Databases and their importance

Aproach to Databases at EAFIT

Information always has been an important source of power through knowledge, and the possibility to access the right information, which is new and trusty, determines the success of many projects and activities we undertake everyday.

In international business that information is essential. And the databases at the University provide the most adequate source for what we look for.

We do not only find information about current events and facts about countries, we also find information about companies, books and recognized academic publications.

Another advantage of the databases is the possibility to find different information, selected according to specific topics and related to specific fields.

Even though there are general databases as Ebsco and ProQuest, there are more specific ones Viewswire and the Investment maps. And each faculty finds a selection of those.

Considering the academic publications we have in them an important tool in order to see how business evolve and which trends are in the field. It opens us the opportunity to see direct from academicals from Harvard or other prestigiuos universities and organisations around the world what theories can improve our work.

We also can double check how authentic those academic documents (scholary journals) are with a database on provation called Isi Web of Knowlegde, which strengthen our trust in the source and can also be an important ratification for investigations and other projects where we use the document.

And besides the information we find, that the databases also provide different useful tools like how to find the right bibliography to use in our papers and projects, there are also some translators, possibilities to select documents and have more efficient findings on what we look for. In a way, we can say they are definetly user friendly.

The databases are for sure essential tools in our studies and work, and the opportunity the university gives us with them, with the material at the library and trough their partnerships is unvaluable for us.

Question: How databases play a significant role within the organisations?

The databases are not only a powerful source of information for students but also for organisations.

The access to these databases and the right use of them is considered an edge within their businesses and even a competitive advantage.

These databases are important for the organisations in order to get information for their strategic planning, it gives them ideas on how to create their own databases and provide specific information to their customers and stockholders.

When an organisation can manage properly these databases they can obtain benefits informing themselves about improventments in a wide set of areas such as costs' management, improvement of services, organisational structure among others.

The use of these information finally turns into "knowledge management" which is also supported by other technologies like the intranets and informations repositories.

With the databases and the knowledge management it is also important to highlight the role of the organisational culture and its values and how they create a proper space to apply those systems. The comapany's leaders and their encouragement and help to their employees is crucial to the success of their application and future results.

Finally, we confirm the importance of databases within the organisations, their strategies and how they turn into key elements to be leaders in today's world.

References:

ALAVI, M.A.R.Y.A.M., TIMOTHY R. KAYWORTH, and DOROTHY E. LEIDNER. 2005. "An Empirical Examination of the Influence of Organizational Culture on Knowledge Management Practices." Journal of Management Information Systems 22, no. 3: 191-224. Business Source Premier, EBSCOhost (accessed January 26, 2009).

Hedberg, Bo, and Rolf Wolff. 2001. "Organizing, Learning, and Strategizing: From Construction to Discovery." . 535-556. Meinolf Dierkes 2001, 2001. Business Source Premier, EBSCOhost (accessed January 23, 2009).