educational systems, political and legal systems…, systems of policing and surveillance. For example, how is sexuality … or population categories organised within institutional frameworks and in terms of the allocation of resources?”

Representational “What are the symbolic and representational means, the images and texts, the documents and information flows around the ontological spaces?”


Theme 1

n Routes to information management: origins, mobility and lifelong learning n  “I started my career working in public housing and … policy … and moved into a

range of different roles including executive support type roles … I got involved in a more technical sort of space when IT outsourcing was all the rage … from there got involved in policy initiatives to put government information services online and it just sort of evolved.” [Victoria]


Theme 2

n Importance of dual and multiple identifications: advisor, change agent, project manager at strategic and operational levels n  projects emerged as a site of identity mainly by default in terms of the

implementation of electronic document and records management (EDRM) systems.

n  For some participants ‘projects’ were a way of positioning their professional activities to access resources and for enhancing their identity.

n  For others, it changed other business unit conceptions of their work and hence their identity because of the symbolic constructions that surrounded a ‘technology’ implementation


Theme 3

n The ambiguities of (dis)identifying with information and technology n  not enough to claim the identity of an information manager, it also had to be

ascribed by others and in particular senior management.

n  implementing EDRM systems appeared to be identity enhancing for some, for others the technology became a representational form of their identity

n  information managers may experience a kind of “intersectional invisibility”- people with multiple subordinate-group identities who “do not fit the prototypes of their respective identity groups” (Purdie-Vaughns and Eibach 2008) such as librarians, records managers and IT managers in the context of IM.


Theme 4

n The precarious nature of belonging and processes of positioning: professional associations and localities of IM n  “… being a librarian in the RMAA was like being poison. They didn't like

librarians … It's not so much of it now as there's more convergence now from different professions…” [Therese]

n Study highlights the need to focus further attention on the professional identities of information managers and provides insights into the use of the intersectionality perspective for progressing the study of identity in IS research


Other studies underway

n Case studies – in-depth accounts of EIM and E2.0

n in-depth online survey of EIM – to identify organisational arrangements, technology, compliance frameworks and the information professional

n E2.0 literature analysis – examines the key themes in the scholarly and practitioner literatures (use-for/use-in, adoption/use/impact/other)

n Information roles and responsibilities

n Social business information and information management: processes and practices


Black Boxes and Black Holes


Recurrent findings in our research ……

n enterprise information management and the management of information as an asset is consistently presented as being important

n however …. n  the business processes and practices around EIM … n  the roles and responsibilities for business information …. n  and the very information itself ….

n  are often opaque/invisible

n  information/information management frequently taken for granted and black-boxed

n  intersectional invisibility of the information professional and fragmentation of information work

n  information environment continually undergoing change


Where did information go?

n Quick survey of Business Information Systems textbooks showed limited engagement with the information itself, revealing:

n  information positioned as other n  information ≠ data, knowledge, wisdom

data given meaning … data processed for a purpose … data that have been interpreted and understood by the recipient … etc.

n  information has qualities ={integrity, authenticity, reliability, timeliness, ……}

n  Limited (if any) reference to document management, records management, information lifecycle, organisation of information, information governance …or the literatures and research and practice around these topics.

n Continued need to examine and theorise the information itself


Information Landscapes Research

n against this background of the black-boxing of information and information work there is a need to examine and theorise the information landscape.

n the information landscape is a metaphor and a vehicle for thinking about the way that information is shaped and made visible


Information Landscapes Research

n theorisation of (business) information as a landscape continuously in the process of becoming (a concept of infomorphology)

n examination of the production and shaping of information n who represents what, on behalf of whom?

n what information/things gain visibility and representation? what is marginalised?

n we now have an opportunity with social business content to investigate and follow a new form of information

n to ask what is is made (or becomes) visibile, what remains hidden/muffled, what is the trajectory or process by which this happens


What gains visibility?

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© 2013 IWVI, Chair of Enterprise Information Management | 39 Prof. Dr. Susan P. Williams 39









1880 1890 1900 1910 1920 1930 1940 1950 1960


1880 1890 1900 1910 1920 1930 1940 1950 1960


more than the information

n  previous two examples are largely focused on the representational aspects of information (abstractions, organisations, texts etc)

n  I argue what may is required to fully understand the nature of information and information work in organisations is a more relational view of the information landscape

n Massey (2004:5) argues for ‘thinking space relationally’ viewing it as ‘a product of practices, trajectories, interrelations’

n Wylie (2007) expands on this “Rather than relations and connections being forged in an already-given space, relations are being viewed as creative of spaces (as the quote above from Massey implies). That is, relations do not occur in space, they make spaces – relational spaces, and the geography of the world is comprised of these”.

n  The relational view is of a world-always-in-the-making n  this stance raises the interesting questions about what shapes the production of

information space and who is involved (both human and non-human agents) in the relational network of practices, trajectories and interrelations


Theoretical stance

n (post) phenomenological and constructivist n draws from ideas in cultural geography and science and technology

studies (STS) to examine the everyday experience of information in use

n places information within the heterogeneous network of actors and influences within (and beyond) the organisation

n applies more-than-representational theoretical and analytical lenses to understanding the process of production of the information landscape itself

n aim to examine how information is being shaped (and is shaping) organisations over time


the methodological challenge

n  for the social business content we have an opportunity to examine the way a ‘new’ information form becomes embedded (or not) in the (business) information landscape

n Question: what methods do we use to examine the information landscape that captures the everydayness of information and its spaces of production

n that begins to reveal both the human and non-human agents in the relational network of practices, trajectories and interrelations

n what is made visible at certain points in time, and why?

n case studies (longitudinal and in-depth)

n ethnomethodologies. ethnographies, participant accounts, observation …

n ??????


References n  Abell, A., Davies, J. and J. Hordle. (2011). Connecting information with innovation, TFPL’s survey of skills and roles. Retrieved 3

November 2011 from http://www.tfpl.com/resources/index.cfm n  Anthias, F. (1998). Rethinking social divisions: some notes towards a theoretical framework. The Sociological Review, 46(3),

506-535. n  Bilge, S. (2010). Recent Feminist Outlooks on Intersectionality. Diogenes, 225, 58-72. n  Blass, G. et al. "Finding Government Information: The Federal Information Locator System (FILS)", Government Information

Quarterly, 8(1), 11-32. n  Fowell, S.P. (2001) Designing for enterprise use: a response to the changing information environment. New Review of Information

and Library Research, 7, 93-109. n  Gal, U. and A. Kjaergaard. (2009). Identity in Organizations: A Review of Information Systems Research. In Proceedings of the 17th

European Conference on Information Systems, (Newell S, Whitley EA, Pouloudi N, Wareham J, Mathiassen L eds.), Verona, Italy. n  Hardy, C.A. and Williams S.P. (2010) ‘Managing information risks and protecting information assets in a Web 2.0 era’ Proceedings

of the 23rd Bled eConference (eTrust: Implications for the individual, enterprises and society), Bled, Slovenia, June 2010. n  Hardy, C.A. and Williams, S.P. (2012) Thinking about identities of information professionals: exploring the concept of

intersectionality. European Conference on Information Systems (ECIS) 2012, Barcelona, Spain. n  Lapkin, A., Friedman, T. and D. Logan. (2011). Key Issues for Enterprise Information Management, 2011. Gartner Research ID

G00210066. n  Massey, D. (2004) ‘Geographies of responsibility’, Geografiska Annaler B 86: 5–18. n  McCall, L. (2005) "The Complexity of Intersectionality." Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 30(3), pp. 1771–1800. n  Orr, Julian E. (1996) Talking about machines: An ethnography of a modern job. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press.


References n  Miles, MB & Huberman, AM (1994): Qualitative Data Analysis – An Expanded Sourcebook, Thousand Oaks et al.:

Sage Publications, 2nd ed. n  Newman, D. and Logan, D (2006) Gartner Definition Clarifies the Role of Enterprise Information Management,

Gartner Research Report ID Number: G00143330 n  Prins, B. (2006). Narrative Accounts of Origins: A Blind Spot in the Intersectional Approach? European Journal of

Women’s Studies, 13(3), 277-290. n  Purdie-Vaughns, V. and R.P. Eibach. (2008). Intersectional Invisibility: The Distinctive Advantages and

Disadvantages of Multiple Subordinate-Group Identities. Sex Roles, 59, 377-391. n  Saldaña, J. (2009). The Coding Manual for Qualitative Researchers. London: SAGE. n  Schubert, P. and Williams, S.P. (2012) Implementation of Collaborative Software in Enterprises: A Thematic

Analysis. it - Information Technology. 54 (2012) 5, 212-219. n  Walsham, G. (1998). IT and Changing Professional Identity: Micro-Studies and Macro-Theory. Journal of The

American Society for Information Science, 49(12), 1081-1089. n  Williams, S. P and Schubert, P. (2011): An Empirical Study of Enterprise 2.0 in Context. Proceedings of the 24th

International Bled eConference, Bled, Slovenia, June 12-15, 2011. n  Williams S.P. and Hardy, C.A. (2011) Information Management Issues and Challenges in an Enterprise 2.0 Era:

Imperatives for Action. ’ Proceedings of the 24th Bled eConference (eFuture: Creating Solutions for the Individual, Organisations and Society) Bled, Slovenia, June 2011.

n  Wylie, J.W. (2007). Landscape London: Routledge.

Documents

Information Landscapes: Black Boxes and Black HolesBlurring of boundaries"! Blended usage – blending of professional and personal worlds. Less control over processes and potential