Organizations, e-information and the law...

On NPR's Morning Edition, reporter Ari Shapiro's "New Rules on Retaining Digital Business Documents" described rules "that help companies decide how many e-mails and other digital items they have to keep in case someone sues them and demands the documents be brought to court. Even small companies can generate millions of digital documents in a very short time, and systems for managing them can be expensive." (NPR 2006)

Consider Weber's observation that maintaining written records is a hallmark of bureaucratization. He was primarily observing the internal rationalization of organization. Information retention rules would seem to push things at the other end of the spectrum and a sort of external rationalization oriented not toward organizational performance but rather the organization's existence in a social context. Hmmm.

See Also

uscourts.gov 2006. E-Discovery Amendments and Committee Notes