Enterprise Metadata Management: Conceptions, Issues and Capabilities

Effective metadata management is one of the key enablers of information and knowledge management. Over more than two decades, enterprise metadata management technology has evolved to facilitate a consistent and efficient capture, maintenance, and delivery of metadata across the organisation. Academic research into challenges that organisations face when implementing this type of information system is limited. The paper explores common metadata conceptions, and places metadata in the context of the data-information-knowledge hierarchy. Based on a review of the existing literature on metadata, and an exploratory expert study, the authors propose a unified metadata typology that can help organisations clarify and focus their metadata efforts, and frame future research. The paper also investigates technology capabilities and current issues hindering metadata management initiatives