Message Management Systems: Concepts, Motivations, and Strategic Effects

Abstract:

This paper motivates the need for system-level message management software. It begins by considering information flows in the workplace as a source of potential gains in efficiency. We next investigate work-flow automation and electronic data interchange (EDI) as indicative of current technologies applied to work processes and message management. Having described current technology and our vision of work processes, we propose an alternative, general-purpose, software technology for supporting application-to-application communication. Problems of EDI, of process-to-process communication, and of describing information items are discussed in terms of the communication problems they present. We then justify the need for this kind of software and layout the criteria (or plausibility conditions) for evaluating a proposal for this sort of system software. The use of a formal communication language is proposed as a common solution to these problems. This proposal is examined in the context of the EDI problem, in order to demonstrate how the proposal might work in practice. Practical benefits of the proposal are discussed that highlight the impact such a technology might have on business practices. The proposed solution is measured against the plausibility conditions presented earlier in the paper; it is found to be sufficient in some cases and in need of further investigation in others. We then discuss the industrial-organizational implications of the availability of such a technology, and hypothesize that it would affect the number and form of cooperative business relationships as well as their scope and depth. We also hypothesize that it would provide advantages to those firms that quickly adopt the technology.

Key Words and Phrases::

• electronic commerce
• electronic data interchange
• electronic markets
• interorganizational information systems
• message management

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Steven O. Kimbrough

Steven O. Kimbrough is an Associate Professor at the Decision Sciences Department, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. He is currently William Davidson Visiting Professor of Computer and Information Systems at the University of Michigan, School of Business Administration. His main research interests are in the fields of logic modeling, and decision support and expert systems. His active research areas include computational approaches to belief revision and nonmonotonic reasoning, formal languages for business communication, and knowledge-based decision support systems. Since 1985, he has been principal investigator for the U.S. Coast Guard’s KSS (knowledge-based decision support systems) project.

Scott A. Moore

Scott A. Moore is a Ph.D. student in the Decision Sciences Department of The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. His current research interests include formal languages for business communication, logic programming, decision support systems, fleet mix, model management, and document retrieval. Much of his time is spent designing and implementing decision support systems for the U.S. Coast Guard. His education includes a B.S. in mathematics from Furman University, and an M.S.M. from the Georgia Institute of Technology. Mr. Moore has also been a manager of information services at a human resources association.