What drives records management? A personal view

I could have titled this paper: ‘What is records management?’ but that would get us too frisky and argumentative before we have even begun. It's not that the question is uninteresting or irrelevant. Indeed, it is highly relevant. But is it answerable? Maybe I could cheat slightly and leapfrog over the question, and assume that whatever records management (RM) is, it actually does exist. With that out of the way, I want to propose another question: what drives records management? By asking this we may find a more constructive approach to understanding what RM actually is and does. More potently, we may address what RM should be doing, and in turn how we as a diverse group of specialists may apply our skills.