Essay Sample on Information Management Techniques

Introduction

Information management involves the process and systems concerned with creation, acquisition, organizing, storage and the use of information to help organizations and people process and access the same efficiently and effectively (Detlor, 2010). In an organizational context, information management involves all the procedures involved in the information control processes ranging from their inception and their use in making better business operations within these enterprises. Various information resources are considered vital in maintaining effective control of a business organization and need to be managed as the other competing resources within these organizations such human capital, equipment and capital (Detlor, 2010). The following sections will discuss various elements of information management techniques and their implications on the operations of an organization.

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Information Technology and Value Creation

In recent years, IT has become an important part of organizations' capability and source of viable competitive advantages. Still, limited knowledge exists on the relationships between IT functions and firms performance. This section of the piece looks into the claim, in addition to evidence that showcases the relationship. Lin, (2007), summarizes different hypothesis on this relationship and develops two contrasting points of view from the literature reviewed. On one hand, a group of authors advances a positive correlation between IT investment and business profitability. On the other hand, a section concludes on the existence of little evidence regarding payoffs from IT, in relation to increased productivity.

On the positive impact of IT on value creation, Dewett and Jones (2001) posit that IT displays as a suitable apparatus that can be utilized to quickly track the opportuneness and nature of hierarchical insight and different basic leadership in advancing execution inside these institutions. Again, IT can serve as a positive competitive advantage to an organization if the firm uses the same to exploit specific enterprise resources that are unique, costly and difficult to imitate for the competitors and if the rival firms are unable to acquire and build on the technology fast enough (Lin, 2007). However, the same literature stresses on the importance of human capital investments to complement IT functionalities, such as training and organizational development, to facilitate an organization's financial performance relating to economic value, which is largely dependent on knowledge-based skills.

On the negative implication, reviewed the return on investment and profitability and established that even though IT investments and outsourcing increase a firm's profitability, the same scenario does not hold in the case where there is a corresponding increase in the number of IT personnel. The more human capital used in the development of company software, the poor the organization likely performs (Stores, Abdulahi, & Diah, 2013). Also, consider the effect of IT function and human capital investment, Lin, (2007) concludes that the effect of firm size and shareholder value significantly becomes negative

Organizational Structure and Design

Data management has an association with organizational plan that includes the formation of jobs, structures, and procedures that guarantee the association's objectives are figured it out. (Worren, 2019). However, various processes within a company such as organizational structure affect the organizational design. This section discusses two pairs of organizational structures and their impact on organizational design. The centralized and decentralized organization structure is the first pair with a centralized structure relying on individual decisions to provide directions to the company. Decentralized structure, on the hand, encompasses numerous individuals charged with the responsibility of making decisions to run the business. In decentralized organizational structures, there are possible delays in decision making due to a large number of people who have to come to a consensus before a decision is approved (Robbins, 2015). Centralized structures also hold challenges, as the business is likely to suffer from poor decisions made by the sole proprietor within the organization.

The second pair of organizational structure pits the mechanistic vs. organic structures. Mechanistic organizational structure is a unique among the most well-known and is frequently utilized in the assembling segment. The structure utilizes administration suggesting representatives' work independently on individual errands, passed on through a hierarchy of leadership (Hunsaker, 2018). However, the one-way channel of communication presents serious disadvantages of the structure to strategies in organizational design. An organic organizational structure, on the other hand, employs a more centralized tendency giving employees at all levels within the organization, a chance to get involved in decision-making pertaining to the business. The main challenge of organic structure to organizational design is that it could lead to unproductive directives due to lack of motivation, for instance, the need for urgent and immediate directions would be missing (Papa, 2017).

Advanced Information Technologies in Relation to Organizational Culture

Information technology is a fast emerging trend in many organizations with many companies in the US spending more in IT than they do on any other form of investment (Dewett & Jones, 2001). In this regard, the technology plays integral roles within an organization, and in other instances, been responsible for changes in the cultures of organizations represent. This paper draws on Dewett and Jones, (2001) literature to assess the impact IT on organization's performance, with the suggestion that IT can be used to influence the timeliness and the quality of organizational decision-making capabilities and intelligence and in effect improving the performance of these enterprises. Another argument can stem from the premise that IT functions have the capability of moderating outcomes on organizational characteristics through its capacity to generate information synergies and information efficiencies. On one hand, synergies are the performance gains that occur as a result of cooperation between two or more people of subunits, as facilitated by the IT systems. On the other hand, efficiencies refer to the time and cost savings achieved when IT allows performance of tasks at higher levels (Dewett & Jones, 2001).

A group of researchers and practitioners also acknowledges the vital role played by organization culture in relation to information technology adoption and implementation to affect the overall organizational performance. The outburst of information technology triggered the scramble by many organizations to adopt the emerging IT functionalities with the aim of improving their overall business performance. It is no surprise, however, that some of these emerging technologies have fallen short of managers expectations in relation to their usefulness in enhancing the performance of such organizations. This trend is partially attributed to the fact that some of these organizations ascribe to very strict organization cultures that surpass the functionalities of some technologies currently offered in the market (Xiao & Dasgupta, 2005). As a result, many such organizations will often opt for cutting-edge technologies or rather develop their own IT systems that are commensurate with their own business strategies...