ECM implementations in practice : objectives, processes, and technologies

Purpose: Enterprise content management (ECM) is an important topic in information management, but researchers have long had difficulty developing a consistent definition. The purpose of this paper is to analyze ECM case reports from practice to identify ECM’s objectives, processes and technologies and to provide a foundation on which ECM can be conceptualized and defined. Design/methodology/approach: This paper assembles more than 1,200 case reports on industrial ECM implementations in order to characterize the ECM concept from a practitioner’s viewpoint. The paper provides a descriptive overview and historical examination of ECM implementations over time and across countries and industries, grounded in a structured content analysis. Findings: Even though the case reports share some commonalities, their ECM projects differ considerably in terms of their objectives, processes and technologies, and vary widely across countries and industries. In addition, ECM implementations are much broader today than they once were, so the scope and boundaries of the ECM concept are increasingly blurred in practice. Originality/value: While several researchers have characterized the ECM concept based on literature reviews, only a few have approached the definition problem from a practical viewpoint. This paper provides a foundation from which to evaluate how well researchers’ conceptualizations of ECM match current business practice.