The nature and impact of information relevance and expansivity

Relevance, narrow information that bears on or is connected to the matter at hand, and expansivity, broad and deep information encompassing multiple perspectives, have traditionally been considered contradictory objectives of management information systems. With the advent of advanced technologies such as executive information systems, this no longer needs to be the case.

Seven case studies provide insight into how system attributes and individual perspectives interact to determine these dimensions of information. Based on the study findings, it would seem that there is no dilemma. Relevance must come first. Only with a relevant system is expansivity possible; however, even then, because of the difficulty of developing systems that are not inherently limited to a single perspective, expansivity is elusive. It is only possible when information can be accessed without filtering and when there are few limits on the nature of the categorization, summarization, manipulations, and juxtaposition that is possible.