Human resources for information management operations in Kuwaiti corporate companies

Abstract

Investigates organizational arrangements and employment policies and practices of 31 Kuwaiti corporate companies in five selected information management operations: information organization and indexing, resource development, searching, information packaging, and competitive intelligence. Key human resource managers were interviewed for data collection. Investigates what organizational placement has been practised in these companies and who are the information professionals in terms of their education, professional background, and other significant affiliations. Specifically addresses issues related to employer perceptions about the preparedness of these professionals and the problems they faced in their employment. Finds that information and indexing activities were primarily relegated to secretarial staff. Information resource development was fragmented across different divisions of companies. Novices were conducting searches without any specialized training. Employers faced problems in identifying where to get professionals who had expertise in information packaging and presentation. A large number of them used local Kuwaitis for collecting competitor intelligence, as they had the edge of cultural familiarity.