LUẬN VĂN TỐT NGHIỆP A SYSTEM BASED THEORY OF ORGANIZZTIONAL INFORMATION

A SYSTEMS BASED THEORY OF ORGANIZATIONAL INFORMATION A Dissertation by NGUYEN MANH TUAN Submitted to the Office of Graduate Studies of Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology, VNUHCM in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY December 2010 Major Subject: Business Administration ii A SYSTEMS BASED THEORY OF ORGANIZATIONAL INFORMATION A Dissertation by NGUYEN MANH TUAN Submitted to the Office of Graduate Studies of Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology, VNUHCM in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Approved as to style and content by: (Chair of Committee) (Member) (Member) (Member) (Member) (Member) (Member) December 2010 Major Subject: Business Administration iii iv ABSTRACT A systems based theory of organizational information (December, 2010) Nguyen Manh Tuan, HoChiMinh City University of Technology, VNU-HCMC This research was a theorizing endeavor for a systems based theory of organizational information In essence, it is a conceptualization of the phenomena of organizational information in terms of the nature and the formulation process of information in organizations Standing on the critical postmodernism school, the study took the systems pragmatism approach that primarily relies on both the Peircean pragmatism semiotics and the Churchmanian systems thinking Our research approach naturally gave support to the contextualism as the theory of method, which readily accommodates some salient points of social and organizational phenomena in general and of organizational information in particular, which are historical, contextual and processual To be consistent methodologically, we employed a research design of embedded multiple cases and a grounded theory for our data collection and analysis Two pilot studies and then four main organizational cases in consulting industries were conducted for field data to firmly ground the resultant emergent theory Next we did the test of our emergent model on four existing case studies outside consulting industries, to raise the theoretical level of the emerging grounded theories from the substantive to the formal one The three research findings were affirmed: organizational information as system, organizational information formulation as habit production, and the theoretical distinction among three common information categories By our systems based conception, organizational information would present itself as a unity that comprises nonexclusive six aspects: structure, function, process, context, time and epistemology Each aspect in turn embodies a triad crossing the three v human worlds (i.e material, mental, social) Taking the relational perspective, organizational information would better manifest itself as a continuously dynamic triad, or equally, a Peircean semiosis that comprises three states of mind or ingredients (i.e surprise/data, doubt/knowledge, and belief/information) and three respective relations, or human activities (i.e experience, abduction, and inquiry) In specific, we found that the ingredient of data is more of properties of thing, more objective, and more past oriented, the ingredient of knowledge is more of properties of human, more subjective, and more present-oriented, and finally the ingredient of information itself is more of properties of organization, more inter-subjective, and more future-oriented Such a continuous evolutionary process would help organizational actors within their communities (e.g organizational units) enact information that is inherently to be path dependent and interdependent Our resultant grounded theory of organizational information may offer three major contributions One, it could accommodate at the same time, the entity view, the process view, and the locus view of organizational information, thus is able to capture mostly the information related phenomena in organizations Two, it could maintain a dynamic triadic relation of organizational information, which takes a continuous transformation over time and in space This helps to emphasize the emergence or mediation of information as habits, neither ideas nor activities Three, it could present a comprehensive information taxonomy for distinction among three common categories of information, and thus, clearing up a long standing confusion around this We posit that our grounded systems model could propose a fundamentally theoretical framework about the nature and the process of information, which would be also a theory native to the information systems field By this, our resultant middle range theory would be a distinctive contribution for making information systems as a reference discipline in its own right vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First of all, I am grateful to my main advisor, Dr Vo Van Huy, for his thoughtful guidance and insightful comments throughout my study I am particularly appreciative of his inspiring me with the Churchmanian design of inquiring systems, which is the greatest mission of human beings in general and researchers in specific I have ever thought of Next, I am deeply indebted to my second advisor, Dr Nguyen Huu Lam, for his intellectual encouragement and strong support during this entire endeavor He always helped me pursue my research interests and efforts, one of which is “naturalistic inquiry” that fundamentally declares that human inquiry is not and cannot be value free I particularly want to thank Dr Le N Hau, and Dr Bui N Hung, for their valuable criticism and provocative comments in all stages of this work And I would like to extend my thanks to Dr Nguyen D Tho for his thorough guidelines of the research methodologies and his open sharing for research ideas I also owe many thanks to all of the faculty, staff, and colleagues at the School of Industrial Management, the Department of Management Information Systems, the Center of Business Research and Training, and the Office of Graduate Studies in HCMUT, VNUHCM for their timely support and encouragement during my project I then would like to thank the local business firms, and especially my friend, Nguyen N Nhan for their great assistance in my heavy field work Finally, I close this dissertation in memory of my father and dedicate it to the family, my mother, my sisters, my brothers, my wife, Ha, and my two pretty daughters, T Nhu and G Khue, without whose love, sacrifice, and time, it would not have been possible vii TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS vi TABLE OF CONTENTS vii LIST OF TABLES xii LIST OF FIGURES xiv CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION 1.1 Background to and research gap of the study 1.2 Research problems and questions 1.3 Rationale of the theory building research 10 1.3.1 Justification for the research 10 1.3.2 Importance of the research 11 1.4 Methodology 12 1.5 Contributions and Implications 14 1.5.1 Contributions 14 1.5.2 Implications 16 1.6 Dissertation organization 18 1.7 Chapter summary 20 CHAPTER II 21 REVIEW OF THE LITERATURES 21 2.1 Introduction 21 2.2 Information system 22 viii 2.2.1 The phenomena of information 22 2.2.2 The relationships between information and knowledge 24 2.2.3 The primacy of information 32 2.2.4 Information in the field of information systems 36 2.2.5 The need for a new conceptualization of organizational information 38 2.3 Pragmatism and systems thinking 40 2.3.1 Pragmatism 40 2.3.2 A systems thinking approach to organizational information 50 2.4 Middle range theorizing 53 2.4.1 The organization of theory-building research 53 2.4.2 Systems pragmatism as the research paradigm 54 2.4.3 Contextualism as the theory of methodology 58 2.5 Chapter summary 59 CHAPTER III 60 METHODOLOGY 60 3.1 Introduction 60 3.2 Methodological principles 61 3.3 Justification of the methodology 62 3.3.1 For the qualitative approach 62 3.3.2 For the case study and the grounded theory 64 3.3.3 Why case study? 65 3.3.4 Why grounded theory? 66 3.3.5 Which grounded theory? 67 3.4 Methods 69 ix 3.5 Reporting 74 3.6 Evaluation of the research 75 3.6.1 Research validity 76 3.6.2 The assessment of the emergent theory and the research process 78 3.6.3 Assessment of the evidence grounding the theory 79 3.7 Research design 79 3.8 Pilot case studies 84 3.8.1 VT company 92 3.8.2 RM company 95 3.9 Criteria for the case selection and the number of cases 98 3.10 Case study protocol 99 3.11 Research settings 106 3.12 Data sources 106 3.13 Chapter summary 110 CHAPTER IV 112 ANALYSIS OF DATA AND RESEARCH FINDINGS 112 4.1 Introduction 112 4.2 Data collection 113 4.3 Data analysis 115 4.4 Empirical findings 135 4.4.1 Nature of organizational information and organizational information as system 136 4.4.2 Organizational information formulation process and organizational information formulation as habit production 166 x 4.5 Test of the emerging grounded substantive theory 170 4.5.1 Background 170 4.5.2 Testing propositions 171 4.5.2 Test case selection and theory testing 172 4.6 Chapter summary 194 CHAPTER V 195 DISCUSSION OF THE FINDINGS AND RESEARCH IMPLICATIONS 195 5.1 Introduction 195 5.2 Discussions 196 5.2.1 Research finding 1: Organizational information-as-system 196 5.2.2 Research finding 2: Organizational information formulation as habit production 203 5.2.3 Research finding 3: Distinction among three information categories 211 5.2.4 Revisiting and extending the systems model of pragmatic information 212 5.2.4 Relation between information-as-system and information system 229 5.2.5 A systems theory of pragmatic information 238 5.3 Research implications 244 5.3.1 Theoretical implications 244 5.3.1.1 A pragmatic paradigm of information 244 5.3.1.2 An information view of organization theories and phenomena 252 5.3.1.3 A theoretical framework for management research quality 268 5.3.1.4 An information theory of organization 277 5.3.1.5 An information based theory of the firm 280 5.3.1.6 A new taxonomy of knowledge production modes and beyond 284 372 implementation Training in ERP implementation projects is based on: (i) consultant training about functionalities and usage of original products like Oracle ERP; (ii) key users/division heads training about main uses of business applications on the existing business processes such as accounting practice; (iii) client end-user training about deployment and operation of the new systems/applications customized Exploitation of external object that are “business applications/products” This could be done through consultant training and supports of original product distributors or manufacturers The objective is for business consultants to master application packages Exploration of external object just mentioned and understanding internal business processes of customer This could be done through (in pre-sales activities) training of key users or division heads to identify core processes and main uses of business applications to be implemented Changing existing business processes of customer; Implementing future process and exploiting business applications on new processes to make more profit This could be done through (in implementation activities) end-user training about deployment and operations of the new systems implemented Note the sequence of sorts of training just mentioned: past – present – future Link business processes to business activities through human users running business applications to make synergy/new organization for the whole company at customer sites Table B3 Process Property Company TP-DTF Resource The Development Product geographical, Long range planning “Moving coastal ports 373 hydrogeological, and vision to 2020 hydrographical, and The geological features of long designing from SG to VT was not resulting imaginative 10 years products ago” time, long ago and recent are intellectual Moving investigations designing new ones of natural implies environments and territories Cluster of projects of designing coastal ports up to 2020 gets involved in: (i) long time, long ago as well as recent and expensive investigations of natural and geographical properties of territories and environments; also considered as invisible assets, and deployed over time; (ii) long range planning information and vision of transportation facilities such as bridges, ports, highways and so on in Vietnam and delivered by local and central governments; and managerial capabilities of the corporation; (iii) designing and then moving coastal ports from SG to VT; “consulting also creates information”, Natural and geographical properties of territories and environments are foundations or preconditions for “planning and vision to 2020” and later technical designs of coastal ports “Planning and vision to 2020”: new ideas to take advantage of the existing natural and geographical properties of territories and environments Technical designs give blueprints for later building facilities and also guidelines for evaluations The corporation capability of management is understood as an integration of human resources, technologies and finance strengths to design new network of coastal ports for the regional socio-economic development It is hard for potential customers to make sense of the corporation products and capabilities The designs of coastal ports are mental, not physical and significantly socioeconomic but are not easy to evaluate until the later stage of long time deployment 374 More, “Moving coastal ports from SG to VT was not imaginative 10 years ago” New coastal ports also make changes of conditions of natural environments and territories in the region That “consulting also creates information” affects back to the current long range planning and others HY-ICT of End-users Existing business activities, Exploration and systems get worse for existing business transferring the system new business requirements processes; identifying just of new performance or “future competitive advantages selection Meanwhile, of ERP “future to making processes” key official; operations of powerful ERP products are user/division training; customized processes”; customer; off-the-shelf products; widely offered training; head the new system specifying modules to be customized; and customizing Detailed ERP implementation projects are based on: (i) existing business operations, explanations and systems, with new business requirements for high performance or competitive advantages as well as off-the-shelf powerful ERP products offered; (ii) exploration of existing business processes; defining “future process”; selection of ERP products; training key users/department heads, changing current practices, identifying some customization/development of ERP modules/subsystems; and doing customization or developing ERP modules/subsystems; (iii) making “future process” official, end-user training about operations of the new systems/applications customized/developed, and transferring the new system to customer Finally, the customer company, business processes, employees, business applications, task systems and business performance would be improved and 375 upgraded The same business problems, and next the required “future processes” may lead to different selections of ERP products, and then, specific packages to be implemented Table B4 Context Property Company TP-DTF Inquiry Action Habit Port projects and Hi-tech in-situ R&D department for geomatics, maritime geological specializing in topography survey, GIS structures instruments study and remote sensing increasingly and laboratory requested qualified Pioneer in application of Real Time some survey Kinematic technology to the bathymetric mapping work works Detailed R&D in consultancy: explanations Hi-tech geological instruments and lab are firstly established for qualified surveys Over time, as a result of accumulation of technical people, instruments, procedures and technologies, hi-tech lab becomes R&D department Next, some geomatics, topography survey, GIS study and remote sensing are conducted as R&D activities Then, these results are contributed to further qualified surveys In parallel, as a result of R&D activities, application of Real Time Kinematic technology to the bathymetric mapping work is confirmed preliminarily Port projects and maritime structures in turn benefit much more then HY-ICT In VN accounting When put an ERP system A tailor made module practice, tax into reporting governments must Vietnamese of tax reporting is readily to companies, is a function a of particular established accounting integrated and into needs to be established for accounting subsystem 376 tax reporting Consulting is just Critical success factor of It is often recognized the process of ERP the project is just customer that without a serious implementation at training Being masters, training in some well client sites where customers would help organized classes, it is business in later very difficult for end themselves the applications meeting development client requirements customization or users of to deploy the the system in case of no user are installed and end system The training is, guiders and the system users are successfully trained however, challenged with, operations are often for example, English in misleading, and far from original products and much the better use time requested Detailed ERP implementation customization: tax reporting is readily tailor-made in explanations accounting subsystem of ERP to be implemented ERP implementation training: heavy end-user training in well-organized classes is always offered in ERP implementation consulting Table B5 Conceptual Categories 1) Nature of information: (A) Entity Structure = (Symptom; Diagnosis; Treatment) of business cases in consulting, pilot (Source; Content; cases Effect); Cluster of projects of designing coastal ports up to 2020 gets involved in: (i) long time, long ago as well as recent and expensive investigations of 377 natural and geographical properties of territories and environments; also considered as invisible assets, and deployed over time; (ii) long range planning information and vision of transportation facilities such as bridges, ports, highways and so on in Vietnam; delivered by local and central governments; (iii) activities of designing new coastal ports; summarized in “consulting also creates information” Sales of accounting package implementation gets involved in: (i) existing profiles of the customers in the same industries or services; (ii) pre-sales activities; (iii) signed-off agreement of specifications of accounting packages to be installed and detailed planning for user training and product installation; identification of non-standard reports; customization of modules; and implementation activities Function = Cluster of projects of designing coastal ports up to 2020 gets involved in: (Uncertainty; (i) long time, long ago as well as recent and expensive investigations of Equivocality; natural and geographical properties of territories and environments; also Disorganization); considered as invisible assets, and deployed over time; (ii) long range planning information and vision of transportation facilities such as bridges, ports, highways and so on in Vietnam; delivered by local and central governments; (iii) activities of designing new coastal ports; summarized in “consulting also creates information” Notes: To ground (to make certainty) projects of designing coastal ports on: results of long time, long ago as well as recent and expensive investigation of natural environments and territories To make out a plan (to make clear/unequivocal) and vision for future development of transportation facilities To make up (to organize) and to design coastal ports as intended or planned in previous stage 378 Training in ERP implementation projects is based on: (i) consultant training about functionalities and usage of original products like Oracle ERP; (ii) key users/division heads training about main uses of business applications on the existing business processes such as accounting practice; (iii) client end-user training about deployment and operation of the new systems/applications customized Notes: To ground (to make certainty) projects of ERP implementation on: ongoing training of business consultants those who build solutions for customers To make out (to make clear/unequivocal) key business processes and main uses of business applications: through key users or division heads training to identify core processes and issues To make up (to organize) “future” business processes and respective uses: through end-users training of operation of new systems or application packages (B) Process Process = Cluster of projects of designing coastal ports up to 2020 gets involved in: (Resource; (i) long time, long ago as well as recent and expensive investigations of Development; natural and geographical properties of territories and environments; also Product); considered as invisible assets, and deployed over time; (ii) long range planning information and vision of transportation facilities such as bridges, ports, highways and so on in Vietnam and delivered by local and central governments; and managerial capabilities of the corporation; (iii) moving coastal ports from SG to VT; “consulting also creates information”, ERP implementation projects are based on: (i) existing business activities, 379 and systems, with new business requirements for high performance or competitive advantages as well as off-the-shelf ERP products offered; (ii) exploration of existing business processes; defining “future process”; selection of ERP products; training key users/department heads, changing current practices, identifying some customization/development of ERP modules/subsystems; and doing customization or developing ERP modules/subsystems; (iii) making “future process” official, end-user training about operations of the new systems/applications customized/developed, and transferring the new system to customer Context = R&D in consultancy: (Inquiry; Action; Hi-tech geological instruments and lab are firstly established for qualified Habit); surveys Over time, as a result of accumulation of technical people, instruments, procedures and technologies, hi-tech lab becomes R&D department Next, some geomatics, topography survey, GIS study and remote sensing are conducted as R&D activities Then, these results are contributed to further qualified surveys In parallel, as a result of R&D activities, application of Real Time Kinematic technology to the bathymetric mapping work is confirmed preliminarily Port projects and maritime structures in turn benefit much more then ERP implementation customization: tax reporting is readily tailor-made in accounting subsystem of ERP to be implemented ERP implementation training: heavy end-user training in well-organized classes is always offered in ERP implementation consulting 2) Process of information formulation: (A) Formulation Cluster of projects of designing coastal ports up to 2020 gets involved in: Process = (i) long time, long ago as well as recent and expensive investigations of 380 (Resource; natural and geographical properties of territories and environments; also Development; considered as invisible assets, and deployed over time; (ii) long range Product); planning information and vision of transportation facilities such as bridges, ports, highways and so on in Vietnam and delivered by local and central governments; and managerial capabilities of the corporation; (iii) moving coastal ports from SG to VT; “consulting also creates information”, ERP implementation projects are based on: (i) existing business activities, and systems, with new business requirements for high performance or competitive advantages as well as off-the-shelf ERP products offered; (ii) exploration of existing business processes; defining “future process”; selection of ERP products; training key users/department heads, changing current practices, identifying some customization/development of ERP modules/subsystems; and doing customization or developing ERP modules/subsystems; (iii) making “future process” official, end-user training about operations of the new systems/applications customized/developed, and transferring the new system to customer (B) Context Formulation of R&D in consultancy: = Hi-tech geological instruments and lab are firstly established for qualified (Inquiry, Action, surveys Over time, as a result of accumulation of technical people, Habit) instruments, procedures and technologies, hi-tech lab becomes R&D department Next, some geomatics, topography survey, GIS study and remote sensing are conducted as R&D activities Then, these results are contributed to further qualified surveys In parallel, as a result of R&D activities, application of Real Time Kinematic technology to the bathymetric mapping work is confirmed preliminarily Port projects and maritime structures in turn benefit much more then 381 ERP implementation customization: tax reporting is readily tailor-made in accounting subsystem of ERP to be implemented ERP implementation training: heavy end-user training in well-organized classes is always offered in ERP implementation consulting Table B6 Core Categories System: properties, with Organizational information as a relation, neither this thing nor that one (1) Structure (source, content, effect) (2) Function (uncertainty, equivocality, disorganization) dimensions (3) Process (resource, development, product) each (4) Context (inquiry, action, habit) Examples: (1) data: (symptom, diagnosis, treatment) theory: (source, content, effect) Consulting business case: (i) Symptom used to represent a business case, more exactly the face value or the effect of a business case, which may often be some problems or difficulties the business facing (ii) Next is diagnosis that shows the reason why symptom occurs and represents the origin or the cause of a business case (iii) Then is treatment that is proposed to resolve diagnosis in order to ultimately remove symptom Treatment may represent the external force or environment of a business case, which often interacts with the business case Hence, doing treatment expectedly affects the cause of the business case It is obvious that symptom is just where a business case starting, forming, or referring to (source) Meanwhile, diagnosis presents specific means or contents for approaching or recognizing symptom, which also presents specific capabilities and mental models of those who deal with business case At last, treatment refers to the measures and solutions that can be applied or manipulated for business to overcome its problems or difficulties That is the 382 value created for anyone who would like to make use of the business case or alternatively, the external view, assessment or effect of the business case (2) data: (fact, significance, value) theory: (uncertainty, equivocality, disorganization) Forecast of human resources: (i) fact: quantity of human resources; not quality of human resources; (ii) significance: quantity and quality of human resource, yet not enough to develop the corresponding industry; (iii) value: quantity, quality of human resource and a relevant development strategy based on the human resource It is obvious that fact from the forecast is to only reduce uncertainty (of quantity of human resource such as how many people of different levels of education and training); significance from the forecast is to reduce equivocality (of quality of human resources such as the capability of development and design products for the industry; not quality in terms of levels of education and training); and value from the forecast is to contribute to organizing and building development strategy of the corresponding industry Recruitment of IT staff: (i) quantity: a large number of application letters of people of different levels of certificates of IT education and training; (ii) quality: top people of higher scores in their education and training; (iii) value: few people of enough good technical capability and experience for development projects in their first years of joining the staff due to their missing in some soft skills (communications, teamwork, ), or their missing in involvement of real life projects, or their curriculums of education and training not staying updated with new technologies The problem of recruitment turns out to be neither the one of insufficiency of candidates nor the one of candidates not qualified enough The former is the 383 fact of the recruitment problem, whereas the latter refers to the significance of the recruitment problem And the final assessment of the recruitment problem is just the business value created by the recruitment (3) data: (business changes/improvements) demands, application services, organizational theory: (resource, development, product) Software development or customization: assumed business specifications and requirements, allocated technical staff, project development plan outlined, which includes appropriate development process model as well as development methods, techniques and tools The software product is a result of process of development based on the resources and the product features required It should be noted that the product developed could in turn affect the development process model and methods as well as assigned resources for next projects ERP implementation projects are based on: (i) existing business activities, and systems, with new business requirements for high performance or competitive advantages as well as off-the-shelf ERP products offered; (ii) exploration of existing business processes; defining “future process”; selection of ERP products; training key users/department heads, changing current practices, identifying some customization/development of ERP modules/subsystems; and doing customization or developing ERP modules/subsystems; (iii) making “future process” official, end-user training about operations of the new systems/applications customized/developed, and transferring the new system to customer “comprehensive services”; “software and services are designed to fit and improve your business process”; “sustainable results” (4) data: (customer, supplier, mediator) theory: (inquiry, action, habit) Call center services: Individual operator response/action comprises the call 384 center operation base that supports for next responses to further inquiries For call center, over time, operation base of operator responses, as its key asset, gets increasingly more important The operation base is, for every operator, where to regularly store as well as to first refer to the organizational rules of action In other words, for the call center operations, some organizational policies or rules of action or organizational habits established It is also very obvious that for customers inquiring and operators responding, the critical factor seems not to be organizational habits, rather the effectiveness of questions and answers themselves in every specific case In other words, there exist at least different stakeholders along with different contexts, which are context of customers/clients, context of suppliers/servers (consulting business), and context of mediators/operators (individual consultants) Industry of ERP implementation: (i) SMEs (context of business clients), (ii) OSPs (original software producers like traditional OEMs) (context of software producers) and (iii) ERP solution providers (context of solution consultants) System could be a relation, which simultaneous accommodates structural, functional, processual, and contextual relations (Gharajedaghi, 2005) Hence, organizational information should be considered as system Table B7 Theoretical Themes Core categories Core category of “system” includes core sub-categories as follows: Structure of information (source; content; effect) Functions of information (uncertainty; equivocality; disorganization) Process of information (resource; development; product) Context of information (inquiry; action; habit) System (structure; function; process; context) 385 Category Category relationships total relations, including triadic ones relationships (epistemology:1, time:1, ontology:4), systemic one, and processual and contextual one among core sub-categories as follows: Epistemology (1): Triple epistemic state of information (objective; subjective; intersubjective) Time (1): Triple time reference of information (past; present; future) Ontology (4): Triadic structure of information (source; content; effect) Triadic function of information (uncertainty; equivocality; disorganization) Triadic process of information (resource; development; product) Triadic context of information (inquiry, action, habit) System (1): Information-as-system (structure, function, process, context) Process and Context (1): Information formulation as habit production (surprise, doubt, belief, abduction, deduction, induction, improvisation, cognition, perception, action) Information is both an entity or object and a process It is also both structure and function or action It is both time bound and context sensitive and evolves over time and space Hence, it could be considered as a Peirce’s semiosis or Churchman’s (ethical/ multi-perspective/interdisciplinary) system 386 Such a construct obviously goes beyond Gidden’s (1984) structuration of both structure and action Process orientation, contextual sensitivity, and timeliness are just some points not to be present in the classic “structuration” ... theory of organizational information It is a pragmatic theory of information in organizations, which is conceptualized as a system Our conceptualization of organizational information as system. .. research was a theorizing endeavor for a systems based theory of organizational information In essence, it is a conceptualization of the phenomena of organizational information in terms of the nature... afford to explain simultaneously both the nature of organizational information and the process of organizational information creation in the same model We are unaware of any literature that approaches