Dave:

Your question: "Does anyone on the list know if there is published survey data or other reports on the reporting relationships of records manager."  I have not found any statistics. I would be happy to hear of some.

I won an NHPRC grant to study exactly this issue. My hypothesis is that there is a correlation between who records managers report to and their scope of responsibilities regarding electronic records. I finally have Human Studies Committee permission to begin the study which will include at least 100 of the Fortune 500 and 100 of the Forbes 300 (Probably only a fantasy, but I can dream, can't I?). I will be contacting people who are in charge of these programs, such as yourself, to answer a few questions about reporting relationships, titles, and informal corporate networks. Then I will ask participants to help put together an anonymous Internet survey so they can benchmark their own electronic records management programs against others. Unfortunately, this will be slow going because the Internet survey must go through the Human Studies Committee here at Indiana University, Bloomington as well. Such is the price of ethics.

What I am hoping to come up with are some descriptive statistics about where we are in corporate America as well as some benchmarks about our electronic records management programs. Because this was funded by the NHPRC, the report will be available for free on the Internet. Because I am working hard to follow social science research principles and methods, the results should be valid.

Those of you who are in charge of a program, the entire interview and survey should take a total of two hours of your time over a few months. You will get the raw data--anonymous, of course--as well as a copy of the report and benchmark.

I am hoping to follow up with a similar study of government agencies. Any suggestions as to how to do this, what roles to hone in on, etc. would be greatly appreciated.

Best wishes,
Carol

Carol E.B. Choksy, Ph.D., CRM
CEO
IRAD Strategic Consulting, Inc.
(317)294-8329

Adjunct Professor
School of Library and Information Science
Indiana University, Bloomington

"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Doug Adams

List archives at http://lists.ufl.edu/archives/recmgmt-l.html
Contact [log in to unmask] for assistance