Abstract:

This chapter explains the concept of organisational culture and establishes why it is necessary for information managers to understand this. The values accorded to information and attitudes to it are indicative of the information culture of organisations; understanding organisational culture will enable the development of appropriate strategies and systems. Two contrasting views of organisational culture are discussed, one which assumes culture is solely internally based and the other which acknowledges the external environment in which the organisation is situated.

Key words

organisational culture

information culture

national culture

Introduction

This chapter begins by discussing why it is important to understand organisational culture. Then I start to establish what organisational culture encompasses. Although it is a term that most people are familiar with, and many use frequently when discussing their workplace, interpretation and understanding vary greatly. Two of the key perspectives are discussed, one of which has unfortunately been very prevalent and influential on management thinking, to the detriment of information management. The final section of this chapter outlines the multilevel approach to organisational culture that underpins the thinking in this book, acknowledging the existence of national, occupational and corporate cultural influences in shaping our working environments.

Why is understanding organisational culture so important?

Whether you are a librarian, records manager or archivist, the objective of your work is to manage information. The primary purpose for which you are attempting to manage information will vary according to your occupation. Records managers and archivists manage information as evidence, for accountability. Librarians manage information for knowledge and awareness, and also sometimes for entertainment. So far, so good. These distinct purposes provide a universality for the work undertaken by information managers and enable us to work collaboratively (regionally, nationally and globally) to explore and develop appropriate technologies, systems and processes. However, the specific organisational context that librarians, records managers and archivists are working within is a primary influence on the way that they go about achieving their work objectives. For example, the way in which you would go about ensuring your clients are mindful of their information management obligations in a very structured setting such as a law firm would be quite different to a more anarchic environment such as a university.

Most information managers fulfil key roles in providing the necessary infrastructure to enable the organisation that they serve to function efficiently and effectively. But the nature of that organisation will vary widely, according to a number of factors, in particular

These factors are intertwined, and are likely to influence each other, but all play a role in shaping the culture of the organisation. Each of these will be explored further in this book.

Understanding the importance of these factors will enable the diagnosis of an organisation’s information culture – that is, the values accorded to information, and attitudes towards it, specifically within organisational contexts. Every organisation, no matter how large or small, regardless of type and function, wherever in the world it is situated, has an information culture. Table 1.1 presents a framework for the assessment of information culture; the levels are explored in Chapter 6.

Information culture is inextricably intertwined with organisational culture, and it is only by understanding the organisation that progress can be made with information management initiatives.

Organisations are microcosms of their broader societal context. They may appear to be self-contained, but definitely do not exist in isolation from their broader context. Often consideration of organisational culture focuses solely on internal factors, primarily management and resourcing. The key aim of this book, however, is to highlight and untangle all those features that influence what happens at the library, records service or archives.

One of the features that characterise information management is the sheer diversity of settings in which it is implemented. For that reason, many practitioners remain in the same environment and it can be difficult to swap settings, largely because of the specialist skills and knowledge required. A law librarian, for instance, attempting to change focus to a hospital setting will often be regarded as making a career shift and may find entry into the new field problematic. Consequently, any consideration given to the more fine-grained or nuanced aspects of organisational culture is often overlooked. Where there is differentiation according to setting in literature and guidelines for practice, this is generally restricted to broad-brush domains such as medicine and law. Nevertheless, the work of information managers in, say, hospitals in various parts of the world, although focused on the same outcomes, may be quite different in terms of priorities accorded to different services and activities.

The ways in which information managers will be affected by organisational culture will vary according to the extent to which the main elements of their work (users and materials) are internal to the organisation, or external. For example:

Organisational culture and information management – academic research

There is an extensive body of literature published about research into information technologies and culture, including organisational and national comparative studies. The growth of multinational organisations, and deployment of information and communication technologies facilitating the globalisation of business have brought cross-cultural management and communication issues to the fore. An analysis of articles published in the leading information systems journals over a nine-year period identified over three hundred articles relating to global information management, i.e. ‘the development, use and management of information systems in a global/international context’ (Gallupe & Tan, 1999: 1).

In contrast to information systems, there has been very little published research on the role of organisational and/ or national culture in the library and recordkeeping fields. J. Periam Danton proposed an outline curriculum for the study of comparative...