Exploring Two Approaches to Information Management: Two Swedish Municipalities as Examples

This chapter explores the differences and similarities between records management and enterprise content management (ECM). The need to manage information effectively as a key asset is central to the delivery of quality service, and information management determines the efficiency level of business operations. Information systems are deployed to facilitate the effective creation, capture, organization, management, and dissemination of information, so a proactive and holistic approach to information management is critical if information is to be leveraged in a manner that gives organizations a competitive edge. Records management, a field of management that controls the systematic management of records, enables organizations to comply with the regulations governing corporate or government information. It also serves broad societal purposes like the promotion of government accountability and transparency and the societal memory. While records management focuses on records that carry the evidentiary value of business transactions, other types of information resources such as documents, audio files, video clips, and desktop information have proliferated in governments. This type of information is unstructured and highly relevant to the day-to-day business operations, but often it is kept in multiple places and in duplicate, which complicates the task of finding it. This development has led to new ways of managing information such as ECM. ECM is variably defined as a technology, an initiative, a framework or a set of skills that organizations employ to manage their unstructured information resources.