| This is a study of legislatively-mandated information resources management (IRM)in federal cabinet-level executive and military departments and a sample of 32 bureaus. The study found that IRM has not penetrated very far across departments and down into bureau management. Information technology management dominates IRM activities--the result is failure to build a long term IRM capability. Information is still considered a "free good" in most department and bureau managers' views and federal paperwork reduction requirements commonly are seen as a wasteful bureaucratic burden. The strategic planning process and the budget approval process are dominant control mechanisms, but IRM managers mostly view central management accountability and justification requirements as detrimental to good IRM.; Recommendations for practice include (a) changing the current IRM oversight focus to IRM program support and long term capability building, (b) developing an IRM governance base as the first step to improve IRM, (c) providing incentives for information management efforts, (d) considering bureau differences in building IRM capacities, and (e) revisiting the Paperwork Reduction Act requirements to deal with problematic paperwork reduction rules. The study also recommends research in the several areas amd suggests three IRM dimensions are important in IRM management--oversight considerations, a specific management framework, and factors that should be considered as critical for IRM success. |
