This paper aims to offer an improved understanding of trust challenges in online trade, providing examples of issues that should be addressed for a trustworthy online environment…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to offer an improved understanding of trust challenges in online trade, providing examples of issues that should be addressed for a trustworthy online environment. It also aims to illustrate how records and recordkeeping can contribute in terms of enabling trust and accountability.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper is based on results from a self-ethnographic study of online trade (Engvall, 2017); the results are analyzed further. Kelton, Fleischmann and Wallace’s (2008) model for trust is used to gain a better understanding of the characteristics of the challenges and where they should be addressed.
Findings
This paper recognizes that there are different types of trust challenges at different levels – individual, between clients and businesses and at a societal level – that should be addressed at these levels in different ways.
Originality/value
This paper provides an understanding of trust challenges in the online environment.
Details
Keywords
Many records professionals are involved in the design and development of recordkeeping systems. To design recordkeeping systems that meet user needs, their perspectives have to be…
Abstract
Purpose
Many records professionals are involved in the design and development of recordkeeping systems. To design recordkeeping systems that meet user needs, their perspectives have to be included in the design process. The purpose of this paper is to explore what can be learned from the domain of information systems (IS) regarding user participation in design, and then to reflect on what related to the recordkeeping dimension should be further considered.
Design/methodology/approach
The study is based on a review of literature in the IS development field about user participation.
Findings
Analysing how users participate in IS development reveals several aspects of interest for records professionals. There are different approaches to, purposes of and driving values in user participation, which should be transparent. For user participation to be successful, an infrastructure has to be in place. The idea of user participation may be a way to include the secondary values of records in the near term, but it may also challenge traditional roles. New issues, such as the archivist’s role as a trusted third party, should be analysed further.
Originality/value
This study uses knowledge from the information system field to acquire new knowledge about user participation in design, and relate it to the recordkeeping domain. This study addresses issues surrounding user participation, which has been indicated as an area in need of further development in archives and information science.
Details
Keywords
Tove Sofia Engvall and Leif Skiftenes Flak
The world is facing global challenges that require international collaboration. This study aims to describe and analyze how digital technologies are applied in global governance…
Abstract
Purpose
The world is facing global challenges that require international collaboration. This study aims to describe and analyze how digital technologies are applied in global governance to respond to such critical challenges.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors apply an interpretive case study of climate reporting to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) as a case of digitalization in global governance. It includes interviews with officials in the Swedish public administration and the UNFCCC secretariat to cover national and international levels. The authors describe the reporting process and analyze the role of information systems through the lens of information infrastructures.
Findings
“Information infrastructure” is a valuable instrument to understand digitalization in global governance as a complex interplay between information systems, information, standards, organizations, people and social structures. The level of sophistication is, however, basic with a large potential for improvement – for instance in analytical and communicative services to support evidence-based decision-making and assessment of progress.
Research limitations/implications
The data collection is limited to one governance process: reporting. Future studies should complement the findings by broadening the scope to other processes. The authors propose that digital global governance is dependent on an effective information infrastructure, and that the five design principles by Hanseth and Lyytinen (2016) offer guidance when developing this.
Practical implications
The results indicate a large unutilized potential of digital technologies to improve progress assessment, communicate more effectively with stakeholders and identify new ways of visualizing data to support decision making in global climate policy.
Social implications
Use of digital technologies, as suggested in the article, could strengthen the implementation capability of climate goals, which is of urgent need.
Originality/value
While most research in digital governance considers the national or municipal level, this study provides empirical insight and theorization of digital technologies in a global governance setting.
Details
Keywords
Erik Borglund and Tove Engvall
The aim of the article is to investigate what characterizes the information constructs that the archival discourse and the open data discourse communicate in text, and what their…
Abstract
Purpose
The aim of the article is to investigate what characterizes the information constructs that the archival discourse and the open data discourse communicate in text, and what their similarities and differences are. This article proposes that it is possible to see the open data initiative and modern archival practice as two discourses that have used different terminology to express and communicate their messages in the literature. In this article, we have applied a hypothesis-like assumption that the information constructs used in open data are actually nothing other than records, as they are in the archival discourse.
Design/methodology/approach
This article is based on a mixed method approach. A quantitative text analysis (word count) was carried out in a large set of documents representing the open data discourse and in the archival discourse. This was followed by a qualitative text analysis.
Findings
It was found that both discourses did focus on records. However, the opendata discourse very seldom used the term record, but used information and data much more frequently. The archival discourse used the term information almost as often as record. A possible adaption of communication strategies can be identified, targeting a much wider audience through a user-centered approach. This could be an indication of a change in the archival discourse, which seems to be moving from a discourse that is very much regulated by law toward a discourse that is more focused on benefit and usability.
Originality/value
This research indicates that it is possible to interpret both the open data and the archival discourse as one united discourse, an effect derived from working with e-government. There is an ongoing harmonization of the words used, and in the studied archival discourse, a more user- and business-oriented focus can be seen.
The paper aims to respond to three questions: Are Canadian organizations committed to sustainability? Are there any links between sustainability and records management and…
Abstract
Purpose
The paper aims to respond to three questions: Are Canadian organizations committed to sustainability? Are there any links between sustainability and records management and archives programs? And, to what extent are records managers, archivists and technologists engaged in climate action? The paper also provides background on climate change in the Canadian and global contexts, defines relevant terminology, and presents a literature review that positions sustainability, adaptation and mitigation in relation to records management and archives.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper is based on qualitative participatory research involving expert interviews in 24 government agencies, universities and businesses located in 10 Canadian cities.
Findings
The organizations in the study are committed to sustainability and have developed significant programs and activities in support of this aim. Although the records managers, archivists and technologists interviewed are involved in related activities, there is a gap between what they are doing as a matter of course and the wider sustainability efforts of their parent organizations. As resources are tight, sustainability measurement entails more work and there are no real incentives to add sustainability components to programs, the participants are focused on delivering the programs they are hired to do. As a result, there is a sense of serendipity around outcomes that do occur – “sometimes, green is the outcome”.
Research limitations/implications
This paper presents the results of research conducted at 24 organizations in 10 Canadian cities, a small but meaningful sample that provides a springboard for considering climate action in records and archives. Based on the discussion, there is a need for a records and archives agenda that directly responds the United Nation's climate action targets: strengthening resilience and adaptive capacity to climate-related hazards and natural disasters; integrating climate change measures into policies, strategies and planning; and improving education, awareness-raising and human institutional capacity on climate change mitigation, adaptation, impact reduction and early warning. In support of this aim, the paper charts possible material topics from the literature and compares these with research findings.
Practical implications
From a top-down perspective, organizations need to expand sustainability programs to address all business areas, including records and archives. From a bottom-up perspective, records managers and archivists should include adaptation in disaster planning and consider the program benefits of developing economic, environmental and social sustainability initiatives to mitigate climate change.
Originality/value
The paper defines resilience, sustainability, adaption and mitigation and positions these terms in records management and archives. The paper examines how records managers, archivists and technologists think about sustainability; where sustainability intersects with records and archives work; and how records managers and archivists can engage in climate action.