Talk:Institutional memory

untitled
Why Bob Marley rather than eg Gibbon? Midgley 21:28, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

massive reverts
Ombudsman, there are a number of remarks in teh arbcom case about you that really deserve consideration. There is also the bit on the bottom of the edit window reminding you not to write it if you don't want it edited mercilessly. Making large reverts really doesn't look sensible at this stage, and doing so with yet another pejorative (and inaccurate) edit summary still less so. Midgley 01:45, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Wholesale deletions
Midgley makes it very difficult to assume that he is not trying to pick fights. His massive deletions do not appear to resemble that which could easily be construed to be collaborative editing, something that many editors have pointed out to him. What he has done on this particular page (which seems to have resulted from what might be described as Wikistalking) is to dumb down and bowdlerize the article. If Midgley wants to be taken more seriously, he would take heed of the numerous complaints that have been lodged against him. Ombudsman 02:26, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Business as usual then Ombod. Zero information, lots of hyperbole and a scattering of untruths.  And no questions answered.  Why Marley?  Midgley 19:23, 5 June 2006 (UTC)


 * What complaints lodged against Midgley? Midgley is not about to placed on probation.
 * Wikistalking? Midgley, like me, seems have have looked at Special:Contributions/Ombudsman. Having previously been disappointed with Ombudsman's perspective on NPOV I think this is completely reasonable. JFW | T@lk  09:32, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Further reversion without discussion
Ombudsman summarised: "if you want to help, fine, but do it in measured steps collaboratively, don't destroy it with bad writing" while making massive reverts some of which seem are not in a style I associate with clear meaning or easy reading. The lead paragraph does actually describe the term and the prominent elements included in it. In particular, it doesn't state that these are an exclusive list, which is desirable since there are a lot of elements to institutional memory including for instance architecture, footpath layout and such and someone may always come up with another candidate. WP policies and practice are quite clear on how to proceed here. cp to talk page. Midgley 09:49, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

From Rfc
I've come here via Rfc. After reading on the introductory paragraph of the article as written, I haven't the faintest idea what institutional memory is. Putting aside any other problems in the article (which I haven't examined to see if there are any), the intro needs to explain, very briefly and preferably in the first sentence, exactly what this concept is. A different version of the article does a much better job, in the intro at least, of doing so. - Jersyko · talk  15:37, 7 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Knowing Ombudsman and his perspective quite well, this article seems to reflect the idea that organisations perpetuate particular concepts and trains of thought. Positive aspects are that it improves internal consistency, while a negative effect is that these truths are hard to challenge. Ombudsman likes to quote this article on his talkpage posts and clearly believes that the professions (e.g. medicine) have an institutional memory that prevents them from seeing the truth. Now that is an enormously contentious assertion.
 * At the moment the article has no sources. It has a couple of external links, but that is glorious failure in terms of WP:V and WP:RS. I have no real preference for either Ombudsman's nor Midgley's version, but an article should not say "The keepers of institutional memory should [...]" without providing a source for the "should". Ombudsman is not being cooperative, and is being ridiculous when complaining about "wholesale deletions" (a term he uses often when his POV is being rewritten). JFW | T@lk  09:25, 8 June 2006 (UTC)


 * I've no particular liking for either version: Midgley's rewrite is too sketchy; the older one a bit flowery in tone, has a "things ain't what they used to be" subtext and is sometimes prescriptive rather than descriptive. Who says "Literary history ... is a curious intellectual undertaking"? It needs far more rooting in sources.
 * A Google Books search finds a deal about it. An area that definitely needs expanding is the whole double-edged nature of institutional memory: on one hand it provides continuity, but on the other entrenches ways of doing things, so may prove an impediment to necessary change. This can be anything from a business level (e.g. a company retaining an outdated business model or management structure) or culturally (e.g. old tribal loyalties - e.g. Catholics vs Orangemen - impeding social improvement).
 * There's also the aspect that institutional memory can perpetrate myths, or be stage-managed to favour a particular group. An example of the former would be the invented traditions of the Scottish kilt and tartan; of the latter, the early 20th century rebranding of the British Royal family as the House of Windsor, with the creation of a whole bunch of national rituals and traditions that are now treated as age-old.
 * Furthermore, there's a whole deal of overlap with the Organizational culture, Intangible culture and Traditional knowledge articles. Tearlach 13:21, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Finding useful sources
This is an industrial and organizational psychology and industrial sociology topic, which has its applications in any field where large organisations operate, such as banks and such. I suspect there is an awful lot to say on the way large groups of people develop a collection of memes to guide the way they work. I'm not sure if there is any truth in the assertion that institutional memory is akin to the subconcious.

Googling for this topic will show that many large organisations regard their "institutional memory" and culture as a useful thing. It seems there are several meanings for this term, making it rather vague and elusive. JFW | T@lk  09:49, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Relevance of "See also" links
Several of us were discussing this concept at work, and someone pointed us to this Wikipedia entry. But then the question came up: "Why does that Wikipedia article link to B'nai Brith and the USA PATRIOT Act?"

Was this just vandalism, or did the mentioned articles have some relevant text at some earlier revision, or did I miss something? At the least, there should be some explanation of why those links are there, because it really is not obvious. Ifdef (talk) 20:59, 18 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Most of those should go. I nominated the whole article for AFD a while back as "Original essay, offtopic. While institutional memory/ insitutional knowledge is a valid topic in organizational psychology, this article attempts to describe all of human culture. It's supposed to be about knowledge embedded in an organization."  Not too much has changed. Squidfryerchef (talk) 03:53, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Current status of the merge?
At the beginning of the page it is said that the article is marked to be merged, is this the current status? I think there's a great misunderstanding, institutional memory is not the same as corporate memory or enterprise memory, and in the case that the articles are merged I think that the main article should be Institutional Memory.

Institutions are not organizations but (roughly) a set of beliefs or structures that are taken for granted, not questioned, and that defines some order within a group transcending its members. Organizations can be institutions but not the other way around. Check Institution for a complete definition with examples.

Being this the case, corporate memory can be a kind of institutional memory but we can have institutional memory outside corporations. For example, the roles we assign to each member of a family are part of the institutional memory of the family institution.

JuanCano (talk) 08:53, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm calling it closed and removing the tag. Two of the articles have been merged already, and one has been deleted. Whoever wanted all four articles merged, they got roughly half of what they wanted anyway. --BDD (talk) 20:09, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

Adding Studies & Clarifications
It would be very helpful to add studies on institutional memory. Currently, it is hard to understand the article since the concept is very vague and poorly explained. Summarizing research works done on this topic can make the concept more tangible and easier to understand.

The subsection "Institutional Knowledge" also throws readers off since this concept is different from institutional memory. It would be better if the subsection were titled differently and in a way that links institutional memory to institutional knowledge. The subsection also needs to better identify the differences between both concepts and how they are connected. Apasilia (talk) 00:23, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

To add to article
Basic information to add to this article: when this concept (and term) originated, and its earliest appearances in print. 173.88.246.138 (talk) 23:48, 20 October 2021 (UTC)