The role of information professionals in the crisis
Information professionals work in many different organizational environments, including financial institutions, corporations, public libraries, and the media. Their work informs the activities of governments, inter-governmental organizations, business executives, analysts, investors and the general public, to name but a few groups. As an integrated profession they are well placed to share information across the different environments in which they work, ensuring that is made available to those who need it. The role of information failure in the economic crisis raises important questions about whether the information profession is effectively fulfilling this role, and whether it was at least partly to blame for the information failure which resulted in economic crisis.
Winston and Quinn (2005) reviewed literature in the area of library and information science to examine how major economic, political, technological, and social changes had been addressed in library and information science journals over a six-year period. They found evidence of an increased focus in the LIS literature on major social and economic changes and their relationship to information services. However, little attention had been paid to the issue of information access as it pertains to economic and other types of change. There was also a reported lack of focus in the LIS literature on the potential leadership role of information professionals in addressing aspects of crisis and change. The authors noted that the literature does not represent efforts to influence policy-making and legislation, afford access to information, and provide information resources and services as roles of leadership.
The Winston and Quinn (2005) study indicates that the information profession as a profession may not have played an active role in ensuring that adequate information is available for use in economic and financial decision making, and this may indeed have contributed to the economic crisis which has swept the world. The remainder of this paper examines various ways in which the information profession might make a more positive contribution to future economic and financial stability and growth.
The role of information professionals in a “New Global Economy”
First, information professionals have an important role to play in ensuring that the diverse types of data and information now needed to support business and financial decision-making are collected, documented, and made readily available to users. Whereas traditional financial risk-management and decision-making might have relied on a fairly narrow range of quantitative data held by specialist analysts, this is no longer adequate. Users are much more likely to look to information professionals to help them locate and use many sources of national and international information. Increasingly, corporate executives are demanding pertinent, timely, and high-quality data (McKnight, 2009).
The continual dissemination of information to key individuals within organizations is a necessary condition of increased organizational performance (Hatala & Lutta, 2009). Research shows, however, that information sharing is still relatively unusual within organizations (e.g. Davenport & Prusack, 1998; Li & Lin, 2006). Information professionals are often among the first to be aware of new information and have a responsibility to proactively disseminate this to individuals or organizations that they serve, in forms which are user friendly and easy to interpret.
In addition, information management professionals working in the financial services sector will also be required to play a central role in ensuring that adequate information is maintained by organizations or made available to them in order to meet the requirements of the Basel II Framework. This legislation is intended to strengthen banks’ risk management strategies and includes requirements for more extensive assessments of all types of risks. It is expected that even more legislation will be imposed on the financial sector in future (Montana, 2008), with an associated requirement for more information generation and management.
One of the identified problems with traditional risk analysis is that it was conducted in a fragmented way in individual “risk buckets” (Beasley, Branson & Hancock, 2009). Nowadays, Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) is being promoted as a more effective way of identifying and managing organization-wide risks and sharing information about these so that they can be effectively mitigated. Information professionals who serve all parts of an organization are well placed to ensure that ERM is implemented effectively and that is underpinned by accurate, up-to-date information. Similarly, information management specialists are likely to play an important role in the increasing use of master data management (MDM), in which company data are held and on organization-wide integrated systems rather than fragmented hubs (Zornes, 2009).
On a national and international level, there is also a pressing need for more integrated information systems to help avoid recurrent economic crises. For example, in the case of the current crisis, the liberalization of the financial system and the split of regulatory responsibilities between central banks and other bodies made it difficult to spot the warning signs (Morgan, 2009). The information profession should play a leadership role in liaising between governments, financial institutions, and regulators to establish integrated, transparent financial information systems.
Finally, information professionals must adapt to emerging forms of communication such as online social networking sites, blogs, and other online media (Hawkins, 2009). Increasingly used for personal and business use alike, these forms of communication allow fast dissemination of information to a worldwide audience. These forms of communication offer opportunities to disseminate financial and economic information quickly and effectively, but the ease with which anyone can publish information online also means that inaccurate or misleading data can spread rapidly (Sungmin, 2009). The information profession has an important role to play not only in the appropriate use of new forms of media but also in terms of quality control. The low entry barriers to publishing information online facilitate the greater use of data in decision-making but bring about a requirement for tools and guidance to enable users to interpret the quality and accuracy of the information, a demand which information professionals must meet (Hawkins, 2009).
Conclusive remarks
This paper has discussed the role of information failure in the economic crisis and has shown how the information profession must be much responsive and proactive in meeting user information needs in the new global economy in order to avoid a recurrence of the crisis and to support future economic growth. The years of the early 21st century have often been called the “information age,” and it has been predicted that many more powerful advances in information systems are on the way. Information professionals are at the centre of these developments and have the potential to make a major contribution to growth and sustainability in the world economy. In order to do so, however, the profession must take responsibility for ensuring that information failure is never again a cause of economic crisis.
Assignments
1 What factors caused an economic crisis of 2007?
2 Do you agree that information professionals may also be partly responsible for the occurrence of the crisis? Explain.
3 What is the result of information transparency?
4 What is the result of information failure in the economic crisis?
5 What does abbreviation LIS stand for?
6 Who plays a central role in providing organizations with adequate information?
7 What do you know about Enterprise Risk Management (ERM)?
8 What emerging forms of communication do you know?
9 How can information help reduce negative effects of economic crisis?
10 Summarize the text.
Text 2
Information Professionals in the Information Age: