Long term management of a corporate GIS

The GIS literature abounds with strategies to guide the development of a co rporate GIS as a single project but lacks discussion on the long term manag ement of the GIS. This paper documents a recent study into GIS development in a state department over an 18-year period. It applies the productional p erspective of GIS to model long term GIS development diagrammatically and i dentifies five patterns of GIS development. The outcomes reveal some long t erm characteristics of a corporate GIS, based on which a three-stage approa ch is developed to guide the long term development of an ideal corporate GI S.