Proceedings of the 17th International Conference on Information Quality, IQ 2012, Paris, France, November 16-17, 2012

Master data management (MDM) provides an access t o the consistent views of the organization ́s most important data, also referred to as master data. In ddition to technical issues, there are many organ izational items related to MDM and its organizational implementatio n. However, current academic literature lacks empir ical studies on organizational challenges influencing the MD M initiatives. Consequently organizational issues i n establishing master data management function in an organizat ion re studied in this paper. Data collection is c onducted by participatory observations of a year-long MDM proje ct. Reflecting the findings to the literature shows that several new issues have emerged. These indicate that the im pl mentation of MDM is also affected by the organiz tion ́s ability to identify data owners and associate them with appropriate roles and responsibilities, and to create a unified understanding of the key terms and concepts regardi ng MDM. Also the importance of communication is emp hasized.