Information flows – Or does it? The complexity of enterprise information management

Abstract

Although there has been a degree of acceptance that information is a core business asset almost no research has been carried out into the factors that affect the way that information flows around the enterprise as employees at all levels seek to make use of it to complete tasks and make decisions. These decisions can have a significant impact on business performance and on the career development of employees. The challenge lies in finding ways to track the flow of information, especially where workarounds have been developed by employees to overcome their frustration with ‘approved’ processes. Over the last few years computational ethnography, initially applied to assessing issues relating to culture and communication. is becoming increasing widely used to track the flow of documents. In the wake of Covid19 organisations are going to have to operate in a rapidly changing business environment. Unless the flow of information is better understood short-term changes may be implemented which turn out to be of limited benefit or even undermine the rate of achievement of new business objectives.