The quality of information

The primary concern of quality improvement in professional services is not the input‐output conversion, but the information that enables and controls action. The quality of information, however, remains a vaguely defined concept. Actionable information is here defined as meaning derived from data and context with a knowledge function. Standard definitions of quality are elaborated to make them applicable to information: closed system technical quality and open system negotiated quality are postulated as ideal types. This construct is used to define information quality and suggest guidelines for methodology development.