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This article presents the research findings of a study on task complexity and information-seeking activities in real-life work tasks. The focus was on perceived task complexity, which was determined according to the task performers' prior knowledge about the task ahead. This view on task complexity is closely related to research considering task uncertainty and analyzability. Information-seeking activities considered were a need to acquire different types of information and the subsequent use of different types of sources. The research data were mainly collected by (1) self-recorded journals that were filled out by municipal administrators in the course of performing their ordinary work duties (altogether 78 task diaries), and (2) subsequent interviews. The results indicated that there is a relatively strong relationship between types of information and types of sources. The effects of task complexity made experts more attractive as a source than other people and all types of documentary sources.

In this paper, we report an investigation on the use of multiple social media in knowledge work and explore the contribution of activity theory for such a study. As social media are increasingly adopted at work, there is a demand to understand how they are being incorporated. This study focuses on how social media may improve or reduce coherence in work activities, and for this purpose, we use activity theory as an analytical lens to conceptualise social media usage in a Scandinavian software development company. The qualitative data, consisting of interviews and observations, were analysed to capture the mediating role of social media for information sharing within and across work activities. We found social media in general helpful to maintain coherence in terms of sharing work‐related information, improving ambient awareness, as well as for socialising, but they also caused inconsistencies in use and adoption. In addition, we found that social media served different purposes in different activity systems, causing both contradictions and congruencies; what was seen as a benefit for some work activities appeared as a limitation for others (eg, concerning pace and aims of information sharing). In our findings through the lens of activity theory, we observed how objects, although they were shared, were fractionalised in networked activities. Our conclusion is that despite the still unoptimised functionality, social media do bring coherence in work activities in a decentralised work environment.

Our aim is to introduce an emerging understanding of how practice theory can be used to frame the analysis of (work) task-based research. This analytical work is tentative, but has the capacity of furthering task-based research by addressing the dialogical relationships and embodied performances that constitute practice. We argue that analyses of task as a constitute element of practice can contribute to a rich discussion of knowledge construction in information studies. KeywordsTask-based studies, practice theory, information practice, information seeking, work task.