A document management system (DMS) is a computer system (or set of computer programs) used to track and store electronic documents and/or images of paper documents. The term has some overlap with the concepts of Content Management Systems and is often viewed as a component of Enterprise Content Management Systems and related to Digital Asset Management, Document imaging, Workflow systems and Records Management systems. Contract Management and Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) can be viewed as either components or implementations of ECM.

Document management should be divided into two streams, based on the material being managed. Beginning in the 1980s, a number of vendors began developing systems to manage paper-based documents. These systems managed paper documents, which included not only printed and published documents, but also photos, prints, etc.

Later, a second system was developed, to manage electronic documents, i.e., all those documents, or files, created on computers, and often stored on local user file systems. The earliest electronic document management (EDM) systems were either developed to manage proprietary file types, or a limited number of file formats. Many of these systems were later referred to as document imaging systems, because the main capabilities were capture, storage, indexing and retrieval of image file formats. These systems enabled an organization to capture faxes and forms, save copies of the documents as images, and store the image files in the repository for security and quick retrieval (retrieval was possible because the system handled the extraction of the text from the document as it was captured, and the text indexer provided text retrieval capabilities).

EDM systems evolved to where the system was able to manage any type of file format that could be stored on the network. The applications grew to encompass electronic documents, collaboration tools, security, and auditing capabilities...

Electronic document management is in particular worked out by Carzaniga and Wolf (2001) in their paper “Content-based networking: a new communication infrastructure”. The authors introduce content-based networking as a communication infrastructure where information is driven by the content throughout the network. The users express their interests, and the senders simply input the message into the network. From that point the network delivers all the information to the right people. Sprague (1995) delivers a more elaborate work in which he introduces document management through using IT. He calls it electronic document management: EDM. He defines managing of documents as the “creation, storage, organization, transmission, retrieval, manipulation, update, and eventual disposition of documents to fulfill an organizational purpose” (pp.32), and he further states that EDM improves communication among people and groups of people (pp 42-43).

There are several other examples from the literature for the link between EDM and communication. Hansen and Haas (2001) elaborate on the role of the suppliers and users of information in electronic documents. Another research with a very clear link between EDMS and communication is that of Thorpe and Mead (2000). They showed that an EDM system changes the communication patterns. Of the three case projects they researched, EDM acquired a central role in two of them, (the third project was abandoned after three months). A research of Howard and Pettersen (2001) about the way of communicating in a construction project had as result that EDM (Howard and Pettersen call it project web) was number three communication tool just after telephone and a meeting, leaving e-mail, paper-post and fax behind. Rene Brohm (2005) introduced in his dissertation the theater model. The theater model illustrates methaphorically how document management systems correspond with a stage in a theater. His argumentation is that the interaction in a play on the stage is similar with the functioning of a document system.

If all the data and information would be put in a central database/intranet, which can be used by everyone in the organization, there would be a clear link between IT and dissemination of information according to Marin & Poulter (2004). They argue that because of the easy access to the information, it would flow through the organization. The authors confirm this in their paper (2004) by stating that distribution of intelligence can be aided by technology.

There are different ways of improving this communication tool. Hansen and Haas (2001) see the electronic document management as a market, with competition. According to them suppliers should have a strategy about how to share information and how to persuade their clients (employees) to use the system?

One way to do this is introduced by Yan & Garcia-Molina (1999 pp.2) who use EDM to: “make long term profile consisting of a number of standing queries to represent his information needs”. Through this they state that dissemination of information is improved. Users receive information in their field of interest because of a profile that was submitted. Therefore search costs and search time for employees are decreased.