Interorganizational Ecology and Information Visibility

Increasingly, companies use interorganizational information systems to conduct joint business processes, such as automatic replenishment systems and other supply chain initiatives, invoicing and payments, insurance claims processing and numerous other interorganizational processes. Inter-firm networking in turn increases the visibility of information generated and used by business partners. These business partners may experience intended and unintended impacts from the changes in the partnering relationship, in effect altering the ecology of the organization. In this paper we briefly review principles of ecology from the natural and social sciences. Then, drawing on emerging principles of organizational ecology and information ecology, we propose a definition of interorganizational information ecology. An example from health care demonstrates the usefulness of the concept, and we conclude with suggestions for field-based research on the ecology of interorganizational information visibility.