esource. The management of information systems in contemporary organizations is in a period of transformation. Systems design has become an issue with which even small business firms must deal.
The requirement for organizations to deal with an increasing volume of vital data if they are to remain viable entities, together with the increasing costs associated with the adaptation of computer hardware and software to unique organizational requirements, argues for the application of IT approaches that enhance the level and efficiency of coordination within organizational structures. While the data explosion affects all industries and all firms, many senior managements find the task too daunting or too costly in the short-run, and, thus, attempt to manage around information rather than manage information. Organizations saddled with this managerial approach increasingly find themselves falling behind in the contemporary industrial environment.
Any technical innovation that reduces the costs of filing, organizing, and distributing information should foster information exchange. Improving the exchange of information, however, does not of necessity lead to optimal outcomes. Such outcomes are dependent upon the conditions peculiar to specific organizations.
Intra-firm networking is increasingly important in economic life, because of its capacity for regulating complex transactional interdependence as well as cooperative interdependence among elements of an organization. The term "network" is an abstract "notion referring to a set of nodes and relationships which connect them, and it is used in a variety of sciences, including not only organization theory but also neuro-sciences, operational research, communication theory and small group theory. Within an economic context, networks as modes of organizing economic activities through inter-firm coordination and cooperation lie at the core of organization theory." Networks, thus,...