Pierrette Bergeron

Working with information: information management and culture in a professional services organization

The paper presents a case study of a large Canadian law firm with a distinctive information culture that is vigorously implementing an information management strategy. Our findings suggest that, at least for this organization, information culture trumps information management in its impact on information use outcomes. Thus, the strongly held information values and behaviors in the firm accounted for more than one-third of the variance in information use outcomes. Employees did perceive a high level of information management activity in the firm, although information management played a smaller, perhaps indirect role in explaining information use outcomes. What might organizations do to improve information use? This study suggests that organizations might do well to recognize that, in the hustle and bustle to implement strategies and systems, information values and information culture will always have a defining influence on how people share and use information.

Regional business intelligence: the view from Canada:

In Canada, as is the case in most industrial countries, business intelligence (BI) has stirred much interest lately. A growing number of organizations, either large or small, nonprofit or government, implement formal BI activities. This paper provides a panorama of trends in BI in Canada. It reports research on environmental scanning, information-seeking behaviour and BI implementation and practice in large organizations and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), as well as in the cultural sector. It describes governmental efforts to support disseminating and implementing BI practices especially in SMEs; in particular, the Québec Government’s Fonds de Partenariat Sectoriel Volet IV: Veilles Concurrentielles , a unique and innovative governmental programme which sponsored the development of BI centres. Finally, it provides an overview of current activities in training and research in BI. It concludes by indicating areas for improvement and development, with an emphasis on the need to develop a better understanding of information-seeking behaviour in SMEs and to develop an information model of organizations specific to SMEs.

The Impact of the Introduction of Web Information Systems (WIS) on Information Policies: An Analysis of the Canadian Federal Government Policies Related to WIS.

This communication presents the results of an analysis of the Canadian federal government information policies that govern its Web information systems (WIS). The goal of this study was to better understand how the Canadian federal government has adapted its information policies to the WIS. A side-by-side analysis of 53 policy instruments was done. The results indicate that the Canadian federal government has crafted new instruments to take into account the WIS context. These policies build upon generic information management and information technologies policy instruments. These policy instruments have a good coverage of the tasks underlying the WIS life-cycle. Among the many players present in the policy instruments, one of the key player is the Treasury Board Secretariat that plays an important coordination and evaluation role.

Information behavior realities in organizations

This short paper provides discussion on the influencing effect of information behavior in organizations, as well as the forces which influence information behavior itself. The research goal is to offer insight on the nature of information behavior in organizations. To do so, the authors present findings from their quantitative analysis of a Web-based survey administered in one particular information knowledge and information intensive firm. Results point to: i) the stronger role information behavior plays over information management processes and policies in affecting organizational information use outcomes; ii) the influencing effect of the information environment on organizational information behaviors; and iii) the influencing effect of both the information environment and organizational information behaviors on personal information behavior.

Transborder data flow: Implications for information dissemination and policies between the U.S., Canada and Mexico. Sponsored by SIG IFP, III

The convergence of computing and networking has affected the ways in which people live, work and learn; the way institutions operate; and raised new issues and challenges for governments. National and global initiatives have been implemented to address the blurring of boundaries -geographical and political-caused by electronic data transfer over these global networks. The flow of electronic data and digital content across jurisdictional lines calls for novel -or updated- laws and regulatory solutions (e.g., data protection, privacy, content regulation, etc.). This panel offers a comparative analysis of national laws and policies regulating the transport of data across national boundaries, with a special focus on the implications for information dissemination and access. A series of panelists from a variety of backgrounds and perspectives will explore these issues and describe how these are framed and debated in the United States, Canada and Mexico. The discussion should both inform and entice the audience to reflect on and pursue these timely problems.