Author List: Lederer, Albert L.; Mendelow, Aubrey L.;

MIS Quarterly, 1987, Volume 11, Issue 3, Page 389-399.

Twenty information resource managers employed by medium to large organizations in diverse industries were interviewed to discover their difficulties in learning top management's objectives and their techniques for overcoming these difficulties. The thirteen difficulties can be viewed as strategy formulation or strategy communication problems. The sixteen techniques can likewise be viewed as facilitating strategy formulation or strategy communication. The research revealed that participants in strategy formulation have no problem understanding top management's objectives while information resource managers who do not participate in strategy formulation do experience that problem. This article will review the growing importance of information in organizations and the need to integrate the objectives and strategy of the organization with those of the information function. The research methodology section will then discuss sample considerations and the structured interview process which was used to gather data. Following this, the results will be presented. The findings indicate that it is useful to view the difficulties as roadblocks to the formulation of the IS plan or to the communication of that plan. Several techniques for overcoming these difficulties wilt be outlined and the implications of these findings for research and practice will be discussed.

Keywords: information management.; information systems; Planning