Abstract
Business information professionals (BIPs) are organizationally in isolation in their working environment. They are usually recruited by commercial profit-orientated companies who then find that this expertise is not easily fitted into recognized management patterns with definite relational and hierarchical reporting lines.
The American business school MBA-type manager finds units devoted to information sourcing difficult to fit into his picture of corporate structure. As MBAs are increasingly nurtured by European companies as future top management, it is necessary for BIPs, and the institutions which train them, to shift the emphasis of teaching to include management skills, because this is the only way to understand, compete and thrive in the current and future business environment dominated by these graduates.
This paper aims to describe the skills, on-the-job training and development necessary for the BIP. It will also suggest areas which could be introduced at first-degree and postgraduate levels in Library and Information Studies departments to make BIPs more relevant managers in every sense of the word in their organizations.
[French, German and Spanish translations of this abstract can be found on pp. 374–377]
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