This research explores the link between information culture and information use in three organizations. We ask if there is a way to systematically identify information behaviors and values that can characterize the information culture of an organization, and whether this culture has an effect on information use outcomes. The primary method of data collection was a questionnaire survey that was applied to a national law firm, a public health agency, and an engineering company. Over 650 persons in the three organizations answered the survey. Data analysis suggests that the questionnaire instrument was able to elicit information behaviors and values that denote an organization's information culture. Moreover, the information behaviors and values of each organization were able to explain 30-50% of the variance in information use outcomes. We conclude that it is possible to identify behaviors and values that describe an organization's information culture, and that the sets of identified behaviors and values can account for significant proportions of the variance in information use outcomes.
The paper presents a case study of a large Canadian law firm with a distinctive information culture that is vigorously implementing an information management strategy. Our findings suggest that, at least for this organization, information culture trumps information management in its impact on information use outcomes. Thus, the strongly held information values and behaviors in the firm accounted for more than onethird of the variance in information use outcomes. Employees did perceive a high level of information management activity in the firm, although information management played a smaller, perhaps indirect role in explaining information use outcomes. What might organizations do to improve information use? This study suggests that organizations might do well to recognize that, in the hustle and bustle to implement strategies and systems, information values and information culture will always have a defining influence on how people share and use information.
This article compares doctoral students' and faculty members' referencing behavior through the analysis of a large corpus of scientific articles. It shows that doctoral students tend to cite more documents per article than faculty members, and that the literature they cite is, on average, more recent. It also demonstrates that doctoral students cite a larger proportion of conference proceedings and journal articles than faculty members and faculty members are more likely to self-cite and cite theses than doctoral students. Analysis of the impact of cited journals indicates that in health research, faculty members tend to cite journals with slightly lower impact factors whereas in social sciences and humanities, faculty members cite journals with higher impact factors. Finally, it provides evidence that, in every discipline, faculty members tend to cite a higher proportion of clinical/applied research journals than doctoral students. This study contributes to the understanding of referencing patterns and age stratification in academia. Implications for understanding the information-seeking behavior of academics are discussed.
In Canada, as is the case in most industrial countries, business intelligence (BI) has stirred much interest lately. A growing number of organizations, either large or small, nonprofit or government, implement formal BI activities. This paper provides a panorama of trends in BI in Canada. It reports research on environmental scanning, informationseeking behaviour and BI implementation and practice in large organizations and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), as well as in the cultural sector. It describes governmental efforts to support disseminating and implementing BI practices especially in SMEs; in particular, the Québec Government's Fonds de Partenariat Sectoriel Volet IV: Veilles Concurrentielles, a unique and innovative governmental programme which sponsored the development of BI centres. Finally, it provides an overview of current activities in training and research in BI. It concludes by indicating areas for improvement and development, with an emphasis on the need to develop a better understanding of information-seeking behaviour in SMEs and to develop an information model of organizations specific to SMEs. 50 1 2
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