Information Politics

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Information technology was supposed to stimulate information flow and eliminate hierarchy. It has had just the opposite effect, argue the authors. As information has become the key organizational "currency," it has become too valuable for most managers to just give away. In order to make information-based organizations successful, companies need to harness the power of politics -- that is, allow people to negotiate the use and definition of information, just as we negotiate the exchange of other currencies. The authors describe five models of information politics and discuss how companies can move from less effective models, like feudalism and technocratic utopianism, and toward the more effective ones, like monarchy and federalism.

Thomas H. Davenport is a partner and director of research at Ernst & Young's Center for Information Technology and Strategy in Boston. Robert G. Eccles is professor of business administration at the Harvard Business School. Laurence Prusak is a principal, also at the Center for Information Technology and Strategy.

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