The impact of organizational memory information systems: the case of product information management systems

The research attempts to determine whether case studies from fieldwork and secondary data on product information management systems (PIMS) map to E.W. Stein and V. Zwass' (1995) framework for an organizational memory information system (OMIS). Overall, we find support for the two layers in the framework, and for organizational effectiveness from an OMIS. The secondary data suggest first and second order measures for future empirical research. The fieldwork data supports the first order measures and second order communication improvements but as yet we cannot find evidence of second order productivity improvements. Furthermore, our data suggests that PIMS implementation problems focus on the user interface, which can be located as points on the framework. These findings increase our understanding of OMIS and suggest improvements in designing PIMS.