Managing electronic documents and work flows: Enterprise content management at work in nonprofit organizations

Abstract

Web management and knowledge management systems have made significant technological advances, culminating in large information management systems such as enterprise content management (ECM). ECM is a Web-based publishing system that manages large numbers of electronic documents and otherW HEN NEW TECHNOLOGY is available-hardware, software, or even the newest ideas from a consultant-the accompanying promises of improved organizational performance, along with the accompanying price tag, create a moment of evaluation for decision makers in all types of organizations, including nonprofit organizations. Organizations face multiple choices with potentially profound expected and unexpected impacts or an expensive endeavor with little result. One consideration that is most difficult to predict, assess, or understand is the impact the technology will have on the organization itself (Barley, 1986). As Drucker (1993) indicated, we work in an era of the knowledge economy where Note: A version of this article was presented at the Thirty-Third Annual ARNOVA Conference, Los Angeles, November 18-20, 2004. information, knowledge, and other types of content are key organizational assets. The Web, electronic publishing, and recent efforts to manage knowledge through intranets, knowledge-sharing groups, and other means represent content technologies that offer to manage (or automate) a wide range of organizational operations: databases, client information processing, Web content publishing, and even work flow (how a complex task goes from one person to another in order to be completed). One danger of these technologies is the risk of overly commodifying and thus dehumanizing the work process through automation (Patriotta, 2003).Just as with for-profit organizational trends, these content technologies have emerged in nonprofit organizations for knowledge management. Knowledge management has been explored in nonprofit organizations by information technology (IT) researchers who see evidence for its impact on work load, altering power relationships, and meeting the increasing demand for government reporting (Burt and Taylor, 2003;Saidel and Cour, 2003). In this article, we propose a model that can focus questions for research regarding the organizational impact of content and knowledge management systems and articulate a framework for decision makers to evaluate the impacts of these technologies on the knowledge base of the organization as well as organizational process. We examine one contemporary type of knowledge management technology, enterprise content management (ECM), which is "now a fundamental infrastructure component for many organizations" (Goodwin, 2004, p. 3), as it is used in some nonprofit organizations. We conclude that organizations, and especially nonprofit organizations with their strong connection to mission, should consider the impacts of technology on process and avoid the potential dangers of ignoring the commodifying potential of content technologies.We begin with an explanation of organizational content, kno...

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