The Influence of Government Regulations on Content Management Systems: An Exploratory Study

ABSTRACT The primary focus of this study was to determine why and how small businesses implement content management and to clarify the relationship of content management to regulatory compliance issues presented by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX). A combination exploratory/narrative case study was used to investigate three organizations that use content management to improve their businesses and guard their businesses against litigation for noncompliance with HIPAA and SOX. Each person interviewed expressed satisfaction with his content management system and each suggested his organization operates more efficiently because of the content management system. INTRODUCTION Our information rich world offers tremendous advantages to decision makers, but there are disadvantages too. Information, like any resource, must be managed in order for users to receive maximum benefit. Content management is becoming widely popular, as businesses are beginning to understand the necessity of efficiently handling information, managing compliance, and protecting against litigation. Content management is a broad term for software applications, strategies, processes, and overall management of information. An organization's information includes paper documents, data stored in databases, Web pages, and other information assets, like photographs, blue prints, and sound files. Enterprise content management is used to refer to an organization's entire collection of content management applications and processes. Purpose for the Study The primary focus of this study was to determine why and how small businesses implement content management and to clarify the relationship of content management to regulatory compliance issues presented by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) and Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX). This study is unique in that it attempts to identify key issues in planning, implementing, and managing content management applications. This paper presents a review of content management, including factors affecting content management growth, features, and benefits. Compliance issues are then summarized to complete the review of content management literature. Following the literature review, an introduction to the case study approach is presented, as well as a description of this study. A narrative of research findings follows the methodology section, and issues and conclusions complete the paper. CONTENT MANAGEMENT Bruce Tuemmler (2006), a document management consultant, suggests that systems for managing organizational content be based on a critical review of business processes. End users should identify processes and information needs--not hardware and software consultants and vendors. From such information, an information lifecycle can be established to manage paper documents, desktop files, and data files, as well as video and audio files. In addition to the type of information required, a lifecycle study should also identify type of capture technology, dissemination requirements, and information storage and retrieval needs. Finally, any information lifecycle study must address disposition and destruction of records that are no longer essential. Mancini (2006b) reports that only four in ten respondents understand the importance of the information lifecycle. In addition to end user requirements of the information lifecycle, Sarbanes-Oxley defines procedures and policies for managing information. Information Lifecycle Like crops, animals, and humans, information has a lifecycle. Typically, the lifecycle of information has five phases: creation or receipt, distribution, use, storage, and disposition. A well-designed content management system overlays the information lifecycle transparently. An example of the lifecycle of an e-mail message is as follows: Phase One. …