Maureen L. Mackenzie

Manager communication and workplace trust: Understanding manager and employee perceptions in the e-world

Todays business environment is populated with individuals who are digitally connected to clients, contractors, managers, and employees. Traditionally, the ways and behaviors of managers had developed and thrived within face-to-face work environments, but as computer-mediated technologies continue to change the boundaries of the business community, permit alternative worksites to increase, and the traditional workday to disappear, the role of the manager has changed. This article focuses on the communication behaviors between managers and their employees, and how these behaviors have changed as digital communication methods have become mainstream within organizations today. The variables of interest are manager communication and workplace trust. The intended outcome is to uncover the expectations that have yet to be agreed upon within the manager-employee e-relationship.

Storage and retrieval of e-mail in a business environment: An exploratory guide

Executives recognize the value of maintaining access to information. More managers filter their own e-mail rather than have assistants do this task. Organizing and storing data for future use are left to the personal preference of the individual manager. Is this in the best interest of the organization? Are data being stored in a manner causing them to be irretrievable in the future? Are irrelevant data being stored? This study investigates the strategies used to store and retrieve e-mail. The results revealed that the primary search strategy was a reliance on memory. The labels assigned to the e-mail folders triggered the users memory. Although, in the short term, memory is sufficient for organizing and retrieving information, the lack of transferability and preservation of this information poses a danger. The association between the electronic file label and the stored information is unique to the manager and may lead to inaccessibility of relevant corporate knowledge in the future.

Information Gathering Revealed within the Social Network of Line-Managers.

This years ASIST theme of humanizing information technology invites inquiry into the human elements that influence information behavior. The results of this qualitative study revealed that relationship, more than knowledge, may be the reason a manager is sought as an information source within a business environment. The context was a large business unit within a major US corporation. Social network mapping was selected as the appropriate method so as to capture a more intimate view of the information relationships within a business environment. Content analysis was used to analyze the data and to draw out the themes. The non-hierarchical flow of knowledge among managers and the reasons managers seek others as information sources further differentiates and documents line-managers as a unique information user-group.

How Does the Library Profession Grow Managers? It Doesn't–They Grow Themselves

This chapter explores the question of where and how leaders in the library field gain the knowledge, skills, and ability to lead and manage people. The authors report empirical evidence to answer this question based on the results of the third stage of an ongoing study—a study which examines the academic preparation of professional librarians who have become directors of libraries. The results of a survey inquiring into the formal training received by practicing library directors are detailed. Among other findings, 55.1% of the library directors surveyed and observed that graduate library school did not prepare them to become library directors. There is some evidence that a shift of perception regarding the need for traditional management training has begun to occur in library schools. The authors contend that this trend needs to accelerate if the information profession intends to prepare library directors to assume leadership roles in the future. This chapter briefly reviews the research findings from stage one and two research, which provided the foundation for the current study. As a result of this research a fourth stage of research is planned which will use in person in-depth interviews of library directors. The influence of leadership on organizational results has been explored within the broader management literature. There is clearly a relationship between leadership and results. What is unclear is how and where these leaders gain the knowledge, skills, and ability to lead and manage.

An exploratory study of libraries and their managers: Management education for leaders of non-traditional businesses

Where do library directors, and the librarians who perform various management functions as part of their work, receive their management training? A review of the curricula of 48 library school programs accredited by the American Library Association revealed that, for the most part, library managers need to be trained on the job. This paper presents the results of an exploratory study focused on the research question: Do ALA accredited library education programs properly prepare library students to enter management level positions within the library profession? Of the programs reviewed, 43.8% did not require a management-related course within its degree requirements. And 81.3% of the programs did not require an internship. A review of program syllabi revealed that only 58.3% of the management courses included human resource management and only 54.2% included strategy, planning and process. The results offered evidence that the library profession has not yet agreed upon the requirements for preparing future librarians for managerial positions. It is suggested that the accreditation requirements be revised in order to better prepare library school students for the role of manager

Information seeking and use in diverse organizational contexts

This session combines individual presentations with a group discussion. The focus of this session and the expertise of this panel bring together ways of thinking about information seeking and use in diverse organizational contexts. Organizational contexts are not uniform. Quite the contrary, they are very diverse in terms of the individuals, cultures, habits, routines, systems and infrastructures within them. The panelists offer varying viewpoints on how to best address information seeking and use diversity in the workplace. Though each panelist offers different perspectives on how to do this, collectively they rally a persuasive need to not assume homogeneity in our understanding and investigation of information seeking and use in organizational settings. Rather, they suggest it would be better to recognize the acute diversity in the individuals, tasks, cultures, technologies, and information practices that exist in organizations today, and to develop models, approaches, and recommendations of information seeking and use that reflect our understanding of this diversity.

Can the research presented at the annual conference help to define the association? An exploratory study

A professional association can be defined by its membership, its mission and a variety of different offerings, services, characteristics and attributes. One such characteristic is the research that is presented at the annual conference and published in the proceedings. The intent of this paper is to explore whether there has been a change in the basic research presented and published at the ASIS&T annual conference since the associations name change in 2000. Is more empirical research being presented? Has there been any measurable shift from theoretical to empirical?

The complexity and value of managing in the digital environment

This session combines individual presentations with a group discussion. The focus of this session and the expertise of this panel bring together ways of coordinating, evangelizing and adapting in organizations that are more connected digitally than physically. The digital environment is both a management blessing and a burden. The panelists offer varying viewpoints and perspectives into our expanding digital world. The panel session will begin with a brief description of the panels overall theme and its relevance and importance to the broader ASIST community. This will set the stage and provide context to the three individual panelist presentations. Each panelist will situate his or her talk in context to the overall theme and will elicit key insights and recommendations pertaining to this theme. This should provide a powerful mechanism to engage conversation and the sharing of ideas between panel members and audience participants. This session reflects the interests of SIG-MGT membership and aligns with the ASIST 2007 theme of “Joining Research and Practice: Social Computing and Information Science”

Knowledge management practices in organizations undergoing fundamental change

This session combines individual presentations with a group discussion. The focus of this session and the expertise of this panel bring together the information-related issues of organizational change, managing knowledge, enabling technology and the role of senior management. This session reflects the interests of SIG-MGT membership and aligns with the ASIST 2005 theme of “Bringing Research and Practice Together.”

ASIS to ASIS&T: Has there been a change in the conference content?

Introduction and Background The purpose of this study was to investigate whether there has been a change in the content of the research papers published at the ASIS&T annual conference since the Board of Directors’ decision to change the society’s name in 2000 (Mackenzie, 2004). In 1998 Dr. Eugene Garfield, as President-elect of ASIS, suggested the society reassert its “basic commitment to research” (Election underway... 1998, 3). In March 1999, as Dr. Garfield prepared to assume the presidency, he proposed that the word technology be added to the name of the society: ASIS&T. He discussed the loss of membership to the society and the “perceived abandonment of applied information science.” He suggested that ASIS programs have been “divided between theory and practice” and that the society should place increased focus on “practical information technology based programs” (Garfield, 2000). During the debate over the name change, both active support and concern emerged. Supporters of librarianship implied that the focus on technology might overwhelm the society’s focus on both librarianship and information science (Travis, 1999). Its name, membership, mission, and a variety of characteristics can define a professional association. One such characteristic is the research that is presented at the association’s annual conference and published in the proceedings. An association’s annual conference is its “biggest branding opportunity. The content of the conference program should be strategically developed to ensure that the different disciplines and levels of expertise (and their unmet needs) within the field are sufficiently addressed” (James, 2003). An insight from the 2003 ASIS&T membership survey is that the “primary reason to attend ASIST Conferences is to listen to papers and presentations” (Vaughan & Hahn, 2005, 103) and that 18.6% of the respondents said that the annual conference would be more appealing if there was a change in the content of papers and presentations toward more applied and work related topics (Vaughan & Hahn, 2005, 100). Vaughan and Hahn further concluded that the “great decrease in the percentage of members working in industry and government sectors” might suggest “ASIS&T is losing attraction to people in those sectors...” (2005, 102). Dr. Garfield’s position that our association is losing membership can be tied to, or perhaps remedied by, the content of the annual conference. The renaming of the society was undertaken to attract a broader population and to refocus our attention toward research in applied science. The results of this research offer insights as to whether the shift has started to take place. It is now 2005 and some may suggest that the name change from ASIS to ASIS&T was not significant or offered minimal influence on the society’s research agenda.