Corporate memory

Organizational memory (OM) (sometimes called institutional or corporate memory) is the accumulated body of data, information, and knowledge created in the course of an individual organization's existence. Falling under the wider disciplinary umbrella of knowledge management, it has two repositories: an organization's archives, including its electronic data bases; and individuals' memories.

Kenneth Megill says corporate memory is information of value for re-use. He views corporate memory from the perspective of information services such as libraries, records management and archival management.

Organizational memory can only be applied if it can be accessed. To make use of it, organizations must have effective retrieval systems for their archives and good memory recall among the individuals that make up the organization. Its importance to an organization depends upon how well individuals can apply it, a discipline known as experiential learning or evidence-based practice. In the case of individuals' memories, organizational memory's veracity is invariably compromised by the inherent limitations of human memory. Individuals' reluctance to admit to mistakes and difficulties compounds the problem. The actively encouraged flexible labor market has imposed an Alzheimer's-like corporate amnesia on organizations that creates an inability to benefit from hindsight.

Organizational memory is composed of:

Of these, institution-created knowledge is the most important.

The three main facets of organizational memory are data, information, and knowledge. It is important to understand the differences between each of these.

Data is a fact depicted as a figure or a statistic, while data in context—such as in a historical time frame—is information.

By contrast, knowledge is interpretative and predictive. Its deductive character allows a person with knowledge to understand the implications of information, and act accordingly. The term has been defined variously by different experts: Alvin Goldman described it as justified true belief; Bruce Aune saw it as information in context; Verna Alee defined it as experience or information that can be communicated or shared; and Karl Wiig said it was a body of understanding and insights for interpreting and managing the world around us.

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