AN ARCHITECTURE FOR ELECTRONIC MESSAGING IN ORGANIZATIONS: A DISTRIBUTED PROBLEM-SOLVING PERSPECTIVE.

摘要

This dissertation provides a foundation for electronic information management in organizations. It focuses on the relationships among communication, control, and information flows of the organization. The main thesis addresses the question of how electronic mail messages may be managed according to their contents, ensuring at the same time, the preservation of organizational and social relationships. A taxonomy for the management of unstructured electronic information relevance based on the treatment of information is derived from current research. Among the three paradigms, the information processing, the information distribution, and the information sharing paradigms, the inadequacy of the first two is recognized, and the treatment of information in its active mode is proposed. This taxonomy can be used to quickly differentiate one research from another and evaluate its adequacy. Three concepts, four cornerstones, and an architecture constitute our framework of information relevance management. The cornerstones are knowledge of the organization, knowledge of the individual, information construction, and information interpretation. Through knowledge of the organization and the individual, the machine production systems are able to distribute and manage information according to the logic of human production systems. The other two cornerstones together improve the unity of interpretation among the organizational members. The physical architecture can adapt a number of applications, each of which, may not only have different knowledge presentations and inference mothods, but also may co-exist in the system simultaneously. An integrated knowledge-based electronic messaging system, the AI-MAIL system, is built, tested, and evaluated through a case study to demonstrate the feasibility of the architecture and its applicability to the real-world environment. The three operating levels, interorganizational, intraorganizational, and individual, are illustrated through a study of the U.S. Army. From three large scale field studies, the existing AUTODIN I system, a backbone of the Army's communications, is analyzed and evaluated to illustrate the applicability and benefits of the three operating levels. This dissertation contributes to the field of Management Information Systems by offering a methodology, a taxonomy, a new paradigm, a framework, and a system for information management and a method of adaptive organizational design. In addition, it points toward future research directions. Among them are research to deal with ethical issues, organizational research, knowledge engineering, multi-processor configuration, and internal protocols for applications.