0003 body

Case: 0003

Sector: Legal (and other professional services)

Yes Sir, anything you say Sir!

Is it correct to give preference to certain information users in cases where information supply is limited?

Summary: An information centre had a limited supply of a certain report. It was generally assumed that when wanting to borrow a report, priority would be given to more senior members of staff. Therefore, when only one copy of the report was available for loan, it was given to the Senior Consultant rather than the (junior) Technical Assistant.

NOTE: This Case Study is fictitious. It is informed by experience in the information world, but it does not claim to represent a scenario of actual events or relate to individual people or organisations.

Case Study: The Information Manager challenged this decision. First, it was the Information Manager’s policy to treat all users equally and to deprioritise attention based on some other factor.

Secondly, generally accepted management practice told her that the report should be given to the person whose need was greater. Greater need was not necessarily determined by seniority. In this particular case the junior member of staff required the report for inclusion in a client report to be communicated later that day; the senior member of staff required the report for consultation over the following few days. The Information Manager asked the Technical Assistant to return the report at the end of the day so that it could be given to the Senior Consultant.

It seems in this case that the Information Manager interprets Principle 6 (Equitable treatment of all information users) as ‘equal treatment’. Although not unreasonable in this particular case, the Information Manager must not assume that equal treatment is a panacea for resolving either resource conflicts or ethical dilemmas.

‘Deal fairly with the competing needs of information users, and resolve conflicting priorities with due regard for the urgency and importance of the matters being considered.’

This paragraph highlights the need to consider wider issues and to balance all priorities, not only seniority. The Information Manager is no less respectful of the needs of the Senior Consultant, but on balance realises that the need of the Technical Assistant is greater. A report for a client, which ultimately supports the firm, its partners and employees, clearly has to take priority over a matter of vague importance for the Senior Consultant.

Additional dilemmas could have arisen had the Information Manager been requested, or instructed, to make an illegal photocopy of the report.

	Primary	Secondary
Principles	6	4 – 5 - 7
Code	B5	-
Related cases	-

References:

To recommend resources related to this Case, please contact the editors.

Feedback:

The editors welcome feedback. To comment on the facts of this Case, or to respond to the editorial review, please contact the editors.