Research and Reflections on Success and Failure in IM Management - Essay Example

Research/Reflections on Success and Failure in IM leadership/management Introduction Information management deals with the collection, storage and retrieval management of information pertaining to an organization. This information can be collected from one or multiple source and also, the distribution of this information may be done to one or multiple audience groups. These audience groups may also include the entities that have a stake in the organization or a right to access this information. Information management professionals aim at collecting information from internal and external sources and then organizing and controlling the processing, structuring and delivering different kinds of information to a wide group of audiences. In this report, the career profile of an information management specialist is chosen for discussion and analysis. An information management specialist is responsible for the management of information and data within an organization, for consulting and liaising widely in order to market and promote corporate information, for recording management practices, coordinating these practices with the availability and management of information resources in the business. Additionally, the responsibilities of an information management specialist also include providing high end corporate and legal advices regarding the workflows and management of corporate records and information in all the departmental units and locations of a business. The information management specialist also coordinates, evaluates, develops, implements, maintains and reviews different departmental records and management policies, standards, procedures, systems, industry trends and guidelines so as to help the formulation of corporate policies in accordance with various departmental requirements. The role of an information management specialist is most recognizable in a company which operates in a dynamic and advanced technological environment. Discussion Individual research on these kinds of Information Management career profiles The factors that contribute to the success and failure of the information management systems can be identified and evaluated through the research and study of different articles and interviews of Information Management professionals across the world. It can be seen by researching on the career profiles and career graphs of various information management professionals, that there are some basic fixed factors that are necessary for the success of professionals in these job roles. Also there are few stipulated factors that are found to be the common causes of a failure of the individuals as information management professionals (Information professionals, 2012, p.1). Different information management professionals have indicated that though their job roles are highly interesting and motivating, yet there are a number of challenges that they face in their daily responsibilities. The liabilities of the information management specialists are high because they deal with one of the most sensitive areas of the modern businesses, which is the technological aspect. The factors and challenges which may act as the drivers for success or failure of the information management systems as well as that of the careers of the information management specialists are discussed and evaluated in the following sections of the report. Practices those are likely to cause failures in Information Management leadership and management. Like other major career profiles, the profile of a information management specialist is also dependant on a number of internal and external factors that may decide the level of success of the individual in his career as well as the degree of contribution of the information management specialist in his/her organization. A lack of ethical behavior is found to be the most alarming reason that leads to the failure of efficient information management and leadership by an information management specialist. The strategic leadership of any business in the modern day essentially includes ethicality principles. Maintaining the confidentiality of client information and organizational information, establishing a sense of complacency within the departments and the organization as a whole and integrating ethicality principles within the organizational culture are some of the main areas in which the information management specialist have to focus on (Terra and Gordon, 2002, pp.100-102). However, the absence of a sense of responsibility to display an appropriate level of ethicality and compliance to the standard legal and ethical requirements may lead to the creation of an irresponsible image of the organization, an unsustainable organizational culture and as such lead to various business costs related to ethics failures within the company. The incidents of these kinds of compliance and ethics failures would invariable point out the inefficient of the information management specialist to develop and enforce desirable leadership and management practices and strategies (Carroll, 2001, pp.7-15). The main reasons that may lead to the failure of leadership and management in information management on the part of the information management specialist are the lack of adequate resources for organizing, improving or managing the informational and technological systems, the absence of support from the senior management of the organization, the absence of a clear definition of the information values and types across the enterprise, the existing internal corporate politics that may act as a constraining factor for the organization of activities across all levels of the organization, continued use of old technological systems which have become obsolete and require up gradation or replacement, low quality of information within the enterprise, lack of consistency in information, repetition of information, redundancy in information and use of information which has become out of date. Also, the use of large volumes of dispersed information, lack of integration and synchronization between the information management department and the other departments of the enterprise, competition between the multiple information management systems used within one single organization, the absence of clarity in the organizational goals and objectives, limitations on the number of human resources that can be deployed towards the development of an efficient information management unit and other unaddressed business issues act as common reasons for the failure of leadership and management in the information management systems. The tendency of the employees of an organization to display a resisting attitude towards changes in the way they do their work and preferring the traditional manual ways of functioning often hinders the effectiveness of the information management specialists. Criteria that define success in Information Management leadership and management The job role and responsibilities of an information management specialist are multidimensional and involves varied responsibilities. In general, an information management specialist is expected to provide data management and computing support to the respective organization so that all the information within the organization can be managed in the most efficient way. The computing support that the information management specialist provides to the different departments of an organization is necessary for enabling the managers to use the hardware and software, store and retrieve data and use applications so that they can use the same for analyzing and researching for planning the corporate and management objectives and strategies of the business. However, the role of the information management specialist in an organization does not end at managing the technology related components of the company. The other aspects of management and business administration are equally significant for performing the functions of being an information management specialist. Leadership and management of the information management department is critical for the success of the technological aspects of a company, especially in the current business environment, in which the role of technology is becoming more profound and established for the short term and the long term success and competitiveness of a company. As such, the proper level of integration and collaboration with all the departments of the organization plays an important role in deciding how well the information management specialist can deliver his responsibilities. The leadership and management perspectives of the information management specialists are much dependant on their communication and adaptive abilities. Since, they have to collect and source information from a number of internal and externals sources related to the enterprise, therefore, the ability to communicate, convince and collaborate are critical for success in this career profile. This position also requires the ability to work closely with all departments and Information and Communication Technology (ICT) personnel like the Chief Technology Officers, The Chief Information Officer and the Information and Communication Technology Officer so as to act as a collaborative support system for the record management system, strategic management and departmental electronic document management systems of the company. The ability to adapt to dynamic physical and technological environments, working with varying levels of technology and technological skills, remaining updated about the latest innovations and developments in the field of information technology are some of the basic requirements for this kind of career profile. Also, the acknowledgement of the fact that the human aspects are significant in any kind of management process is also a main criterion for deciding the success of management and leadership in information management (Waddock, Bodwell and Graves, 2002, pp. 132-147). Periodic reviewing and monitoring of the progress of the individual information management programs, the establishment of a 360 degree feedback mechanism in the organization, the encouragement of all the employees to actively contribute their ideas and creativity to the department, the integration of the information management systems into the management objectives, continuous focus on the business objectives and goals and the provision of adequate financial, physical human as well as technological resources and support are identified as the common factors that may lead to effective leadership and management on the part of the information management specialists. Evaluation of these factors on the context of the 4 components of Information Systems Information system can be defined in two different terms as per two interrelated perspectives. One of the perspectives is based on the functions of the information systems and the other is based on the structure of the information systems. As per the functional perspective of information systems, any information system is a technology based medium which is used for the purpose of storing and processing data for providing support to inference making. As or the structure based definition, information systems include a collection of people, process, technology , models and data to form a cohesive format which is used to serve varied kinds of organizational functions and purposes. The structural definition of the information systems makes it clear that these systems are socio technical formats in which the human behaviors and acceptance levels are as important as the technical perspectives like conceptual artifacts and use of technology. As per this view, information systems are made up of four main components which are people, process, technology and structure. These four components carry equal weight in deciding the effectiveness of the information management systems within an organization. Along with these four main components, the ancillary components that are crucial for the success of an information management system are leadership, innovation capability, and organization and energy networks. These are represented diagrammatically in Figure 1. Figure 1: Components of Information System (Source: Rainer, Kelly and Cegielski, 2009, p.90). This diagram implies that people resources of an organization are significant drivers of the success or failure of an information management system or any other technological system. The people resource related to an information system does not only include the technological personnel like the information system specialists, programmers, system analysts and data administrators but they also include the end users of the information systems for whom the systems are developed. As such, the management of human resources is very important in every stage of the information management systems. Leadership on the part of the information management professionals is mandatory because the implementation of any technological system comes with the prerequisite of preparing the human resources of the company to be open to the changes that would be brought about by the use of the new technological system. Thus, the information management specialists have to be capable of managing the people in the organization and guiding and leading them through the entire process of the design and implementation of the new information system. Also, the encouragement of the active involvement of different strata of employees of the organization in the process of developing and using the information systems is seen as a keyword for the success of the information management departments. Preparing the employee grouse who would be the prime users of the information management system beforehand is necessary to prevent any fallout during the implementation phase of the information system. Therefore, the information management professionals should show suitable proficiency in training and developing the prime user groups of employees in the company, so that they can be mentally prepared of the change and can also develop their technological skills to use these new systems efficiently. The maintenance of ethical policies and principles requires that the information management systems of a company operates in an ethical manner and the managers in this department infuse the principles of ethicality and legal adherence among all levels of employees working with the technological systems. Considering the fact that the confidentiality of information remains a crucial challenge for the information management departments, it can be inferred that the leadership principles of the information management professionals should be aimed towards embedding morality and ethicality among all the employee groups. For assuring that the information systems function in an ethically compliant manner, all the entities involved in the information management system should ensure that the process part of the information system is built up in an integrated and periodically reviewed manner to check that the activities and operations of the process are performed in an integrated and ethical manner. Therefore, the information management system specialists have to identify and deploy resources efficiently, develops and nurtures both internal and external relationships with stakeholders, clients and employees, create effective communication strategies, supports the development of productive work environment and employee relationships and display adequate levels of integrity, ethicality and personal drive to inspire and lead other participants and end users of the systems. Conclusion Information is considered to be the greatest opportunity for enterprises and business leaders in the future years. But, along with the opportunities, the increasing importance of information brings with it the need for adapting to continuous changes and developments which may be difficult without proper leadership and business administrative functions. Leadership on the part of the information management specialists would ensure leveraging and clarifying eh relevant information and using this information base to plan and formulate corporate strategies of a business, motivate the human resources as well as engage the customer groups. Leadership and management of the information management professionals also add to stakeholder management and engagement and ensure greater sustainability of the business for the future. In this modern business world of information management and sharing, the biggest changes of the managers is not to manage or control the human resources of the organization, but to maximize the potentials and strengths of the organization by involving and inspiring the people resources. The information systems and technological systems can act as supportive components in an organization, but the ultimate value creation for an organization lies in the development of ideas and innovation which comes from the minds of the people. Therefore, the information management professionals in modern enterprises should find new ways to inspire the employees to release their passion and creativity rather than constraining the employees with pre defined structures and information systems.  References Carroll, A. B. (2001). In search of the moral manager. Business Horizons, Vol. 42(1): 7–15. Information professionals. (2012). Interview with infopro Soraya Assar, October 2012. Retrieved from http://infoprofessionals.org/infopro-interviews.html. Rainer, R., Kelly, S. & Cegielski, C. G. (2009). Introduction to information systems: enabling and transforming business, 3rd edition. New Jersey: Wiley. Terra, J.C. & Gordon, C. (2002). Realizing the promise of corporate portals: leveraging knowledge for business success. Boston: Butterworth Heinemann. Waddock, S. A., Bodwell, C., & Graves, S. B. (2002). Responsibility: The new business imperative. The Academy of Management Executive, Vol.16 (1): 132–147. Read More