The ISO 30301 MSR Standards established by the ISO/TC46/SC11 in November 2011 are the standards that can support successful management of organization while providing strategic plans to the issue of records management. In Korea, these standards are es...
The ISO 30301 MSR Standards established by the ISO/TC46/SC11 in November 2011 are the standards that can support successful management of organization while providing strategic plans to the issue of records management. In Korea, these standards are established as the national standard (KS) in May 2013, and also, there are actions being taken to adopt the certification of the ISO 30301 Standards.
ISO 30301 certification can provide the standard to evaluation whether the records management work is being carried out correctly from the organization's management perspective. However, to adopt such certification, it is required that the certification operation system needs to be organized, as well as that the society in general should understand about records management. Accordingly, it is even more required an in-depth review on the adoption of the system.
This study has the purpose in seeking for a successful plan for the adoption of ISO 30301 certification given the circumstance that the ISO 30301 certification is not yet adopted in Korea. For this purpose, the research is carried out as in the following through literature review and in-depth interviews.
Firstly, the literature review looks at the backgrounds to the establishment of ISO 30301 standards as well as the contents and the structure. For this purpose, this paper has also referenced the KS X ISO 30300, the KS X ISO 30301 Standards and the ISO Management System Standards that are established as the Korea Industry Standards. Also, the ISO 30301 Standards and the existing ISO records management field standards and technical reports are comparatively analyzed by each clause to grasp the correlation, and through this, it is studied the records management aspect that had been embossed in the ISO 30301 Standards. Moreover, by studying the concept and the expected effects of certification that is being carried out with the ISO 30301 Standards, it is discussed the necessity of the adoption of the relevant standards' certification.
Secondly, there are in-depth interviews carried out to study for the adoption plan for the ISO 30301 certification. The participants to the interviews include five records and certification related workers and five records managers at national records center direct supervision institutions. The interviews consisted of the primary mail response documents and the secondary phone or visiting interviews between April 23rd and May 13th, 2014. The interviews are carried out in a semi-structured form with questionnaires included protocols of four large sections and relatively free and flexible questions.
The interview data are open-coded and axis-coded following the research procedure under the grounded theory methodology, which is one of the qualitative research method. Firstly, through the open coding procedure, the common elements are extracted to name the concept and categorize. Based on these, the axis coding procedure is followed to place the phenomenon on the middle axis by putting the relevance between the categories based on the paradigm model, and structure the casual, the contextual and the interventional conditions, the strategies and the results.
As the result of analyzing the interviews, the phenomenon out of the paradigm elements appeared in this study is found to be the ‘adoption of certification of ISO 30301 MSR Standards'. In such phenomenon, there is the causal condition of ‘the change in paradigm for records management' from control to management. Also in the phenomenon, there is the contextual condition of 'the change of production and management environment for records' reflected. On the other hand, for the practical difficulties in adopting the ISO 30301 certification, it is found that there are interventional conditional applied, namely: 'lack of organizational records management infrastructure'; 'lack of influence of the national records center in promoting the certification'; and 'side effects in adopting the certification'. For the practical strategies to overcome these, the recommendations include the plans for 'organization of certification management system' and 'promotion of awareness with regards to records management'. Based on these strategies, the expectation is the 'conversion into records operation system of management focus' with expected effects of 'internal and external promotion effects of organization through certification'.
Based on such interview analysis result, the ISO 30301 certification adoption plan is contemplated. The direction of the proposal of this research is deployed inside the frame that the ISO 30301 certification is applied following the international regulations, and it is largely divided into the plans for the certification operation system organization and those for the promotion of awareness on records management. Firstly, the certification operation system organization plans are proposed by classifying them into: 1)organization of certification organization system; 2)preparation for legal foundation; 3)preparation for incentive policies; and 4)test business operation.
Firstly, the certification organization system is to be guaranteed for international mobility based on the domestic ISO management system certification organization structure so that ISO 30301 certification, too, can follow the existing certification organization structure. For this, the relevant laws are to be established or modified to prepare for a legal foundation, and it is also proposed to include the contents of the certification organization structure within those relevant legislations.
Secondly, for the preparation of a legal foundation for the adoption of the certification, there is the controversy on whether to include the relevant contents by only modifying the 「Public Records Management Act」 and the related legislations or to modify the 「Public Records Management Act」 and the related legislations as well as establishing new laws, so the merits and demerits of each case are presented separately. Since such modification and establishment of relevant laws have both advantages and disadvantages, it is necessary for the relevant professionals and interested parties to have a further in-depth discussion.
Thirdly, for the incentive policies for the certification, it is recommended to provide merit points in those public institution management evaluation and chief of institution evaluation. And, in case of obtaining the certification, it is recommended to exempt the organization from the records management evaluation which public institutions are subject to, and by expanding this, the records management evaluation is to be replaced with the certification in the future. Lastly, it is also proposed to provide support with the obtaining of the certification through exemption laws for each of the different industries.
Fourth, it is proposed the operation of a test certification business for the experience of trial and error in the operation of certification as well as to amend or supplement to issues for an early spread of the certification. It is argued that in operating such test certification business, there must be a work to grasp the characteristics of the organization obtaining the certification in advance so that the test case can be applied as a detailed certification index by each organization, and also to invest in enough time in consideration of the certification obtaining period.
For the plans to promote awareness on records management, the proposals are made in the following two ways of: 1)spreading the importance of records management; and 2)diversification of promotion and education on records management. For the main contents on the spreading of the importance of records management include the following.
Firstly, for the integration of the organizational work process and the records management procedure, it is argued to research and develop the policies of records management that fit the special features of each organization.
Secondly, to promote the awareness on the ISO 30301 certification, it is proposed to find and spread excellent cases in records management. Here, it is also emphasized to develop tools for quantitative and standard evaluation that can estimate the performance of records management as well as the general status of records management within organizations.
Furthermore, to allow the top management and the organization members to sympathize and communicate on records management, it is proposed to diversity the promotion and education on records management. In this sense, it is recommended of promotion and education plans for each subject groups of: the CEO and high-level supervisors; records managers; IT and security managers; and records management students.
It is believed that the awareness promotion plans and the certification operation structure plans on records management proposed in this study can be used as basic materials for the successful settlement of the relevant standards and certification. Furthermore, it is expected to spread out the concept and the importance of ‘records management', while also contributing to the activities in settling down the records management culture inside organizations.