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Information Management
Preprint · October 2022
DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.26374.45122
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Information Management
With the argument that society needs to have certain products and/or services, the
constituted powers create public bodies that will be properly structured to act in a
certain field of activity, such as education, security, health, social welfare, etc. In this
way, they provide products and/or services directly to the population, which pays for
them through the collection of taxes.
With the emergence of mixed-capital companies providing IT services, it is no different
from other public bodies, as they are entities created from the interests of the
members of a Government and aim, in principle, to design a business model that
encourages scientific and technological development within the scope of Public
Administration.
Due to their legal nature, they must necessarily seek organizational performance,
translated into rates of return on investments made. For this, they must sell products
and/or services directly to public bodies and entities, which may use them in their
strategic, tactical and operational activities. With this, directly or indirectly, the
population will also be paying and benefiting from them, since they will be able to use
them via public bodies.
Society increasingly demands fairness and ethics from government officials in dealing
with public resources. When the Government chooses a group of directors to guide the
paths of a mixed-capital company providing IT services for a certain term, the strategic
decisions of these directors become important for all members of the organization,
shareholders and mainly for society. In this way, it is expected that the decisions taken
can contribute to the achievement of the organization's financial health, customer
satisfaction and social well-being.
Information is knowledge inscribed (recorded) in written (printed or numerical), oral or
audiovisual form. Information contains an element of meaning. It is a meaning
transmitted to a conscious being through a message inscribed in a space-time support:
print, electrical signal, sound wave, etc. (Le Coadic, 1996).
1- The Organization
An organization is an artificially created and structured social unit, continuously
altered to maintain itself over time, and with the function of achieving specific goals,
which seek to satisfy the needs of its participants and society.
a) Information technology
It can be any device that has the ability to process data and/or information, either
systematically or sporadically, whether applied to the product or applied to the
process.
b) Information management
The term means the planning, construction, organization, direction, training and
control associated with information of any kind. The term can apply both to
information itself and to related resources such as people, equipment, financial
resources and technology.
2 - Information
The definition of information is presented in several ways in the consulted literature.
According to Cassarro (1999), «information can be defined as “a fact, an event, a
statement.” However, if a fact is not communicated, it will not be information, as well
as a communication, without the fact, it will not have consistency. Thus, a more
refined definition of information would be: a communicated fact.
Information is a process of transmission and transfer of knowledge: printed matter,
data, and concepts, studies with the aim of making it accessible to another person,
institution or society. The quality of this process will determine the change or not in
behaviour and attitude of the individual receiving the information. It is worth
remembering that information is not synonymous with knowledge.
McGarry (1999) considers that the term information has the following attributes:
considered almost synonymous with the term fact; a reinforcement of what is already
known; freedom of choice when selecting a message; the raw material from which
knowledge is extracted; that which is exchanged with the outside world and not just
passively received; defined in terms of its effects on the receiver; something that
reduces uncertainty in a given situation.
Authors like Lastres and Albagli explain that information and knowledge are correlated
but not synonymous. It is also necessary to distinguish two types of knowledge: coded
knowledge – which, transformed into information, can be reproduced, plastered,
transferred, acquired, traded, etc. – and tacit knowledge. For them, the transformation
into signs or codes is extremely difficult since their nature is associated with learning
processes, totally dependent on specific social contexts and forms of interaction.
There are three different types of knowledge:
- Explicit knowledge: it is the set of information already based on some support (books,
documents, etc.) and that characterizes the knowledge available on a specific topic;
- Tacit knowledge: it is the accumulation of practical knowledge about a certain
subject, which adds convictions, beliefs, feelings, emotions and other factors linked to
the experience and personality of those who hold this knowledge;
- Strategic knowledge: it is the combination of explicit and tacit knowledge formed
from the follow-up information, adding the knowledge of specialists.
Davenport and Prusak (1998) conceptualize data, information and knowledge.
However, they place greater emphasis on the term information: «information, in
addition to moreover, it is a term that encompasses all three, as well as serving as a
connection between the raw data and the knowledge that one can eventually obtain.”
Information is knowledge inscribed (recorded) in written (printed or numerical), oral or
audiovisual form. Information comprises the elements of meaning. It is a meaning
transmitted to a conscious being through a message inscribed in a space-time support:
printed, electronic signal, sound wave, etc. (LE COADIC, 1996).
2.1 - Ideal Characteristics of Information
The ideal characteristics of information
For Polloni (1996), the information needs to be:
a) Clear: present the fact clearly, not masking it among accessory facts.
b) Precise: it must have a high standard of precision and never present terms such as:
«about...», «more or less...».
c) Quick: reach the decision point in a timely manner so that it has an effect on that
decision. Information can be clear and precise but arrive late, losing its raison d'être.
d) Addressed: to those who need it and who will decide on the basis of this
information.»
It is important to emphasize that the number of vehicles (means) of information
fundamentally influences the quality of information. Quality tends to decrease as the
number of information vehicles increases.
2.2 - Use of Information
Buckland (1998) presents three types of fundamental uses of information:
- Information as a process: what a person knows changes when the subject is
informed. In this sense, information is the action of informing, communicating
knowledge or news of some fact or occurrence; the action of reporting the fact or
occurrence; the action of deducing the fact, having heard about something.
- Information as knowledge: the concept of information is also used to consign the
information product as a process.
The communicated knowledge that relates to a particular fact, subject or event; what
one captures or what is said to be intelligence, the news.
The notion of information as that which reduces uncertainty can be seen as a
particular case of information as knowledge. Sometimes information increases
uncertainty.
- Information as a thing: the concept of information is also used for objects, such as
data or documents, which are referred to as information because they are considered
“informative”, as having the quality of correcting knowledge or communicating
information.
2.3 - Information management
Information is considered a factor in business strategy; professionals are trained to
work with administrative problems related to information in the areas of collection,
identification, treatment, organization, distribution and use in the administrative and
production process.
Another option is the area of marketing and sales, including the research of new
products demanded by the market.
The technician is prepared to be always up to date and attentive to the constant
changes in the world of information, in new programming languages and operating
environments. Of course, he is also required to have knowledge of information
technology, both in terms of hardware and software.
Information is a strategic resource that has cost, price and value. As such, it must be
managed in the same way as financial, material and human resources within your
organization. The growing need to manage information, considering the related
human and information technology aspects resulted in the proposal for the formation
of a professional area, originally called «Information Resources Management».
Translated as «Information Management», it is an area of study already considered in
the United States and Europe, whose theoretical and operational contents have
become an essential tool for any organization that needs to produce, locate, collect,
test , store, distribute and encourage the use of information.
The interdisciplinary relationship of Information Management with Information
Science, administration and computing results in a set of skills and theoretical and
practical knowledge that enable the structuring of information systems, as well as the
provision of information services, products and activities.
A growing number of small, medium and large institutions, of a private or
governmental nature, which start to organize themselves in the dynamics of the global
transformations of the «Information Society», are forced to adopt information
management programs, aiming at the ethical performance of its activities and an
adequate decision-making process.
2-4 - Science of the information
Information Science is the discipline that investigates the properties and behaviour of
information, the forces that govern its flow, and the means of processing information
for maximum accessibility and usefulness. It has a pure science component that
researches the subject without regard to its application and an applied science
component, which develops services and products (H. Borko, synthesizing Robert S.
Taylor).
a) Management
Information Management (IM) helps to increase business competitiveness and
organizational modernization processes from the point of view of planning and
strategic use of information and associated technologies, as well as specifications of
quality, content and information security in the company.
b) Computing
The relationship between IM and Information Technology resides in its application in
the storage and retrieval of information and its dissemination in databases and
computer networks suitable for different information systems.
c) Information society
Social groups that started to have its survival and development actions based on the
creation, storage, distribution and intense use of information resources.
d) Information systems
Any system that, using or not using Information Technology resources, manipulates
and generates information can be generically considered an Information System.
3 - Information technology
The term "Information Technology" is "any activity that involves information
processing and integrated communication through electronic equipment."
This term is broader and refers authors considers that «any type of technology that
operates with information, whether in an information system, in the automation of an
industrial process, in the communication between computers of two organizations, or
even in the personal use of computing resources.»
Burgelman (1996), Information Technology «refers broadly to the resources applied
by a firm in the processing and management of its data. These resources include
hardware, software, communications (voice, data, and video) and associated
personnel.”
Davenport; Shorts; Ernest and Young (1990) define Information Technology as the
capabilities offered by computers, applications – software – and telecommunications.
Child (1987) defines IT as «technologies and applications that combine data processing
and storage with the remote transmission capability of telecommunications.»
From the definitions of the cited authors, it appears that the IT presents as basic
components the processing of data and/or information and the integrated
communication through electronic equipment for such.
3-1 - Information Technology and its Impacts
Technology is conceptualized as the set of knowledge, special and mainly scientific,
that apply to a certain branch of activity; it can also be considered as a science that
deals with technique.
In a more comprehensive and systematic way, Fleury (1993) defines that: technology is
a package of organized information, of different types (scientific, empirical...), from
various sources (scientific discoveries, patents, books, manuals, drawings. ..), obtained
by different methods (research, development, copying, espionage...) and used in the
production of goods and services. The author also adds that «the knowledge and skills
used in the production of these technological packages constitute technological
capacity building».
This cannot be bought, but built over time, the result of an evolutionary process. It is
an attribute, a competence that needs to be developed and perfected from the
recognition that the organization is, above all, a training organization.
The growing evolution and integration of the elements that make up IT (hardware,
software, communication networks, workstation [CAD, CAM, CIM, etc.], robotics and
smart chips) have revolutionized the way of living, communicating, thinking. and doing
business. As information technology is being incorporated into the production system,
it radically changes the structure and way in which work is carried out, especially with
regard to production and coordination work.
3-2- Types of Information Technology
To obtain reference on the possibilities of strategic use of IT, it is necessary to know
the set that composes it. The following can be considered as TI:
Categories:
a) Hardware technology;
b) Information systems;
c) Office automation;
d) Computer engineering and design;
e) Industrial automation;
f) Specific automation features;
g) Multimedia resources.
This systematization of the most relevant set of Information Technology serves as a
summary guide for researching the main strategic uses and must be constantly
updated, as any classification regarding Information Technology becomes obsolete
quickly, due to the speed of advances in this area.
Examples of IT:
a) Technologies related to computer planning – computer methodologies; data and
process modelling; methodologies for the elaboration of the IT Master Plan;
b) Technologies related to systems development – systems development
methodologies; project management methodologies; program testing and debugging
methodologies; systems analysis techniques; systems design techniques; prototype
techniques; database design techniques; programming techniques;
c) Technologies related to software support – operating systems; database
management systems; teleprocessing software; utilities; performance monitors;
programming language; application generators;
d) Technologies related to production processes and operations – PCP; capacity
planning; performance management;
e) Technologies related to hardware support – supercomputers; mainframe
computers; computer network; local networks; micro-mainframe link;
microcomputers; RISC architecture; graphic stations.
Having knowledge of the various types of IT that exist, the next step is to understand
how they can be used in organizations to support strategies.
3-3- The Use of Information Technology in Organizations
Nowadays, the rapid changes that occur in the business environment require
organizations to adapt and seek new ways to compete and differentiate themselves
from the competition. As Turban (1996) puts it, one of the forces causing the greatest
change is Information Technology, which is also the core of many of the innovations
used by organizations to succeed or even survive.
Information Technology is currently used as a tool to promote competitiveness and
acquire and/or sustain a competitive advantage over its competitors. This growing
strategic use of IT is due to a change in the conception of the role of information in
organizations.
Until the 1960s, information was often associated with the tasks of designing,
producing and distributing a product and/or service. The decentralization of
companies after World War II increased the need for centralized financial control. In
the 1950s, information systems were created with the main objective of reducing costs
and time in paper processing, especially in the accounting area. The first information
system created was a semi-automatic system, called Electronic Accounting Machines
(EAM), which served to increase the speed of the accounting area.
This system simply automated an existing procedure (Laudon and Laudon, 1996). In
the 1960s, the organization came to recognize that information could be used to
support management in general. For these authors, the emergence of the mainframe
allowed companies to process data centrally, and the mainframe became the
company's IT operations center.
Management Information Systems (GIS) were developed, whose main proposal was to
increase the speed of the required reports.
At that time, IT applications focused on automating repetitive tasks and IT investment
decisions were generally evaluated in terms of labour cost savings.
Laudon and Laudon (1996) also comment that in the 1970s and early 1980s,
Information Technology started to be conceived for a standardized management
control of the entire organization. Decision Support Systems (DSS) and Executive
Support Systems (ESS) emerged, which improved and increased the speed of the
decision-making process of specific managers and executives in a wide range of
problems. According to those authors, still in the 70s, the introduction of
minicomputers allowed companies to develop applications to serve specific
departments or groups to supplement the centralized functions that worked on the
mainframe. Data on these two different platforms could be processed independently
or shared across networks. The minicomputer also boosted the use of IT in firms that
did not have the financial capacity to invest in mainframes (TURBAN, 1996). At that
time, the return on investment in Information Technology was related to cost
reduction.
The computers and communication equipment and the personnel involved were
gathered in a data processing center. Users accessed online data by consulting a
computer terminal or using reports. The data center was also responsible for
developing software that processed and updated data for users.
The existence of the Management Information System (MIS) department was also
common. This department had a team of analysts and programmers who identified,
designed and developed new software to support the firm's activities. Information
technology resources were considered business support tools (TURBAN, 1996). In the
mid-1980s, the conception of information became that of a strategic resource, a
potential source of competitive advantage and a strategic weapon. Strategic systems
appeared to ensure the organization's survival and prosperity. Strategic information
systems could be used at all levels of the organization and their reach was broader and
deeper than the other types of systems described.
Information Technology then began to assume a more integrative role, in which
business execution increasingly depended on its application. The introduction of the
personal computer (PC) and a proliferation of hardware and software standards have
brought about a change in organizations and the role played by IT. As PCs were
cheaper than mainframes, managers began to develop individual applications outside
the control of the MIS department, causing a decentralization of information. These
applications met departmental needs (LAUDON; LAUDON, 1996).
The Information Technology started to involve all the main divisions of a company.
Another important point to be considered in the introduction of Information
Technology in organizations concerns the support of senior staff to this process. Budan
(1986) notes that there is a direct relationship between the level of success of an IT
strategy and the level of support from top management, due to their influence on
other participants and their role as project sponsor.
As long as all the steps for the use of Information Technology as a strategic resource
are observed, it can make the organization more competitive in its market, changing
the current performance standard. Authors such as Turban (1996); Laudon and Laudon
(1996); cite some strategic impacts that IT can create, summarized as follows:
a) Causes changes in the organization of the work process (work becomes more
abstract, reduction of time and space, continuous availability of knowledge, new ways
of managing the business);
b) Enables the integration between the various business units at the organization level
and beyond its borders (virtual production chain). The competitiveness of companies
depends on good interaction with suppliers and customers, which can also be achieved
via IT;
c) Changes the competitive nature of many industries (strategic alliances and
cooperative agreements between competitors, in which companies cooperate to share
resources and services, acquiring competitive advantage);
d) Provides new strategic opportunities for organizations, provoking an evaluation and
redefinition of the mission, goals, strategies and operations;
e) Requires changes in management strategies and organizational structure, assuming
a change in organizational culture. (New ways of organizing work, with new policies
and management strategies and leaner structures.)
The new model of the successful company has a tendency to reduce the number of
hierarchical levels and greater delegation of powers. This trend can be enhanced with
the use of Information Technology.
Despite offering the possibility of guaranteeing greater competitiveness to
organizations, the competitive advantages conferred by Information Technology do
not necessarily last long enough to ensure long-term profits. Innovations that were
introduced as a strategic resource often become a tool for survival.
As the environment is constantly changing, it is necessary to plan business and IT
strategies in relatively shorter times. In addition, the organization needs to be flexible
enough so that it can adapt to the new realities that it will come across throughout the
process.
Another important aspect to note is that the implementation of frequent technological
innovations requires far-reaching socio-technical changes, which requires a relatively
long period of adaptation. This goal is not easy to achieve because individuals resist
change; both those imposed on an organization and those that employees are
subjected to when their work is reshaped. This is one of the biggest obstacles to
strategic transitions.
Therefore, for this process to be successful, it is necessary that those responsible for
the implementation of Information Technology have a greater understanding of
organizational change.
3-4 - Degree of Complexity of Management in Information Technology
Studies in this area show that it is possible for participants to act and have an
understanding of the processes of formulating and implementing policies for the
application of information technology to the administration, in the face of the
challenges of the state, related to the principles of ethics, equity, social justice and
rationality. :
The professionals involved will be able to:
- To know the potential of information technology in solving management problems in
state organizations.
- Structuring information systems.
- Specify a system in the area of information technology.
- Hire and evaluate service providers in the areas of management and information
technology.
- The technical professional profile of the people involved will be in accordance with
the leadership potential to lead change processes. They must have experience
managing teams or conducting information technology application projects;
preliminary knowledge in accessing databases, quantitative logical reasoning, by
challenges and results and ease of interpersonal relationships.
3-5- Information Technology and Management
In the context of this review, the IT concept intends to be broader in terms of scope,
not being restricted only to hardware, software and data communication.
Based on the etymological origin of the term technology, it is difficult to establish a
complete separation between the terms information, information system and
technology (Davenport, 1998). And due to the semantic confusion surrounding, mainly,
the term information, the expression «information management» gained notoriety.
Davenport (1998) defines this substantive term as being «the general management of
the entire information environment of a company». According to the author, the
expression assigns equal weight to both the use of information and the systems and
technologies that allow such use. Being information at the level of what is manipulated
and technology at the level of what produces manipulation.
Comparing this position of Davenport (1998) with that of Morgan (1996), that in the
future organizations tend to become synonymous with information systems, it is
evident that information is one of the main components of «information
management» .
For Wang (1998) technological information can be the greatest tool of modern times.
According to Walton (1993), technology, with its dual potential, has the ability to
produce a set of organizational effects or their opposites, so that the organization can
skip each of the stages proposed by Marchand and Horton (apud CRONIN, 1997).
All depending on how the technology is implemented. According to this approach,
Walton (1993) states that «IT can standardize activities or increase the decision-
making power of users; it can reinforce hierarchical control or facilitate self-
management and learning by users».
The implementation of IT requires the complete reorganization of the function
Information and the ability to produce creativity and innovation.
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