On rethinking organizational document genres for electronic document management

Document management has to be re-thought and clarified in organizations, especially for the coordinated adoption of organization-wide electronic document management systems (EDMSs). This paper reports the identification and evaluation of 11 organizational document genres of an industrial organization. The analysis revealed that different features need to be developed for different document genres. The results indicate that universal definitions for a "document" should not be used to envision organizational EDMSs. Rather, organizational document genres and genre systems should be systematically re-thought out, in collaboration with information systems specialists, organizational designers and domain experts.