AN EXPLORATORY STUDY OF THE INFORMATION CULTURE OF CITY GOVERNMENT SUPPORT STAFF IN RELATION TO MANAGERIAL DECISION-MAKING

摘要

In an organization, how is the decision-making function at one hierarchical level affected by the manner in which information is obtained, exchanged, and transferred at another hierarchical level? The proposed dissertation upon which this poster is based seeks to answer that question by an exploratory study of the information culture (Ginman, 1988 and Schein, 1992) of support staff in municipal government offices and the relationship of that culture to managerial decision-making. The study assumes that 1) forces of institutionalism are at work and affect the actions of both support staff and managers, 2) that support staff are affected by roles, power and authority and that they may exercise power and authority themselves, and 3) that this exercise of power may manifest itself in the way that support staff transfers, or does not transfer, information to the managers they support (Hamilton and Biggart, 1985). It also assumes that support staff create their own network of information sources that may be unknown to management (Tushman and Scanlan, 1981; Allen, 1977). The context of the study, municipal government, is important, due to the growing importance of 'New Public Management,' in which managers in public administration are asked to make different types, and riskier, decisions, than previously (Hood, 1995 and March, 1994). Managers work closely with their support staff and are dependent upon them for the information they receive to make these decisions, and yet, the information behavior of support staff, and their contribution to the organization's knowledge base, is generally unappreciated. The argument is made that knowledge management systems that do not recognize the contribution of support staff information culture are likely to fail.