The impact of marketing information supply on product managers: an organizational information processing perspective

This paper examines the impact of information supply and distribution on managerial information processing using a model derived from the organizational information processing (OIP) framework developed by Daft and Weick. The model suggests that more supply and distribution of information will lead to greater information use and the acquisition of more knowledge, given that the organization's information processing capabilities match its requirements. The model was extended to include the influence of social factors (i.e., culture and power) and the level of knowledge in the organization. Product managers in two consumer goods organizations providing different levels of information technology support were studied to compare the effect of different approaches to supplying and distributing information. The focused comparison case research method was used, in which sites are selected differing only on the dimensions of interest, namely information supply and distribution. The cases provided evidence to support the model. The company which had more data and analytic tools available for its product managers used more information and knew more about the factors that influenced the marketing of its products. In addition, organizational culture and the level of knowledge at the companies affected their approach to information supply, information use, and knowledge acquisition. The results suggest that the effective use of information technology requires a combination of managing the organization culture and fitting the characteristics of information supply and distribution mechanisms to information requirements.