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RMJ
22,1 Understanding functions:
an organizational culture
perspective
20
Fiorella Foscarini
Faculty of Information, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada
Received 1 July 2011
Revised 16 December 2011
Accepted 9 January 2012
Abstract
Purpose – This paper aims to discuss the disconnection between the recognized centrality of the
functional approach to records management and archives and the actual understanding of functions
that scholars, practitioners, and records creators seem to have. It suggests that records professionals
should consider functions not in the abstract but in the specific socio-cultural contexts in which they
are enacted.
Design/methodology/approach – After analyzing the main theoretical and methodological issues
concerning the concept of function and the application of the functional approach, the paper reports
some findings of an empirical study of function-based records classification systems conducted by the
author in four different organizations in Europe and North America.
Findings – The multiple-case study research confirmed that the meaning of both function and
classification are subject to various interpretations, that a number of non-functional factors are
involved in the creation of function-based tools, and that records professionals find available
explanations of functional methods confusing. The findings also indicate that there is a relationship
between organizational cultures and the ways in which business and records processes are perceived
and translated into practice.
Research limitations/implications – This study provides a number of suggestions that may be
used to improve the analysis of functions and business processes for any records management
purposes. In particular, it discusses some of the non-functional and cultural factors that influence the
design and implementation of function-based records classification systems. However, more empirical
research is needed in order to broaden our understanding of functions in real-world organizations.
Originality/value – Based on a broad selection of professional literature on the functional approach,
this paper presents the original findings of an empirical study that uses qualitative methods to analyze
and interpret the data collected. It is hoped that it will inspire more exploratory research of this kind in
the records management area.
Keywords Function, Functional analysis, Records management, Business classification schemes,
Organizational culture
Paper type Research paper

Introduction
It is a rule in government that records follow functions. That is to say, when a department is
abolished, merged into another department, or otherwise reorganized, its functions are
generally transferred to another department, which of course must have the old records at
hand to carry on the old functions (Mitchell, 1975, p. 110).
Records Management Journal In the 1940s, American archivist Margaret Cross Norton expressed in those terms the
Vol. 22 No. 1, 2012
pp. 20-36 rationale for the principle of functional sovereignty over records, a principle that, as
q Emerald Group Publishing Limited
0956-5698
Heather MacNeil (1992, p. 207) put it, “lends a measure of continuity and stability to
DOI 10.1108/09565691211222072 administrative activity and the records generated from them”.
The centrality of organizational or business functions and activities to the work of both Understanding
archivists and records managers is justified by the nature itself of the records as functions
“by-products of action” (Schellenberg, 1956, p. 53), which suggests that an
understanding of the functional context in which records are created, managed and
selectively kept be fundamental to their present and future uses. Indeed, since the time
of the French Revolution and the first intuitions of the so-called “historical method”
(Vitali, 2002) for organizing archival materials and subsequent elaborations of the 21
principle of provenance, archival scholars and practitioners have been well aware of
the need to be familiar with current and past functions of the record creators.
The “paradigm shift” (Cook, 1997) that has in more recent times reoriented the
archival body of knowledge towards an emphasis on the records context and away
from the materiality of the records has contributed to make of the “functional
approach” a pillar of archival methodology throughout a record’s life cycle[1] From
function-based methods to identify what records should be captured in business
systems (ICA, 2008), functional classification schemes (Sabourin, 2001; Henttonen and
Kettunen, 2011) and functional approaches to records appraisal and selection (Scott
and Fonseca, 1992; Man, 2005) to ideas of functional provenance (Menne-Haritz, 1993)
and functional access to archives (Monroe and Roe, 1990) Since the early 1990s, all
basic concepts and processing methods for records and archives appear to involve
top-down analyses, process modeling, and descriptions of functional contexts.
However, despite the fact that functional terms are widely used in the archival and
records management literature, the meaning of function, activity, business process,
and the like lacks a thorough and consistent elaboration (Hurley, 1993) and no
standardized methodology for analyzing organizational functions and structures
seems to exist (Orr, 2005). The literature on function-based records classification, for
instance, does not offer any clear guidance on how to determine the scope of a function,
how to build a consistent and comprehensive hierarchy of functions, sub-functions, etc.
or how to represent processes that cut across the organization (Foscarini, 2009). Even
appraisal, which may be regarded as the archival function that has appropriated the
most the functional language and a top-down approach – especially following the
development of the “macro-appraisal model” in Canada (Cook, 1992) – does not involve
any in-depth examination of the ways in which function and structure actually interact
and tends, either directly or indirectly, to make reference to a stereotyped image of
organization, where decision-making is a linear and rational process and core
functional areas are easily identifiable as the likely site of significant records.
By drawing on an analysis of a broad selection of the existing professional literature
on the functional approach and the findings of a multiple case study of function-based
records classification systems, this paper will try to highlight the main “problems with
function” that from both a theoretical and a practical perspective appear to characterize
the archival approach, primarily in relation to the management of active records. It will
then suggest some alternative ways to read and represent the context in which records
are created and used. Although a deeper understanding of function may benefit
archivists and records managers alike, this paper is particularly concerned with the
latter’s outlook. It is the author’s conviction that in order to fulfil their crucial role,
records managers should go beyond their narrow technical focus and become more
culturally sensitive participants of their organizational reality.
RMJ Function in the literature: technical and conceptual issues
22,1 The lack of a thorough and coherent approach to functions is immediately evident from
an analysis of the terminology employed in the records management and archival
literature. Different authors and standards offer dissimilar, sometimes ambiguous, or
no definitions of functional terms, thereby confusing practitioners and yielding
inconsistent applications in relation to a variety of professional endeavours.
22 Table I provides an overview of functional definitions that aims at illustrating the
point being made and is not supposed to be exhaustive[2].
Just by looking at this handful of definitions one realizes that the idea of
“terminological control”, which, in Chris Hurley’s view (1995, p. 22), should be
characterizing the description of an organization’s business functions as part of its
recordkeeping metadata, seems still to be an unattainable desideratum[3].
The literature also shows that function terms, subject terms and terms referring to
the structural features of organizations are often confused. This is particularly evident
in traditional practices of arrangement and description as well as records classification.
By separating an agency’s functions from the structures in which those functions
materialized and considering the “abstract functions” as the only criterion for
reorganizing a fonds, archivists would end up creating subject-based arrangements
where “the subject is the function”, as it happened in Milan through the work of
archivist Luca Peroni (Lodolini, 1992, p. 56)[4].
With reference to records classification, back in the 1950s, Australian national
archivist Ian Maclean (1959, p. 408) expressed this conceptual confusion as follows:
Sometimes [a class] means function or activity, sometimes the transaction that is the subject
of a file, sometimes the event about which the department is taking action, sometimes the
abstract subject that is the subject of documentation [. . .].

Function “All the responsibilities assigned to an agency to accomplish the broad purposes
for which it was established” (Schellenberg, 1956, p. 54)
“All of the activities aimed to accomplish one purpose, considered abstractly”
(Duranti, 1998, p. 90)
“The largest unit of business activity in an organization” (NAA, 1996)
Competence “The authority and capacity of carrying out a determined sphere of activities
within one function, attributed to a given office or individual” (Duranti, 1998,
p. 90)
Activity “A class of actions that are taken in accomplishing a specific function”
(Schellenberg, 1956, p. 54)
“[Time-limited] instances of a process that will recur many times” (Shepherd and
Yeo, 2003, p. 53)
Process “A series of motions, or activities in general, carried out to set oneself to work
and go towards each formal step of a procedure” (Duranti, 1998, p. 75)
“A grouping of activities cutting across the vertical hierarchy of functions and
activities” (NAA, 1996)
Transaction “An act or several interconnected acts in which more than one person is involved
and by which the relations of those persons are altered” (Duranti, 1998, p. 65)
Table I. “The smallest unit of business activity in an organization” (NAA, 1996)
Functional term Act/action “A fact originated by a will to produce exactly the effects that it produces”
definitions (Duranti, 1998, p. 63)
Business functions and organizational structures may appear so intertwined in the Understanding
“real world” that making a clear-cut distinction between them might be anything but functions
easy. As mentioned earlier, function is an abstraction and as such, it needs a physical
structure to materialize. Where each function is carried out without involving more
than one department at a time and decisions are made at one level and implemented at
the next, the boundaries of both concepts can be blurred to the point that identifying
exclusively functions or activities for purposes of classification, description, or any 23
other records-related activity might just be impossible.
Authors writing in the first half of the twentieth century would in fact refer to
“administrative function” and “administrative organization” as interchangeable terms
(Jenkinson, 1922, 1943). In reality, such apparent inconsistencies were the result of the
alignment of function and structure that was typical of the bureaucratic environments
those authors were familiar with. From the beginning of the industrial age until at least
World War II, most organizations would take the shape of simple, self-contained and
mono-hierarchical structures, characterized by fixed sets of responsibilities assigned to
individual offices, rationally structured work processes, and univocal, downward
communication flows (Bearman and Lytle, 1985-1986; Yates, 1985). This typology of
organizational configuration is known as “machine bureaucracy” or “full bureaucracy”
(Morgan, 1986, pp. 22-5).
Writing in the mid-1950s, Schellenberg formulated the basic principles of a method
for classifying active records that was consistently based on functions. As an
alternative to the functional approach, he admitted the possibility to refer to the
structure of the organization as a criterion for classification, but “only in governments
whose organization is stable and whose functions and administrative processes are
well-defined” (Schellenberg, 1956, p. 56). Schellenberg’s rules for records classification
development and in particular his hierarchical model of functions, activities, and
transactions (also known as “F-A-T model”) became a point of reference for the
international archival community and is still today drawn on as a useful framework for
building business classification schemes (Shepherd and Yeo, 2003; Todd, 2003,
pp. 40-3).
However, contemporary “poly-hierarchical, flattened, matrix, and networking
organizations” (Bearman, 1992, p. 173) require a more sophisticated understanding of
the workplace reality than the one underlying Schellenberg’s model. Since the 1980s,
archival scholars have criticized the oversimplified, naı̈ve idea of bureaucracy that
seems to keep on guiding archivists and records managers’ actions (Lutzker, 1982;
Bearman, 1992, Samuels, 1992). New conceptual frameworks (based, for instance, on
the theory of structuration) have been developed (Upward, 1997) and methodologies
unusual to the archival domain (e.g. ethnography) have been applied with the purpose
of gaining a more nuanced understanding of “what happened” (Trace, 2002; Shankar,
2004).
Nevertheless, actual work processes and their complex interrelationships in today’s
unstructured business environments remain mostly unknown to those who are in
charge of managing their documentary evidence. Furthermore, any attempts to
provide methodological guidance included in the recent records management literature
(NAA, 2003; Todd, 2003; Alberts et al., 2010) appear to assume that records managers
either possess the analytical skills of a business analyst or need to acquire them, as if
functions and processes could be rationalized and reduced to relatively simple and
RMJ mechanistic schemas, applicable to every type of organization, independently of the
22,1 individuals who enact those functions and processes and make sense of them. Because
of the increasing complexity inherent in the relationship between organizational
structure and function and the unpredictability of most human behaviours, only
routine activities performed in “organizations with a rigid and clear division of work”
(Henttonen and Kettunen, 2011, p. 99) would possibly benefit from the creation of
24 “profiles” for the automated classification of records. This author believes that it is not
through the application of engineering-like approaches that records professionals will
be able to fully exploit the “power of function” and manage the “irreducible complexity
of real-world situations” (Checkland and Scholes, 1999, p. 90). Rather, it is through
actual explorations of the explicit and implicit meanings involved in such real-world
situations that the deep structures of human relations might become visible and
provide a key to their understanding and representation.

An exploratory research approach

Research design
Is it our task, by observation, to discover and delineate what is there or to artificially
construct an orderliness which is not real?
Following Hurley’s (1993, p. 211) suggestion (which may be interpreted as “let us try to
be more descriptive and less prescriptive”), the author set out to design a research
project involving a survey and a multiple-case study within an exploratory,
interpretivist research design (Williamson, 2002, pp. 26-32). It was expected that such a
qualitative research approach would allow a mapping of the terrain of “human activity
systems” to be started in line with the “soft” systems thinking ideas expressed by Peter
Checkland and others (Checkland and Scholes, 1999)[5]. The research tried to shed light
on individuals’ perceptions of their role in the organization, their ways of carrying out
and interpreting their own functions and those of the entire organization, and their
personal attitudes towards the management of the corporate record. It particularly
focused on people’s views of the purpose of one of the key components of any
recordkeeping system, records classification, based on their professional and personal
understanding of it.
The research project had quite an inclusive design. While the initial survey was only
administered to records professionals, once suitable case study sites had been
identified, anyone with some interest in the management of active records was invited
to participate in the research. Thus, besides records managers and archivists (in those
organizations where the latter were assigned responsibilities in relation to the entire
records life cycle), the interviews – all conducted in situ – involved regular employees
(that is, records creators and users of the records classification system), managers in
charge of the records management function, as well as technical staff and management
concerned with the implementation and/or functioning of the organization’s electronic
document and records management system (EDRMS).
In the context of the interpretivist research paradigm chosen to frame this study, the
major research question was articulated as follows:
How do people in organizations understand the concept of function and the functional
approach as a methodology for the design and implementation of records classification
systems?
The study population consisted of central banks, a class of publicly funded Understanding
organizations that has an established presence in every country and involves similar functions
functional portfolios everywhere. The web-based questionnaire was sent to all central
banks of the European Union and North America – which were 30 at the time when the
research was conducted (2008) – and had the purpose of facilitating the selection of
four case study sites on the basis of the following main criteria:
.
selected organizations should be using, or be in the process of developing, a 25
records classification system that they perceived as being function-based; and
.
they should display characteristics (in terms of degrees of “power distance” and
“uncertainty avoidance”) from which one could assume that each organization
belonged to a different “bureaucratic type”.

The latter criterion was largely based on the dimensions of organizational culture
identified by sociologist Geert Hofstede (2001) and was used to guide the selection of
organizations that would likely belong to different typologies of bureaucracies. David
Bearman (1992) and Gillian Oliver (2004) have applied Hofstede’s ideas to
recordkeeping contexts too, and their example was instrumental in this research.
In Hofstede’s book, published for the first time in 1980, culture is defined as “the
collective programming of the mind that distinguishes the members of one group or
category of people from another” (Hofstede, 2001, p. 9). Within his rather deterministic
framework[6]. Hofstede identified five main “dimensions” (i.e. power distance,
uncertainty avoidance, individualism vs. collectivism, masculinity vs. femininity, and
long-term vs. short-term orientation) along which value systems can be ordered and
which can be used to categorize organizations (Hofstede, 2001, pp. 382-83). The crucial
dimensions to analyze organizational cultures are, according to Hofstede, power
distance and uncertainty avoidance. The first dimension defines hierarchical
relationships (e.g. centralization vs. decentralization of power), while the second one
refers to the degree of formalization existing in organizations (e.g. highly vs little
regulated environments).
Based on an empirical study conducted in IBM firms in more than 50 countries
during a period of time of four years, Hofstede (2001, pp. 375-77) developed a matrix
that allowed him to categorize organizations in four basic types, each most likely to be
associated with specific countries. These types are:
(1) Personnel bureaucracy, or family model (which Hofstede considered typical of
China, Hong Kong, Singapore, and other Asian countries).
(2) Full bureaucracy, or pyramid model (which would be characteristic of, inter
alia, Latin and Mediterranean countries).
(3) Workflow bureaucracy, or well-oiled machine model (which would be especially
present in German-speaking countries and Finland).
(4) Implicitly structured, or market model (which would most likely be found in
Anglo-Saxon countries, Scandinavia and the Netherlands).

Only one of the four central banks selected for the research reported here corresponded
to the classic bureaucratic type (or full bureaucracy) that has been described earlier.
This organization (called D in all reports of this study) was located in a Southern
European country, as predicted by Hofstede. Another organization (C) appeared to
RMJ belong to the so-called workflow bureaucracy (or well-oiled machine) type (that is, a
22,1 highly regulated environment where power is widely delegated) and, not by chance,
had its headquarters in a country of Central Europe. The remaining two organizations
(A and B) seemed to display the characteristics of the implicitly structured (or village
market) model, characterized by decentralized management and largely unstructured
processes. A was an Anglo speaking country, and B was located in Northern Europe.
26 The promise to guarantee confidentiality and anonymity of the data collected during
her research does not allow more detailed description of the case study sites.
The remainder of this article is dedicated to the discussion of some of the findings of
this research. Issues pertaining specifically to records classification and to records
management more generally will necessarily remain in the background. Rather, the
focus will be on ideas about functions, functional analysis, and the non-functional
factors that appear to affect the creation of function-based tools. It is worth stressing
again that the purpose of this study was to explore “soft” issues (e.g. perceptions,
beliefs, false assumptions) that are not usually addressed in the pre-eminently
prescriptive records management literature. The relationship between organizational
cultures and the perceived benefits and shortcomings involved in the functional
approach will emerge as this study’s leitmotif.

Research findings
Use of functional classification
All four central banks chosen for the fieldwork research claimed to be using, or to be in
the process of developing or implementing, a function-based records classification
system. Particularly the records managers and archivists interviewed, but also their
business line managers and colleagues involved in the daily management of the
corporate records, all shared the conviction that a functional approach should be
employed for the purpose of designing a good records classification system, as
recommended by the professional literature.
However, only in two cases (namely D, the full-bureaucracy type of organization,
and A, one of the two representatives of the market bureaucracy), the “functional
structure” used by all employees to classify and file their records involved a hierarchy
of folders and sub-folders that was used as an organizing principle to guide the
accumulation of the corporate records. In other words, in these two banks, the primary
purpose of classification (i.e. “to place individual records into the aggregates to which
they belong, based on the creator’s mandate and functions” (Duranti et al., 2003, p. 43))
appeared to be fulfilled through their respective function-based filing structures. The
person responsible for records management and archives in organization A expressed
her belief in the benefits of a functional approach to classification in the following
terms:
We are developing a good, functional folder structure that can be applied to any systems in
the bank. [. . .] That structure is going to give us the solid foundation, because functions are
not changing all the time in a central bank.
In the other two cases, the folder structure reflected the users’ preferences and was
mainly organization-based. The functional entities, which were nevertheless included
in the EDRMS in the form of additional metadata that users would attach to each
individual record created, did not provide records with any meaningful linkages with
each other. Nevertheless, such a set of functional metadata were still regarded as the Understanding
functional classification, although in both cases the notion of function was applied functions
inconsistently (as it would involve office names as well as other structures such as
committees or task forces) and the conceptualization of records classification was itself
quite weak. One of the EDRMS project team members involved in the design of the
“functional” classification implemented in organization B commented:
We did not really have a discussion among us about this whole issue of functions or subjects. 27
[. . .] [The archivist] said that archival standards recommend a functional approach. [. . .] We
tried to get away from the organizational structure because people were thinking in terms of
what divisions or departments you miss in the classification. We explained that you couldn’t
do that because the organization changes all the time. [The organization] bought that.
Despite the lack of thorough considerations, in all cases analyzed records managers
and archivists appeared to be well aware of the need to take a functional approach and
strongly believed that a good classification system had to be “absolutely, fully
function-based”. This, however, sounded more like a collective, almost groundless
belief (i.e. a myth) rather than a conscious, carefully planned proposition.

Understanding of function: a question of perspective

One constant claim that emerged from all four cases was that function is an alien
concept to employees, as confirmed by the literature on functional classification (see
inter alia, Todd, 2003; Orr, 2005; Alberts et al., 2010, Henttonen and Kettunen, 2011).
Therefore, most organizations showed the tendency to hide partly or completely the
functional structure from the classification users’ view, as it emerges from the
following interview excerpts involving organizations A and D respectively:
If you consider how people organize their stuff [in the electronic records management
system], you realize that it is very much based on the way a department is structured, and
their personal ideas about how work is accomplished. [. . .] People are going to have resistance
to any functional classification, because function is not easy to comprehend.
Our aim [as records managers] is to simplify users’ work, not to complicate it. [. . .] Users are
only focused on their narrow work and are not interested in functions and sub-functions. They
do not see the big picture. That is why we decided to hide the higher levels of the classification
system to them. They would not be able to understand the classification anyway.
The second citation offers interesting insights into the reasons why ordinary
employees – as “narrow experts” in specific processes or steps of a process – would be
reluctant to embrace a “higher perspective”, one pertaining to the broader function or
higher-level purpose associated with their lower-level activities. It also explains why
some of my case study subjects (primarily records creators) felt that although people
working in the same or different areas may accomplish one single function, each unit
pursues its specific goals, and consequently the classification of their records should be
different.
This concept may be clarified by referring to the idea of hierarchies of purposes and
processes, ends and means, functions and activities that sociologist Herbert Simon
(1997, pp. 38-9) discussed in his 1947 essay on administrative behaviour:
“Purpose” may be roughly defined as the objective or end for which an activity is carried on;
“process”, as a means of accomplishing a purpose. [. . .] A “process” is an activity whose
RMJ immediate purpose is at a low level in the hierarchy of means and ends, while a “purpose” is a
collection of activities whose orienting value or aim is at a higher level in the means-end
22,1 hierarchy.
In other words, because of their relativity and inherent ambiguity the terms purpose
and process, like function and activity, would be interchangeable. It is the perspective
from which one looks at them which may reveal what the purpose and what the
28 process is for every individual observer. For instance, while for an employee answering
a request for information concerning some activity/process under his/her
responsibility might be seen as an action that is part of a function/purpose named
“complying with freedom of information legislation”, for the manager who oversees
this and other legally-binding acts, that action might just be considered as an
activity/process aiming at achieving a higher function/purpose, such as “managing the
organization’s legal framework”.
It is therefore inevitable that employees will tend to be familiar with the
“transaction level” of a classification scheme (which usually involves lower-level
processes) and to favour departmental rather than organization-wide functional
approaches, as they might have limited knowledge of the overall, high-level purpose
they work for. Records professionals entrusted with the task of designing a systematic
and coherent representation of all functions and activities of an organization need to
position themselves at the highest possible level of each hierarchical string of purposes
and processes, in order to be able to appreciate the “big picture”. This will not eliminate
subjectivity from business classification schemes, but will allow distinguishing higher
purposes (functions) from the lower processes (activities) that contribute to each of the
functions so identified.
As a consequence of the different understandings on functions that regular
employees and records managers typically have, finding “accommodations” that
would possibly take into consideration both needs and views seems to be the most
reasonable way to go, as the same interviewee from organization D mentioned
previously said:
Problems may arise when many departments are involved in the same process and, for each
step, more options exist. [. . .] We [records managers] have decided that, in such cases, it is
better to simplify the document process, instead of the business process. [. . .] We are trying to
adapt to the way people work in the bank [. . .] otherwise they will not be able or willing to use
the system. The fact is that people in the business areas do not have the complete overview of
their processes that we [in the records management office] have.

Functions and behaviours

Typically, users of the corporate classification system would complain about the
limited flexibility of the functional system in comparison to the old shared drives,
where they had unlimited freedom in terms of sub-folder creation and naming. Despite
the addition of metadata for the purpose of leveraging the possibility offered by the
electronic environment to create “virtual views” of the same records, users would still
duplicate (if not triplicate) existing files in order to have them at hand and to share
easier their content with their colleagues. This study revealed that there actually was a
problem of organizational behaviour behind the claimed “lack of flexibility” of the
functional approach. Collaboration, as one of the enhanced capabilities of the latest
generations of software for records and information management, did not seem to be Understanding
really exploited in any of the cases examined. All records managers complained about functions
the strong resistance they had to face when approaching departments which were
mostly secretive, closed, and self-contained.
The functional approach as such presupposes going beyond the artificial
boundaries of existing organizational structures and fosters by itself information
sharing and communication. Its application in the described circumstances was 29
destined to be very difficult, unless the organization would decide to engage in a
comprehensive and rigorous change management program, capable of affecting the
deep structures of existing organizational cultures and sub-cultures (the latter referring
to occupational or group cultures that typically develop in units, divisions or work
teams within any one organization (Oliver, 2011)). This kind of planned intervention
did not occur in any of the cases analyzed.
Another issue that seemed to trouble the records managers interviewed was that
their function-based systems could not be “fully” functional. Although some of them
were aware that “hybrid” approaches are not uncommon in the practice of records
classification, they all perceived the mixing of functional and non-functional elements
as a “bad behaviour”, an infringement of classification rules. In fact, it is a limitation of
most of the existing professional literature not to acknowledge that, in order to
accommodate not just cross-functional processes (e.g. projects involving multiple
functional areas in the organization or, as argued by Todd (2003), “case files”), but also
ad hoc activities (e.g. holiday planning and other ephemeral situations of only internal
interest), and other modi operandi that are typical of modern organizations (especially
of those that tend to be meeting-based rather than process-based), a function-based
classification system might need to include non-functional components.

Types of bureaucracies and functional approaches

Of all the cases studied, only one appeared to be suitable for a direct application of the
functional approach to the classification of the corporate record. This was organization
D, the central bank whose organizational culture corresponded to Hofstede’s full
bureaucratic type, that is, a highly regulated environment characterized by strictly
top-down relationships and clear delegation of powers.
Almost all entries at the transaction level of the classification system adopted by
this organization were linked to some existing administrative procedures, in
compliance with specific laws or internal regulations. “Our processes are almost a
hundred percent defined by the law”, one of the records managers interviewed said. In
organization D, employees would talk about their work processes just by naming the
number and year of relevant laws or law paragraphs, as it was assumed that
everybody knew what those figures meant. In organizations where the way in which
processes are carried out corresponds to the way in which they should be carried out,
functional examinations are greatly facilitated.
It should therefore not come as a surprise that in the full-bureaucracy case – and
only in that one case – the records managers attempted some in-depth analyses of the
organization’s business processes. In all other cases the painstaking top-down or
bottom-up exercises suggested by the literature had not been applied and the
functional model was derived from abstract, purely on-paper analyses of secondary
RMJ sources concerning the business of the bank (e.g. function papers and manuals of
procedures).
22,1 Organization A (one of those belonging to the village market model) had decided to
refer directly and almost exclusively to the official plan that its board of directors had
lately approved with the aim of “realigning departments along functional lines”. The
plan provided thorough descriptions of each functional area and, according to those in
30 charge of designing the new classification tool, adopting its terminology would “help
minimize the debate around what is function and what is activity”.
Although nobody appeared concerned with defining what function meant for each
and every purpose or had engaged in any investigations of actual business processes,
the functional message endorsed by the bank’s board was sufficient to make
everybody believe – almost irrationally – that changing the current classification in
use for the paper records (which was already mainly functional) into a “truly
function-based classification system” was necessary. Considering the specific
circumstances in which this idea had developed, one may draw the conclusion that
it was primarily a “political” decision. As one records manager put it:
Being more functional will help us understand the business better. Not only us [records
managers] but everybody will benefit from the change. [. . .] I do not know whether the new
classification system will manage to be less complex [. . .] It will be functional, that’s for sure.
The bank is going function [sic], so it makes sense.
The expression “the bank goes function” [sic] recurred like a slogan in most of the
conversations that happened in the organization in question, and it appeared to be the
actual trigger of the “functional turn” the records management unit was about to
pursue. Interestingly, what was perceived as “modernization” in terms of management
philosophy was de facto a way of going back to the classic bureaucratic model (i.e. the
one where functions and structures are aligned) which, as seen earlier, seems to be
particularly conducive to a functional approach to records management.
In organization C, the “word of the day” was agile. “A modern organization needs to
be agile to respond quickly to the changes happening in its environment”. This belief
was shared by the organization’s senior managers, who all seemed to support the idea
of a functional approach to records management, which was perceived as key to
facilitating the creation of an “agile organization”.
As it emerges from the last two examples, political views and strategic plans, or
simply ideas and beliefs derived from management theories can affect the practice of
records management more than concepts derived from the archival theory itself. Such
influences can obviously be either positive or negative. In the cases analyzed in this
research, they appeared to be quite positive in the sense that they did not suggest
anything that could per se be detrimental to good records management practices.
However, it is important for records managers to be aware of these kinds of external
and rather invisible forces.
Whether due to political interests, managerial goals, or knowledge of records
management and archival principles, the “functional thrust” characterizing all cases
examined did not correspond to any serious attempts to define the meaning of function
or to apply some coherent methodology for analyzing functions and activities. A
pragmatic approach (which in all cases except one did not involve any actual business
analyses) combined with a collective belief in the “power of function” seemed to be the
predominant attitude across all cases.
 At the same time, most of the research subjects expressed some scepticism about Understanding
the ability of the “mythicized” functional approach to work in the real world. As seen functions
earlier, functions appear hard to understand and relate to by regular employees.
Additionally, with particular regard to records classification, there are issues that
functional schemes cannot easily accommodate due to the nature itself of the activities
involved (e.g. cross-functional projects, meetings and other activities exclusively of
internal relevance). Thus, not only the feasibility of a “true” function-based 31
classification system was questioned, but also its effectiveness and eventually, its
desirability.
All of the records professionals interviewed recognized the importance of exploring
functions and activities together with those in the organization who have the “know
how” of actual ways of carrying out the business. However, due to practical limitations
in terms of time, money, and personnel resources, these kinds of “immersions” tended
to be postponed to an indeterminate future, and the study of manuals of procedures
and function papers appeared sufficient to the records managers’ purposes.

“Softer” skills
Learning how to analyze, describe, and represent functions and processes is one of the
skills that records managers are particularly required to possess. However, as argued
elsewhere by this author (Foscarini, 2010), it is not by becoming “fully-fledged business
analysts” or by acquiring more advanced “engineering skills” that they can learn how
to interpret and capture the non-functional factors discussed previously and those
activities that do not appear to follow any pre-established, linear or cyclical, sequence
of steps.
“Softer” skills taking into account the many variables that may influence the actual
conduct of business – including the fact that human beings “can always decide to act
otherwise” (Checkland and Scholes, 1999, p. 2) – as well as the different viewpoints of
the various stakeholders involved in the creation and management of the records,
should rather become part of the records manager’s toolkit. One of the information
professionals interviewed in organization D made a pertinent observation in this
respect:
I personally became more flexible than I was. Working with the [system] users helped me to
see things from a different angle. When you start working with the users, you realize that you
do not know what they actually do, as much as they do not know what you do. You have
somehow to try to find the middle way that satisfies both.
The tendency to focus on the “model to be optimized” (Checkland and Scholes, 1999)
and to regard functions as “mythical” entities that would not tolerate to be mixed up
with other criteria (while in fact this necessarily happens all the time) keeps us away
from observing the “imperfect” reality around us, from “reading” it from different
angles, without trying to impose our views on it. As Gareth Morgan (1986, p. 331) put
it, “people who learn to read situations from different viewpoints have an advantage
over those committed to a fixed position”. Records professionals should aim at
becoming this kind of sophisticated observer of the organizational reality.
RMJ Conclusion
22,1 This paper investigated the meaning of function and the interpretation of the
functional approach, as applied specifically to records classification, in real-world
settings by means of a qualitative, interpretivist research design. The research findings
revealed that, after all that has been written on the functional approach, records
professionals around the world appear to share an almost thoughtless belief that a
32 good records classification system – however conceived – ought to be function-based.
At the same time, nobody is fully clear about what the official methodology means by
function, activity, transaction, and the like. The professional literature is partly
responsible for this situation, as it does not offer any coherent definitions of functional
terms, nor does it explain that function is a relative concept and that, therefore,
building meaningful functional hierarchies – which do not exist as such in the real
world – far from being a mechanical exercise, requires a great deal of appreciation of
the “means-end chains” that characterize human actions.
Besides well-known “technical” limitations in the application of functional methods
to records classification (e.g. in relation to the accommodation of cross-functional
activities), this research brought to light a number of cultural factors that may affect
the design and implementation of function-based systems, from organizational and
personal behaviours towards information sharing, to political pressures and
management philosophies that may both favour and hinder functional considerations.
On a higher level of analysis, there seems to be a relationship between different
types of bureaucracies and the likelihood of succeeding in applying strictly functional
principles. From the data collected, one might conclude that a function-based approach
works best where structured work styles and the tendency to organize departments
according to a hierarchical logic predominate. However, the full-bureaucratic type is an
organizational model that, for various reasons, is “dying out”. The assumption that
“most organizational activities are of a broadly repetitive nature [. . .] [and even]
creative activities are mostly instances of types of activity that can be expected to
recur” (Shepherd and Yeo, 2003, pp. 53-5) is a very useful concept, in line with the idea
of “instrumental rationality” typical of classic bureaucratic systems (Morgan, 1986).
However, a closer look at actual work processes will reveal that organizations are
everything but rational systems and, especially today, there are a number of areas of
human endeavour that are not reducible to structured, repetitive processes and, on the
contrary, involve a great deal of “freedom of choice” on the part of human agents.
This paper argues for an inclusive, participatory approach to the design and
implementation of functional methods where the records professionals together with
any other individual in the organization (both staff and managers) define the cultural
landscape in which function-based records systems are going to be built and used.
Trying to understand management objectives and beliefs, as well as the values that
people attach to information – with the purpose of, inter alia, anticipating how these
and other factors may interact with records management and archival principles and
methods – is at least as important as learning business process modelling according to
engineering or systems analysis techniques. Thus, contemporary organizations
require, first of all, a redefinition of the analytical skills that records professionals
should be equipped with.
Secondly, investigating different cultural models besides the classic bureaucratic
one should become a priority in the records management research agenda. Of special
interest to scholars and practitioners is the study of organizational cultures, as a Understanding
research domain that may “help us understand organizational life more fully” (Martin, functions
1992, p. 4). The exploration of the cultural frameworks in which business processes are
enacted could contribute to elaborate better-informed, ad hoc strategies for the
analysis, interpretation, and representation of functions and activities (Oliver, 2011).
The suggested area of studies may for instance support the development of
functional approaches that would be suitable to certain work place typologies but not 33
others. It is expected that, in this way, the function-based methodology will be freed
from the rigidity and abstractness that has characterized it since it was first devised for
records management and archival purposes. By becoming more culture-specific, a
method that might appear to belong to some sort of “archival mythology” could be
transformed into an effective tool.

Notes
1. In line with continental European archival traditions (Duranti, 1993), the author considers
records management as a constituent part of the archival body of knowledge, not as a
separate discipline.
2. It may also be worth reporting the rather comprehensive ‘working definition’ of function
formulated by today’s Library and Archives Canada (Sabourin, 2001, p. 144): “A function is:
any high level purpose, responsibility, task, or activity which is assigned to the
accountability agenda of an institution by legislation, policy, or mandate; typically common
administrative or operational functions of policy development and program and/or delivery
of goods and services; a set or series of activities (broadly speaking, a business process)
which, when carried out according to a prescribed sequence, will result in an institution or
individual producing the expected results in goods or services that it is mandated or
delegated to provide”.
3. Hurley (1995) distinguishes “terminological control” (as “hierarchical and logical expression
of predictable relationships”) from “contextual control” (as “non-hierarchical, contingent
description of observed, unpredictable relationships”). Because “records are time-bound [. . .]
[being] evidence [of] an event locked in time, the metadata relevant to circumstances that are
contemporary to the making of the records and are captured in record-keeping systems
require “external validation” once the facts the records refer to have become “historical”
(Hurley, 1995, p. 22). Contextual control, as part of archival description, provides “ambience,”
that is, the broader context needed to give meaning to any given body of records. According
to Hurley, such high-level knowledge does not need to be articulated in recordkeeping
systems, because as long as the records are active and the focus is on business functions,
what is required is terminological rather than contextual control (Hurley, 1995, p. 24).
4. At the end of the eighteenth-beginning of the nineteenth century, Luca Peroni basically
destroyed the records original order and decontextualized all series of the historical archives
of the city of Milan, because he split function from structure and used “abstract functions” as
the only criterion for rearranging the fonds (Lodolini, 1992, p. 56).
5. Checkland and Scholes (1999, p. 24) introduced the notion of “human activity system” in
their expositions of “soft” systems methodology (SSM) to stress the fact that the systems we
deal with (e.g. business system, education system, juridical system) are in fact made of
“human beings in social roles trying to take purposeful actions”. In such systems, the
primary uncertainty relates to the definition of the “problem” and the precise objectives to be
met. To this purpose, no mechanistic and goal-oriented method can be effective. The author
used SSM ideas as a conceptual framework to her dissertation research (Foscarini, 2009) as
well as a methodological framework that, in her view, would improve current ways of
carrying out records management functions (Foscarini, 2010).
RMJ 6. Various authors have criticized Hofstede for his deterministic approach and his
generalizations concerning the relationship between organizational and national cultures
22,1 (Baskerville, 2003). See also Gillian Oliver (2011). This author’s research made use of
Hofstede’s categorizations with the aim of framing its scope and establishing a basis for
comparison. Testing the validity of his conclusions was not among its goals.

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About the author

Fiorella Foscarini is an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Information at the University of
Toronto (Canada), where she teaches in the records management and archives area. From 2000 to
2009, she held the position of Senior Archivist at the European Central Bank in Frankfurt am
Main (Germany), and previously, was the Head of the Records Office and General Archives at the
Province of Bologna (Italy). In 2009, she obtained her PhD in Library, Archival and Information
Studies from the University of British Columbia in Vancouver (Canada), where she also taught
courses in Advanced Records Management. Dr Foscarini has been lecturing at a number of
archival schools in Italy and Germany. From 2004 to 2009, she conducted research for the
InterPARES Project, to which she especially contributed in the areas of archival policy and
legislation. Her research interests involve organizational cultures and recordkeeping practices,
diplomatics of contemporary records, genre theory, and digital preservation issues. Fiorella
Foscarini can be contacted at: [email protected]

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