Information Management

An Informing Approach

Fons Wijnhoven

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2009
• Print ISBN: 9780415552141
• eBook ISBN: 9781135266431
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Information Management
• Index: Business

Information and its management is central to modern society. Organizations – private and public, national and international – have recognized that information is a key resource and that its management is critical for success.

Existing books on information management focus on the abilities of computers to process data, the development of information systems, and the management of IT resources. They often start with the computer as a key issue. Although Information Management acknowledges the importance of computers and data communication, it starts from a deeper understanding of the concepts of information and knowledge, and on the basis of this understanding, derives methods to use computers effectively. This textbook provides graduates of any discipline with an understanding of the theory and practice that underpins information management, and introduces students to the concepts and applications of information management techniques in a variety of organizational contexts.

In giving students strong philosophical foundations, Fons Wijnhoven's book will prove to be an excellent primer in information management.

1 Introduction

Motivation and core idea

Information is any representation of our physical or imaginary world which people need to understand the world for problem solving and decision making. It is true that also animals, plants, and even physical systems use information, but we leave these types of information to the respective disciplines of biology, medicine, physics, or other related disciplines (for an interesting broader discussion of the concept of information see, for example, Stamper, 1973). Focal in our view is the human being as an intelligent being with high cognitive capabilities (like analysis, theorizing, and debating). In the context of the human use of representations a number of conceptual complications exist regarding my statement about information and representation. For example, two difficulties are:

1. What is the relation between a representation and its informative content?
2. How can information contribute to the capabilities of people to improve their situation?

The concept of information is often equated with data, and even more specifically to electronic data stored in databases or distributed via a data communication facility. The fact that much of the data we can get out of databases or via the Internet is actually incorrect, and even misinformation, points us to the need to be more careful here. Three reasons for being cautious are discussed below.

First of all, electronic media are not the only carriers of data as we may also have data in the form of signs (like written data, paintings, and pictures) and speech (also named verbal data) but indeed electronic media have an unprecedented level of efficiency. The reason for this efficiency is the extremely high commonality of electronic data and electronic data processing equipment, which are able to codify all data as binary units, i.e. + or – on magnetic data storage devices and 1 or 0 in code processing entities (Jonscher, 1994). The ASCII table is an example of such a coding of the alphabet which is shared by nearly all computers. There is no industry which has this level of commonality, and consequently the costs of data processing have been immensely reduced in the last decades, resulting in firms which have a global presence and a potential customer base of several 100 millions. At the same time, data processing serves the needs of nearly all individuals and organizations. Information is a key resource for strategic and operational processes in organizations, and data-carrying and processing machines are able to hugely reduce information collection, storage, manipulation, and distribution costs. In fact, the marginal reproduction and distribution costs of information-carrying data are nearly zero (Shapiro and Varian, 1999). The real costs, though, are the creation of the first copy. Information processing also has developed as a huge business in modern times. For instance, the IT consulting industry is estimated to be worth around 300 billion US dollars in 2007,¹ software firm Microsoft’s shares were worth 325 billion dollars,² and IT service provider CISCO had a stock value of almost 152 billion US dollars on April 28, 2008.³

Second, the concept of “data” is quite complex and at least four types can be identified (Floridi, 2005):

1. Primary data are the principal data stored in a database and which an information system can deliver to a user.
2. Metadata enable a database management system to fulfill its tasks by describing essential properties of the primary data, like its origin, format, availability, and copyrights.
3. Operational data are data regarding the usage of the primary data, which may help the owners of information services, like online newspapers, to improve and customize their data to user needs or making the data more easily accessible.
4. Derivative data are data that can be created on basis of the first three types. For instance, stock exchange systems can deliver statistical data and statistical analysis. The primary data of a stock exchange consists of data on the price of stocks of different companies and the people who have offered and bought them on a certain day. The metadata of a stock exchange database may consist of availability rights of these data. For example, traders may have online access to the data and access to a system to offer and buy stocks. The general public may only have the right to see that database after a certain time has passed and may have access to the general statistics of a day. The managers of the stock exchange system need information on its performance to guarantee the quality of access for its subscribers and potentially interfere when certain transaction volumes seem to become alarming. Stock exchange analysts may be interested in derivative data products that analyze the performance of their buying and sales policies, so that they advise on certain tactics in selling and buying of stocks.

Third, the actual contribution of data to understanding of the real world is complex. We can, for instance, easily calculate the number of data available on our hard disk by seeing how many kilo-, mega-, or gigabytes are occupied by our documents, but this does not say much about our understanding of the world. Sometimes even less is better. Our example above of the stock exchange also pointed to the need of doing something with data to be able to make wise decisions by creating derivative data. So the key point with information management is not just data management, because data are carriers and not the informing content itself. But what is informative content? Floridi (2005 and 2007) mentions at least two criteria for data to be informative, and we can add a third one to the list below:

1. The data must be meaningful, i.e. people should be able to understand the message in the language they use. This seems to be an obvious criterion but many data in information systems may be incorrectly understood. Examples here are personnel information systems, where sometimes the number of people contracted are taken as the number of employees. But many contracted people may not have an employee contract and are hired, for example, via their consulting firm to help in a project. This problem of matching the meanings of users and information systems is named information semantics and is a key prerequisite for any successful information system.
2. The data must be true. Indeed, incorrect data do not help understanding the world, and in fact complicates the realization of understandings. Sometimes incorrect information is the result of unintentional behavior (named misinformation), but sometimes information is also intentionally incorrect to confuse the competition (named disinformation).
3. The data must be relevant for decision making and problem solving, which is also named the pragmatic function of information (Guetzkow, 1965). Having much meaningful and true information does not always mean that this information is relevant for the specific needs and context of its owner. In fact, sometimes too much meaningful and true information may result in information overload, which implies that the receiver of this information is not able to see the wood for the trees (Landau, 1969).

These considerations of the relation between data and information have been discussed in the philosophy of knowledge (epistemology) intensively, because they have been fundamental to management and administration since mankind began, as is manifest from, for example, the role of writing in the ancient Chinese administration and the role of documentation in pyramid building in ancient Egypt (George, 1972). Five fundamental paradigms of the nature of human information have developed and been codified by epistemological (knowledge theory) traditions. These paradigms are:

1. Empiricism (based on the philosophy of Locke), which is a theory of knowledge emphasizing the role of experience, especially sensory perception, in the formation of ideas, while discounting the notion of innate ideas.
2. Rationalism (Leibniz), which is any view appealing to reason as a source of knowledge or justification. In more technical terms it is a method or theory in which the criterion of truth is not sensory but intellectual and deductive.
3. Kantianism. Kant’s main issue is the need of different perspectives that have to be taken to realize a complete picture of a phenomenon. This requires ways of integrating and consolidating sometimes conflicting perspectives.
4. Hegelian dialectics. In classical philosophy, dialectic logic is an exchange of propositions (theses) and counter-propositions (antitheses) resulting in a synthesis of the opposing assertions, or at least a qualitative transformation in the direction of the dialogue. In fact, dialectic logic had been introduced by Kant before as a way of consolidating different perspectives. Theses and antitheses, though, are carried by different people, who may have antagonistic interests, which is a key issue in Hegelian epistemology (Mason and Mitroff, 1973: 481). Consequently, informing becomes part of the political and competitive scene.
5. Singerian pragmatism, which is an epistemology and ethical theory stating that the value of knowledge should be expressed in terms of how the knowledge improves the human condition and, although people have to strive for truth, they will never reach the ultimate truth and human progress itself is even more important than truth itself.

These philosophies have not only inspired philosophers but are at the core of modern thinking about information and the use of computers and the Internet to support information management. This book provides the reader with key lessons of these philosophies and their implications for modern ways of information management. Information management is here understood as any purposeful individual and/or organizational activity by which information is handled. This statement is a bit vague and abstract, but the reader will recognize the usefulness of these philosophies for making information management a job of everyday life, by learning to model reality in the perspectives of these philosophies and making concrete use of computers to help them make sense of data and reality.

We may summarize the key statements of these philosophers about information as follows. According to Locke, information is a fact; according to Leibniz, real information is incorporated in the models by which we understand the reality. Following Kant there are many competing ways of looking at reality, sometimes resulting in useful complementary insights, and Hegel would probably regard information as a means for people with different views of reality to support their interests. The Lockean and Leibnizian models emphasize the need for objective information, whereas the Kantian view emphasizes the subjectivity of information. The Hegelian view emphasizes the action dimension of information, and the Singerian view emphasizes progress. These statements have substantial consequences for organizational processes (like decision making), knowledge creation, and the type of information systems which may be supportive to information management in organizations. See Table 1.1 for a summary of these views.

Note that, in the context of this book, we aim at a more detailed and fundamental understanding of the concept of information than is mostly common in the information systems field. In the information systems field, information is often equaled with knowledge derived from data, processed data, or data presented in a meaningful context (e.g. Kroenke, 2008: 24). This would imply that knowledge is “something” produced from data, but, for example, the Leibnizian approach would state that knowledge can be derived directly from good human thinking, so (nearly) no data processing is needed. Also, data can have a value by themselves, as stated by Locke, and sometimes data are intentionally used (i.e. they have a pragmatic purpose) for influencing the world (Hegel). This book, therefore, prefers more fundamental insights created by philosophical traditions. A more intuitive approach to the notion of information would not cover the potential information has as a social phenomenon for human problem solving and organizations.

Also note that I use the concept of information system in a more restricted sense than is common by many information scientists. It is frequently stated that an information system is “a group of components that interact to produce information” (Kroenke, 2008: 6). While identifying these components, they mention at least five: hardware, software, data, procedures, and people. I find this definition problematic, because it nearly includes everything of what we would call an organization, and thus has insufficient focus. I therefore restrict the notion of information systems to software and databases used for informing. Hardware is part of the information management infrastructure, and people and procedures are important parts of the strategic and organizational application domain (also see Chapter 6). This division of aspects related to informing and information systems is absolutely important for the division of labor and expertise in these fields. One cannot expect computer scientists to be able to solve problems in the organizational domain, although they may contribute from their expertise. The same applies for human relations experts and computer science problems.

Figure 1.1 summarizes this introductory discussion of data, information, and knowledge.

Approach and objectives

This book aims to provide a full understanding of information management. With full understanding we follow David Kolb’s statements that knowledge can have two basic dimensions (abstract versus concrete, and reflection versus experimentation), and that learning is a process of progressive cycles between these (Kolb, 1984). Following this, we aim for:

1. Abstract understanding: this implies that some basic terminology is explained. This will be done by explaining the different perspectives on the notion of information and informing in each chapter, beginning with a discussion of the main philosophical concepts and their implications for ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Figures
• Tables
• Foreword
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• 1 Introduction
• 2 The Lockean view and databases
• 3 The Leibnizian view and decision models
• 4 The Kantian view and multiple perspectives
• 5 The Hegelian view and information politics
• 6 Information management in organizations
• 7 The Singerian view and information management research
• Notes
• References