ABSTRACT
The object of analysis of our study is an innovative approach to informationhandling which has been developed in a pilot health district project in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil. In this chapter we introduce the case-study, approaching the question of the ‘fit’ between knowledge-building and decision-making in complex organisations dealing with people-oriented activities. Knowledgebuilding and decision-making seem to induce contradictory needs in these organisations. The former often implies the establishment of adequate channels for needs expression. Usually the beneficiaries’ needs are not known in advance, and can be best detected by means of flexible and participatory methods of data collection-that is, by adopting an overall process approach. However, this approach seems to be less appropriate when information generated at the community level has to be used to effectively support complex processes of decision-making at the managerial level. For that, analytical methods are usually required, often supported by sophisticated technologies and filled in with some specialised, technical knowledge. These methods are quite typical of a blueprint approach, and their adoption aims at increasing the degree of specificity of the decision-making processes.
