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

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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
Approved as to style and content by:

(Chair of Committee) (Member)

(Member) (Member)

(Member) (Member)

(Member)

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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

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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.

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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.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
ABSTRACT iv
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS vi
TABLE OF CONTENTS vii
LIST OF TABLES xii
LIST OF FIGURES xiv
CHAPTER I 1
INTRODUCTION 1
1.1. Background to and research gap of the study 1
1.2. Research problems and questions 5
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

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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

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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

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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

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5.3.1.7. A new framework of problem solving process 286
5.3.2. Managerial implications 288
5.3.2.1. A basis of organizational decision making 288
5.3.2.2. A design of organizations 289
5.3.2.3 Project proposal: a virtual clinic for SME management consultancy 291

5.4. Chapter summary 297
CHAPTER VI 299
CONCLUSIONS 299
6.1. Introduction 299
6.2. Summary of research findings and implications 299
6.2.1. Organizational information as system 299
6.2.2. Organizational information formulation as habit production 302
6.2.3. Distinction among three information categories 304
6.2.4. Research implications 304
6.3. Contributions of the research 308
6.4. Limitations of the research 312
6.5. Directions for future research 313
6.6. Concluding remarks 314
REFERENCES 318
APPENDIX A. RESEARCH FLOW AND TASKS 352
APPENDIX B. ILLUSTRATIVE FITNESS BETWEEN EVIDENCE AND
THEORETICAL CONSTRUCTS 366


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LIST OF TABLES
Table

Page
Table 3.1. Theoretical categories emerged from pilot case studies 92
Table 3.2. Properties and dimensions of the core categories 93
Table 4.1. Organizations, cases, and embedded units of analysis 116
Table 4.2. HY-ICT’s business of ERP implementation – an overview 119

Table 4.3. Code unitizing – an example at HY-ICT 120
Table 4.4. Concept categorizing – an example at HY-ICT 121
Table 4.5. TP-DTF’s business of designing coastal ports – an overview 122
Table 4.6. Code unitizing – an example at TP-DTF 123
Table 4.7. Concept categorizing – an example at TP-DTF 123
Table 4.8. Dimensioning conceptual properties 124
Table 4.9a. Labelling dimensions of conceptual property ‘structure’ – an illustration at TP-
DTF 126
Table 4.9b. Labelling dimensions of conceptual property ‘function’ – an illustration at TP-
DTF 126
Table 4.9c. Labelling dimensions of conceptual property ‘process’ – an illustration at TP-DTF
127
Table 4.9d. Labelling dimensions of conceptual property ‘context’ – an illustration at TP-DTF
128
Table 4.10. Conceptual properties and dimensions 131
Table 4.11. Three emerging fundamental patterns of organizational information 133
Table 4.12. The emerged core category of organizational information 133
Table 4.13. The refined central category of organizational information 134
Table 4.14. Theoretical themes 135
Table 4.15. Structure property – an illustrative example of its dimensions in case evidence 140
Table 4.16. Function property – an illustrative example of its dimensions in case evidence. 146
Table 4.17. Process property – an illustrative example of its dimensions in case evidence 151
Table 4.18. Context property – an illustrative example of its dimensions in case evidence 155

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Table 4.19. A descriptive model of organizational information as system 160
Table 4.20. Three basic patterns of organizational information 161
Table 4.21. The distinction among three basic patterns of organizational information 164

Table 4.22. A descriptive model of organizational information as system - fine tuned version
166
Table 5.1. A foundational distinction among three information categories 213
Table 5.2. Situational actions in Habermas’ three worlds 218
Table 5.3. A systems based theory of pragmatic information 240
Table 5.4. Some meta-theoretical assumptions of information categories 247
Table 5.5. A pragmatic paradigm of information 253
Table 5.6a. An example of information view of organization theories 268
Table 5.6b. An example of information view of organizational phenomena 269
Table 5.7. A literature review of research utilization 274
Table 5.8. Substantial problems of organizational decision making 290

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LIST OF FIGURES
Figure

Page
Figure 2.1. Pragmatism semiotics triangle 49
Figure 3.1. A tentative triadic relation in business case 94
Figure 4.1. Structural aspect (SCE) of organizational information 139
Figure 4.2. Functional aspect (UED) of organizational information 145
Figure 4.3. Processual aspect (RDP) of organizational information 151
Figure 4.4. Contextual aspect (IAH) of organizational information 154
Figure 4.5. Time aspect (PPF) of organizational information 157
Figure 4.6. Epistemic aspect (OSI) of organizational information 159
Figure 4.7. An explanatory model of organizational information as system (DKI model) 164
Figure 4.8. An explanatory model of organizational information as system - fine tuned version
(DKI model – fine tuned version) 167

Figure 4.9. A triadic model of organizational information formulation process (SDB model)
170
Figure 4.10. A systems based model of organizational information (systems based DKI
model) 171
Figure 5.1. Formally structural aspect (SOC) of information-as-system 217
Figure 5.2. Formally functional aspect (DCC) of information-as-system 220
Figure 5.3. Formally processual aspect (DWC) of information-as-system 222
Figure 5.4. Formally contextual aspect (PIS) of information-as-system 226
Figure 5.5. Formally time aspect (PPF) of information-as-system 227
Figure 5.6. Formally epistemic aspect (EPS) of information-as-system 229
Figure 5.7. Proposal of management research quality (RRR) 278
Figure 5.8. A new taxonomy of knowledge production modes and beyond 287
Figure 5.9. Business case in the virtual clinic case base 294
Figure 5.10. Process, function, and context of business case information-as-system 295


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CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
1.1. Background to and research gap of the study
For organization and management studies in general and knowledge
management (KM) as well as information systems (IS) literature in particular,
organizational knowledge or knowledge in organizations is more increasing interest
among academics and managers (von Krogh, 2009; Tsoukas & Vladimirou, 2001;
Orlikowski, 2002; Assudani, 2005; Jakubik, 2007). Nonaka, von Krogh and Voelpel’s
(2006, p.1200) confirmed that “the construct ‘knowledge’ was increasingly accepted
and now occupies a central and legitimate role in much mainstream organizational and
management theory”. However, though KM as a buzzword of the field of management

in the past decade (Baskerville & Dulipovici, 2006), or knowledge as a mainstream
vocabulary of management (von Krogh, 2009), Tsoukas and Vladimirou (2001, p.973)
still admitted that “organizational knowledge is much talked about but little
understood”. More concisely, Jakubik (2007, p.17), in a very recent review of KM
literature, also observed that “there are recent ontological and epistemological debates
about knowledge and the creation of knowledge”.
The first debate reflects the highly debatable nature of knowledge (Mingers,
2008, p.64), the fundamental matter of epistemology (Nonaka, von Krogh & Voelpel,
2006, p.1180), very elusive construct of knowledge (von Krogh, 2009, p.2), or a tricky
concept (Gourlay, 2006, p.1425). Very often, researchers proposed many knowledge
types (e.g. Courtney, 2001), or even many knowledge types along with many
knowledge perspectives (Alavi & Leidner, 2001). In addition, even the notions
‘knowledge’ and ‘organizational knowledge’ also interfer with each other. For
example, Broadbent (1998), by indicating some processes to transform the former to
the latter, more or less equaled the former with tacit knowledge and the latter with

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explicit knowledge. Meanwhile, Spender (1998), drawing two classical distinct sorts of
knowledge (i.e. explicit and tacit) and two levels of analysis (i.e. individual and social),
maintained the umbrella ‘organizational knowledge’ and proposed a two-by-two matrix
of organizational knowledge types. Specifically, in conceptualization of knowledge in
KM and IS, regardless knowledge perspective adopted, the emphasis centered on
understanding the difference among data, information, and knowledge, and respective
implications as well (Alavi & Leidner, 2001, p.110), or “there has been, and remains,
considerable debate about the fundamental concepts of ‘knowledge’, ‘information’ and
even of ‘data’” (Mingers, 2008, p.62). For example, while the traditional view (e.g.
Ackoff, 1989) put the three concepts into a hierarchical ladder, Buckland (1991), in his
epistemological schema of information, proposed a completely different relation:

information as knowledge.
The second debate presents a highly fragile process of knowledge creation
(von Krogh, 1998; 2009). Such fragility of the knowledge creation process is from the
way people relate to each other in organization (von Krogh, 1998), or on the interaction
between individual knowledge and collective knowledge (von Krogh, 2009). In
addition, Jakubik (2007, p.17) recently observed that there is a shift in focus toward the
community view of knowledge and social embeddedness of knowledge, which
maintains that knowledge does not reside in individual’s brain, but is created in
communities. The new trend seems to look to accommodating two opposing
ingredients or attributes: mostly tacit and experience-based (p.17) but also social
interaction and process-based (p.14). In specific, for organizational knowledge creation
process, Li and Kettinger (2006) affirmed the role of information, which could be the
input or the evaluation criteria for the process. The former role was assumed by the
information processing view, the latter role was held by the evolutionary view of
knowledge creation process, and the mixed role was possibly suggested (e.g. Li &
Kettinger, 2006).

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At this point, the two debates on knowledge and knowledge creation clearly
presented us with opportunities of research that attempts to make clear the knowledge
landscape full of complex and controversial (e.g. Jakubik, 2007). Such studies are to be
very significant because they, more formally, help to overcome the shortcomings of
conceptualizations of knowledge and knowing in organizations, which are not only
fragmented across disciplines but also incompatible and mutually contradictory
(Cecez-Kecmanovic, 2004). In fact, Jakubik (2007, p.17) recently indicated that the
literature is lacking in good explanations of, for example, how knowledge is created in
communities, and thus, providing opportunities for new contributions to the relevant
area.

However, we are also confronted with two following challenges. First, any
new conceptualization of organizational knowledge is requested to provide a
distinction among the notions of knowledge, information, and data. Meanwhile, it was
warned that (e.g. Stenmark, 2002) the relationships among the three concepts are more
complicated than that of the conventional knowledge hierarchy (e.g. Ackoff, 1989),
and that of the reversed hierarchy (e.g. Tuomi, 1999). In a similar vein, some
researchers recognized the problem of defining these entities in terms of each other:
unwise (Stenmark, 2002), or conceptual difficulties (Gourlay, 2006). More advancedly,
the distinction is asked to be in epistemological and ontological levels (e.g. Jakubik,
2007). It should be noted that until the very recent time, Mingers (2008) admitted that
the distinction is still a “considerable debate”, or in other words, this gap is still since
1940s (Gourlay, 2006). Second, any new conceptualization of organizational
knowledge creation is required that, with the assumption of knowledge as a social
construct, to present a more consistent, instead of highly fragile, process paying more
attention on the emerging community view of knowledge and social embeddedness of
knowledge (Jakubik, 2007). This is demanding because it has to cope with three
interdependent problems. The first problem is to reconcile the perspective of

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knowledge as tacit knowing (i.e. process and experience based, see e.g. Polanyi, 1966)
and the perspective of knowledge as situated in organizational contexts (i.e. shared and
constructed in organizations through a continuous process of dialog and interactions,
see e.g. Brown and Duguid, 1991). The second problem is, with the widespread
assumption of information as an important factor for knowledge creation, to specify the
role of information in the process (Li & Kettinger, 2006). Indirectly, this definitely
affects knowledge typologies, and then the engine of knowledge creation process
(Gourlay, 2006). The final problem is to make sure the output (i.e. knowledge)
produced from the process to be truth, warrantiability, or justifiability at some extent

(e.g. Mingers, 2008). Previous studies on organizational knowledge seemed not to
provide a complete understanding of the process of knowledge creation (Li &
Kettinger, 2006). For instance, Nonaka’s model of organizational knowledge creation
(e.g. Nonaka, 1994; Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995; Nonaka & Toyama, 2003), which is
one of the best known and most influential models in KM (Choo & Bontis, 2002), has
been criticized as flawed (Gourlay, 2006) with two shortcomings in specifications of
knowledge types (i.e. tacit knowledge) and in the engine of the knowledge conversion
process (e.g. combination and internalization) as well. Meanwhile, Li and Kettinger’s
(2006) evolutionary model of knowledge creation was more focusing on the
specification of the role of information in the process of knowledge creation, but still
missing some relation between knowledge and the dimension of truth. Mingers (2008)
very recently observed that almost no literature deals with the relation of knowledge to
truth or justifiability, even the work of the production and distribution of knowledge of
Machlup (1980), one of the founders of KM.
The debates, opportunities, and challenges just briefly mentioned above,
simultaneously pose the needs, position the contributions, and constrain the scopes for
a new understanding of what the nature of organizational knowledge is and how to
create organizational knowledge. In addition, the need for such an understanding is

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both long time (i.e. long standing debates or confusion) and emergent (i.e. emerging
theoretical views, and organizational contexts of increasing networking).
1.2. Research problems and questions
With the background just preliminarily identified, the first central point we
make here is that, organizational knowledge should be framed or positioned,
concerning the nature of knowledge, in the long-standing theoretical debates of nature
of information and knowledge (Rowley, 2007; Mingers, 2008), and hence, concerning
the creation of knowledge, in the role of information (Li & Kettinger, 2006; Mingers,

2008), and of community (Jakubik, 2007), and of justifiability (Mingers, 2008) in the
knowledge creation process, on the assumption that knowledge is created in some
sense (Gourlay, 2006). In other words, organizational knowledge should be addressed
in a relation to information in organization, for organization and by organization.
Indeed, both knowledge and information in turn have already been the focal object of
study of KM and IS in particular, and of organization and management in general
(Alavi & Leidner, 2001, pp.108-09; Tsoukas & Vladimirou, 2001, pp.974-76; Mingers,
2008, pp.62-4). Moreover, the distinction or boundary between knowledge and
information should be specified epistemologically and ontologically. However, this
does not mean that knowledge or information is necessarily a discrete entity because
knowledge, for example, is both process and resource (Assudani, 2005). This also
implies that by such a fundamentally conceptual specification (i.e. epistemologically
and ontologically) of both knowledge and information, the incompatible and
contradictory knowledge taxonomies would be cleared up. Our point is essentially in
line with von Krogh’s (2009, pp.1-2) very recent observation that the knowledge
construct is widespread in academics for the last 20 years, but still remains a very
elusive one. The latter may in turn cause theoretical and empirical problems relative to
different aspects of content or object (e.g. knowledge and information), of cognitive

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and behavioral process (e.g. knowing, information processing, and cognition), and of
locus (e.g. individual or collective) (e.g. von Krogh, 2009).
The second point, in reference to Tsoukas and Vladimirou’s (2001, p.975)
double faces of organizational knowledge which includes both organization and
knowledge phenomenon, to von Krogh, Roos & Slocum’s (1994, p.53) corporate
epistemology which also comprises both organizational and knowledge aspects, and to
von Krogh’s (2009) individual and collective perspective of knowledge in
organizations, the nature and the process of the knowledge construct needs to be

positioned in an organizational framework. This organizational aspect of organizational
knowledge would best be displayed in Jakubik’s (2007) emerging view of community
of knowledge, which recognizes knowledge as a social construct (p.17). Hence,
organizational knowledge or so should also be dealt within the context of an
organization as communities of communities (Cox, 2005), which could in turn contain
many different types, not just communities of practice (p.538). Furthermore, with some
advances of communications revolution that results in organized networks and
networked economics (Kelly, 1995), and our contemporary world more increasingly
interconnected (Senge, 1990), Stephens (2004) showed the emergence and growth of
inter-organizational systems (Powell, Koput & Smith-Doerr, 1996) such as T-form
organizations (Lucas, 1996), e-business systems (Pant & Ravichandran, 2001), virtual
organizations (Davidow & Malone, 1993), and boundaryless organizations (Ashkenas
et al, 1995). With these new organizational or inter-organizational forms, Stephens
(2004) warned us that some sort of information which was based only on
organizational requirements is no longer appropriate. To be clear, information in
organizations is not limited in organizational work anymore, but is embedded in broad
economic and social concerns instead. Hence, the new organizational context for
organizational knowledge is now both changing from communities of practice (e.g.
Brown & Duguid, 2001) to networks of practice (e.g. Takhteyev, 2009) and influenced

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by the phenomena of social networking (Wellman, 2001). At this point, organizational
knowledge would be referred to some sort of organizational information as mentioned
in Stephens (2004) above, which could better conceptually capture the notions of such
networks, or alternatively, of socio-cultural systems that are information-bond
(Gharajedaghi, 2005).
Meanwhile, in a profession view, the leading management guru Drucker
(1999) reminded us that the biggest challenge of the new age is the very information,

which an executive needs and which an executive owns. Drucker further predicted a
new revolution on information, which started with business organization and centered
on business information but also spread out to all societal institutions and single
individuals. It was warned to us that, according to Drucker, every single knowledge
worker or executive has to manage herself on her information, or she was the only one
who could be able to transform data into her information and then use the information
in her own business activities. The available suppliers or information systems could
provide her with general data only, not specific data that she could make into her
information. Moreover, the management guru also suggested that the information
would be shaped relying on interaction between the knowledge worker and her
colleagues, in two consecutive stages. The first stage specified which information is
necessary for whom she works with, and the second stage pointed out which
information is necessary for herself and could be drawn from where. Hence, the key
point may still be in the very own way the knowledge worker works on her data to
create information that inherently needs also to be specified contextually along her
work flow.
Another real world case on organizational life could also reveal the
significance of organizational information formulation. It is in Weick’s (1993b) paper
on the Mann Gulch disaster that resulted in the collapse of sense-making in a 16-people
smokejumper crew. Although the crew was a highly select group, the disaster was too

8


terrible: 13 died. In such situations of high pressure or emergency, it was recognized
that, a status of group disintegration, neither judgment of some individuals nor
previous action patterns, was very critical. With our lens of information phenomenon,
the key point of the disaster may rely on that organizational information could not be
formulated properly because of the lack of, for example, some proper methods of group
integration, or more formally, of belief fixation (e.g. Peirce, 1958). The latter turned

out to be the very problem of community, not individual (Peirce, 1958).
In short, from practitioners’ view (e.g. Drucker’s study and Weick’s story),
for organizational life and beyond, the present-day problem, at both individual and
institution concerns, may be framed into the definition of organizational information
and how to formulate such information. These practically organizational problems, in
the same manner as the above theoretical organizational problems, may be both long-
standing and emergent.
From above, and because of the mutually dependent knowledge –
information relationship, the conceptualization of organizational knowledge through
the examination of the nature of knowledge and the process of knowledge creation
would lead to a conceptualization of organizational information, which might naturally
have the similar subjects, the nature of information and the process of information
formulation. And such a lead may be in need, given, in knowledge and information
literatures, a conceptual confusion between knowledge and information. It should be
noted that, however, the crucial point, may be in Popper’s (1972, p.310) comment:
“One should never … gets involved in question of terminology … What we are really
interested in, our real problems, … are problems of theories and their truth”. In other
words, a new relevant theory of organizational information is really expected.
Moreover, with the above-mentioned fact that the new organizational
context is both changing from communities of practice to networks of practice and
influenced by the phenomena of social networking, organizational information or

9


information in organizations would be also preferred to organizational knowledge or
knowledge in organizations to better reflect such networks or socio-cultural systems of
the bonds of information (Gharajedaghi, 2005), or increasingly interconnected world
(Senge, 1990).
Finally, given the fact that the required professional practice of

management in such socio-cultural networks for this century (e.g. Drucker,
1999), and that information is substantially embedded in organizations
(Walsh & Ungson, 1991, p.65), we argue that the notion of community-based
‘information’ phenomenon would be more fundamental, thus makes more sense
than that of personal ‘knowledge’ (Polanyi, 1962) to knowledge workers and
organizations. Thus, the phenomena of organizational information are more
worthy investigating for both practitioners and researchers in the
organizations that are dominant institutions of contemporary societies (Daft
& Lewin, 1990).
At this point, it is easy to come up with two research problems or questions.
The first research problem is about the nature of the construct ‘knowledge’ in
organizations. The respective research question is what the nature of information in
organizations is? Quite equally, how organizational information is distinguished from
knowledge and even data? The second research problem is on the knowledge creation
process. This problem turns into the next question on what the aspects of the process of
information formulation are, or how the process formulates information in terms of the
states and transformations between them? In other words, that is, how do organizations
create information?
With the two primary questions, it is expected that a new theory of
organizational information is in need. In content, the theory analytically should
comprise two components. One, a theoretical model of organizational information is
built to uncover the nature of information in organizations. Two, drawing on or in

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parallel with the theoretical model, a process of organizational information formulation
should be also developed.
1.3. Rationale of the theory building research
1.3.1. Justification for the research

As briefed above, the field of organization and management in general and
IS as well as KM in particular would suffer from the construct ‘knowledge’. Although
there exist many definitions of knowledge and of its relative that is information, the
nature of knowledge and information in organizations is still problematic, and equally,
the distinction between organizational knowledge and information is still in question.
To be short, Mingers’s (2008, p.65) summary of the weaknesses of all the approaches
to the notions of knowledge and information was convincing: “they all suffer from
inadequate and unclear conceptualizations of the nature of information and its possible
relationships to knowledge”.
Next, relying on the confusing notions of knowledge and information, as a
result, existing models of organizational knowledge creation might be ill-founded.
Nonaka’s organizational knowledge creation (e.g. Nonaka, 1994; Nonaka & Toyama,
2002; 2003; 2005), which has ever achieved the paradigmatic status since the mid-
1990’s (Gourlay, 2006), for example, has been criticized as “seriously incomplete and
selectively blind” (Zhu, 2006, p.109), or as cracked in its conceptual framework of
knowledge conversion process (Gourlay, 2006, p.1421). Additionally, Nonaka’s model
could not explain how to generate new ideas and how to maintain collaborative work
(Bereiter, 2002), which are inherently crucial to knowledge creation in general and
under the community view of knowledge in specific. Another example is Gourlay’s
(2006) behavioral model of knowledge creation. This model, drawing on Dewey’s
(1916) theory of experience, recognizes the two widespread types of knowledge (i.e.
know-how and know-that), and considers these both as the components/consequences

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of Dewey’s two general modes of behavior (i.e. reflective and non-reflective). With its
simplicity, Gourlay’s model seemingly could not, for instance, name the way how to
create some thing new, or how to make group decision making (i.e. behavior) although
Gourlay affirmed the role of some informed outsiders onto organizational behaviors.

At this point, shortly, it should be followed Gourlay’s (2006) advice of, for the topic of
knowledge creation, doing empirical studies of organizational knowledge process,
instead of derivation of the theoretical model from extant studies.
Then, due to the conceptual grassroots (i.e. ontological and epistemological
ingredients) of such fundamental constructs and processes, an approach of theory
building rather than theory testing is naturally needed.
Finally, from practitioner views, some justification for our research of
conceptualization of organizational information is also evident. Concerning the first
topic (i.e. the nature of the phenomena of information), as mentioned previously, one
of the biggest management challenges for the 21
st
century would be that knowledge
worker would be caught in a trap of her specification of information for her work and
how to produce that information (Drucker, 1999). For the second topic (i.e. how to
formulate information in organization), the expensive lesson learnt from the Mann
Gulch disaster (i.e. Weick, 1993b) was how to prevent the group disintegration in a
critical situation by adequately formulating the appropriate group information, which
would act as the Peirce’s belief fixation.
1.3.2. Importance of the research
First and foremost, the investigation of the nature and the formulation
process of the information construct would best be understood as a “scholarship” for
conceptual cleansing (e.g. Jackson, 2000). Such a kind of theoretical research would
contribute much into “the current appreciation of the nature of the discipline” (Jackson,
2000, p.12) that is IS including KM (e.g. Alavi & Leidner, 2001).