Executive Modes of Informing - An Empirical Study

ABSTRACT This research studied the day-to-day habits of six executives at SA Ambulance Service. The researchers were concerned how they kept themselves informed in order to perform their work role. The study found that it is not the formal information produced by the organizations computer-based information system that played the dominant role in the managerial task, but rather it is the informal information that emerged through social communicative actions. These findings provide significant support for Preston's (1986:1991) findings and have important implications for designing management information systems. The study highlights the importance to design in dialogue, interaction, observation and socialisation into any information support system. In essence MIS has become premised with the construction of the official order. However, in doing so MIS has ignored the true nature of managerial information which is interwoven with the social order in organizations. As such MIS had failed to understand the informing process of 'real' managers in the organizational context (Preston, 1986:1991, Boland, 1979: 1986: 1987, and Davis et al, 1992). The initial subject of this research project was proposed by the SA Ambulance Service (SAAS), an independently-run, commercialized organization that provides paramedic, advanced life support and patient transport to the South Australian community. That proposal involved a broad investigation into Information Management and recommendations for its applications to SAAS. SAAS was concerned with the direction both it and the larger body of government was taking towards the management of its information. In particular the orientation towards technology and the bureaucratic form. Historically MIS is premised on the design and development of formal, bureaucratic, calculation-based information systems, and concentrates on the capture, processing and storage of explicit knowledge (knowledge which can be "written" down) through the development and use of primarily calculative systems. The communicative needs of managers is secondary. Consequently, many academics and practitioners lack an understanding of the true nature of how managers use and acquire information in the organizational context. The current interest in knowledge management systems raises the question of how managers can best utilise electronic systems to "inform" themselves. For SAAS, this question was quite significant as they did not wish to invest heavily in formal knowledge management systems until they had a clearer understanding of how best to develop these systems (if at all) to complement or improve on their existing organizational specific management practices. As the problem of "how best we can utilise information systems to aid managers "inform" themselves" was ill defined it was decided to undertake research through an interpretive case study, into the current information management practices at SAAS. To guide early data collection, analysis and literature research an initial research focus was developed based on an ethnographic study conducted by Preston (1986:1991). Preston's study reported on "how manager's inform themselves'. Preston's study emphasized the importance of interaction and observation as the dominant "mode of informing" employed by the managers in the organization he studied. These results could have quite a significant impact on the design and use of any systems developed to "manage" information and knowledge within an organization. A system which supports a manager's preferred mode of informing might have a greater likelihood of success and continued use. Ten years on, whilst we see considerable change in the technology, techniques and methods used in IS development we still focus on data oriented systems rather than communicative action oriented systems. There was a need for more research to confirm whether the technology was aligned with mangers information needs. …