The Theoretical Framework for
the 'Archive-As-Is'. An Organization
Oriented View on Archives
Part I. Setting the Stage: Enterprise Information
Management and Archival Theories
geert-jan van bussel
1. introduction
1.1. The problem: Information Chaos within organizations
The definition of a business strategy is a common practice to capitalize on new
market opportunities and to do better than direct competitors. Projected on the
information management processes of an organization, a business strategy clarifies
how information can be used for reaching business objectives (Baets, 1992;
Peppard and Ward, 2016). It can be used for quick responses to needs of customers,
adjustments to changes in the organizational environment, and improvements
in competitiveness. Most of this information is recorded in different types of
information objects that are embedded within organizational business processes
and are, as such, important business assets.
Enterprise Information Management (EIM) tries to enable organizations to secure
these business assets across the complex landscapes of organizational departments,
legacy systems, corporate and regulatory policies, business content, and big data
(Chaki, 2015). It organizes the information value chain in capturing, structuring,
describing, preserving, and governing information objects across organizational,
temporal, and technological boundaries to allow business strategies to reach their
objectives (Van Bussel, 2012abc; Van de Pas and Van Bussel, 2015ab). It has not
been overly successful, because it concentrates almost exclusively on structured
information (objects), as the result of being influenced extensively by computer
science. But more than 80 of all information objects in organizations are
unstructured and with big data on the rise, that amount is growing quickly (Van
Bussel, 2012b).
More than forty years ago, Alvin Toffler (1970) coined the term 'information
overload'. Today's world is characterized by an increasing information flood,
completely fulfilling Toffler's forecasts. According to IDC, in 2020 the digital
universe (the information objects created and copied annually) will reach 44
zettabytes (44 trillion gigabytes) (Turner et al, 2014). Because EIM has neglected
the management of unstructured information objects, many of these objects
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