geert-jan van bussel the theoretical framework for the 'archive-as-is'
an organization oriented view on archives - part i
The professional practice of records management (or recordkeeping), recognizing
both concepts, aims to support organizations in their business conduct and should
be aligned with business and information systems, risk management, and
information governance (McLeod and Lomas, 2015). Although it should have been
aligned with EIM, in organizational reality it is not (Alalwan and Weistroffer, 2012).
Most organizations do not align records management with business processes and
strategies (Van Bussel, 2016). Records Management is based on best practices,
pragmatic considerations and borrowed theories from other disciplines such as
archival science, information science and management. It lacks its own theoretical
basis, as an analysis of the contents and abstracts of the 392 primary articles of its
only scholarly journal, Records Management Journal (Impactscore: 0.324) shows.
The two articles defining encompassing frameworks for records management are
based directly on theories from archival science (Yusof and Chell, 2002; Ismail
and Jamaludin, 2009). Its reputation is that of 'the handmaiden of archives
administration' (McLeod and Lomas, 2015, p. 349), a keeper of 'old documents',
and an inconvenience or technicality. It is one of the main reasons for the
organizational misunderstanding about the value of records management.
For EIM to find a theoretical foundation based on records and archives, only
archival science seems to offer applicable, encompassing theoretical frameworks.
There are two different views within archival science, the Records Continuum
Theory and Digital Diplomatics. The theories focus on the cultural and evidential
value of archives respectively. They do not pay much attention to the (organizational
or personal) construction of archives and their value for reaching organizational
objectives and defining business strategies. It is remarkable, for instance, that in
the more than 1.000 pages of Research in the Archival Multiverse, the most recent
collection of essays on archival science research (Gilliland, McKemmish and Lau,
2016), the organizational (or personal) construction of archives receives no
attention at all. The analysis of these two theoretical frameworks will be very
important in defining a new one, more aimed at organizational value, reaching
business objectives and defining business strategies. This new framework could be
the theoretical foundation needed for EIM to use records and archives for reaching
business objectives and in defining and realizing business strategies. Defining this
new theoretical framework is the objective of the second part of this article.
1.4. Research methodology
This new theoretical framework is a result of my long-term research into the
relationships between organizational accountability, digital archiving and EIM
(2008-2016). During this research, an interpretive research approach was followed,
primarily based on Orlikowski and Baroudi (1991). In this approach, in order to
explore phenomena without imposing an a priori understanding, a non-
deterministic perspective is necessary. The research for this article is based on:
1. An analysis of a corpus of scientific literature, based on the literature review
methodology of Okoli and Shabram (2010). This corpus consisted of 1152
conference papers, journal articles, working papers and books. These items
were collected using key word search in the Digital Library of the University of
Amsterdam, IEEE Xplore Digital Library, ACM Digital Library, Google Scholar,
Microsoft Academic Search, EBSCO, Emerald Insight, and Paperity.
2. An analysis of the application descriptions of 17 case studies, organized and
analysed for the research reported in Van Bussel and Ector (2009) about digital
archiving, organizational accountability and governance in public organizations.
These case studies were organized according to the case study methodology,
designed by Yin (2003), supplemented with Benbasat, Goldstein and Mead
(1987) for their method of action research.
3. In-depth, semi-structured interviews with ten records management, EIM,
and business specialists about the analysis of the corpus of literature, the case
studies, and the new theoretical framework in its different stages of design.
1.5. Outline of this article
This article is published in two parts. This first part is setting the stage. In the
introduction, EIM and its lack of a suitable theoretical foundation is introduced.
This is followed with a delineation about the archival renaissance in the last decade
of the twentieth century, when the 'archive' was 'reborn' as a 'theoretical archive',
almost completely dissociated from organizational practice and characterized as a
conceptual domain for many disciplines. After this, the leading archival theories in
the first decades of the twenty-first century are discussed. The first part ends with a
conclusion about the value of these archival theories for the theoretical framework
that is discussed in the second part of the article. This second part will be an
in-depth discussion of the new framework, developed as a way for EIM to use records
and archives for reaching business objectives.
archives in liquid times
International Journal 19. Sundqvist, A., and P. Svard (2016). 'Information culture and records management:
of Information a suitable match? Conceptualizations of information culture and their application
management on records management', International Journal of Information Management,
Vol. 36, No. 1, pp. 9-15.
20. Gagnon, M.P., D. Simonyan, E.K. Ghandour, G. Godin, M. Labrecque, M. Ouimet,
and M. Rousseau (2016). 'Factors influencing electronic health record
adoption by physicians: A multilevel analysis', International Journal of Information
Management, Vol. 23, No. 3, pp. 258-270.
21. Asma'Mokhtar, U., Z.M. Yusof, K. Ahmad, and D.I. Jambari (2016). 'Development
of function-based classification model for electronic records', International Journal
of Information Management, Vol. 36, No. 4, pp. 626-634.
22. Mokhtar, U.A., and Z.M. Yusof (2016). 'Records management practice: The issues
and models for classification', International Journal of Information Management,
Vol. 36, No. 6, pp. 1265-1273.
23. Romero, F.P., I. Caballero, J. Serrano-Guerrero, and J.A. Olivas (2012).
'An approach to web-based personal health records filtering using fuzzy prototypes
and data quality criteria', Information Processing Management, Vol. 48, No. 3,
pp. 451-466.
24. Ferro, N., and G. Silvello (2013). 'NESTOR: A formal model for digital archives',
Information Processing Management, Vol. 49, No. 6, pp. 1206-1240.
25. Amini, I., D. Martinez, X. Li, and M. Sanderson (2016). 'Improving patient record
search: A meta-data based approach', Information Processing Management,
Vol. 52, No. 2, pp. 258-272.
Table 2. Articles mentioning records and/or archives in applicable top journals 2010-2016
Information
processing and
Management
22
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