Abstract
Information Resource Management, or IRM, is founded on the assumptions that organizations are systems amenable to systematic control, and that information is a resource that can be managed in economically efficient ways. The management techniques embodied under the IRM rubric are said to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of information management in organizations. These assumptions are questioned. Systems approaches to organizations have proven inadequate in most instances where they have been tried, and there is little reason to believe the IRM approach will be different. Information is not a resource in the conventional sense of the term, and economic techniques for dealing with information as a resource are lacking. Implementation of IRM suffers from ambiguities about what it is supposed to accomplish, the breadth of its intentions, and the practical constraints of implementing top-down reforms in complex organizations. The broad vision of IRM is useful for articulating goals for information management, but the efficacy of IRM as an organizing framework for actual management of information practices is limited.
Highlights
Information Resource Management, or IRM, is founded on the assumptions that o are systems amenable to systematic control, and that information is a reso-urcethat can be managed in eoonomically efficient ways
The management techniques embodied under the IRM rubric are said to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of information management in organizations.These assumptions are questioned
Information Resource Management burst on the scene in the early 1980’s with considerable fanfare
Summary
The IRM concept rests on two fundamental beliefs: *ha: organizations are systems amenable to systematic control, and that information is a resource amenable to economic analysis and rational management. In&wuztion & Management ing people’s attitudes so that information becomes viewed as a major asset in the organization; (4) Analyzing requirements before acquiring information technologies instead of the reverse; (5) Legitimizing the role of the Information Manager so he or she can challenge other managers on their IIU4 practices; (6) Establishment of training so other managers can implement the IRM program; (7) Making users responsible for their information activities by including them in system design and other decisions, charging them for services, and making them accountable for resources they need to produce information; (8) Identification of inhouse and outside opportunities for improving applications of information resources to organizational decisions and problems: (9) Fixing accountability for use and husbandry of information resources on designated people in the organization; and (10) Making consideration of organizational information needs routine in all aspects of the enterprise This describes a person with exceptional skiUs in administration, budgeting, information tkory, technical systems, planning, policymaking, human relations, and operational knowledge of the organization’s functions; such people are likely to be hard to find. The formal analysis approach based on the assumption that information ean be trea:ed as a resource is not, at first glance, a promising ent for current eans of making such determinations
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