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This chapter surveys the research in information seeking behavior, defined as the patterns of behavior that people display when they experience information needs, make choices about where and how to look for information, and reflect or act on the information they see. The chapter examines the influence on sense-making (Dervin), information search process (Kuhlthau), and information use environment (Taylor). It then develops an integrative model that includes the cognitive, affective, and situational dimensions of human information seeking behavior.

This chapter examines the key behaviours and values senior managers perceive are connected to the ways people use information effectively in their companies. It identifies the six key information behaviours and values as integrity, formality, control, transparency, sharing, and proactiveness. It explains that these perceptions are critical to the speed and effectiveness of decisions in responding to continuously changing business conditions. It adds that in companies that are more mature in managing information behaviours and values, performance-based information about the company is interpreted and shared at all levels. It notes that this atmosphere creates a strong disposition toward sharing all types of information among organisational members. It discusses that in companies where information about mistakes, errors, and failures is transparent, shared, and used constructively, there is a strong disposition to be proactive in seeking new information to respond to these problems, and to resolve them quickly in order to improve the company's performance.

This chapter defines the concepts and practices underlying the three key dimensions of future industry leadership in competing with information: competitive, customer, and operational information. It explains how IO is associated with these three dimensions of future industry leadership in competing with information, and how IO predicts senior manager expectations of future industry leadership with information.

This chapter examines the three broad schools of management thinking and practice that have, over the course of the last century, shaped the ways people, information, and IT are viewed by managers. It reviews the history and evolution of the IT, Information Management, and Behaviour and Control schools, and discovers the few real interactions or connections between the three schools, particularly in recent decades. It postulates that the viewpoints of senior managers concerning the effective use of information were not completely captured within the theories of one individual school of thought. It shows that senior managers had a more complex and comprehensive view of effective information use that integrated dimensions from each of the three schools. It adds that senior managers seem to hold that this higher-level information usage effectiveness idea better predicts business performance than did the singular perspectives of each individual school of thought.

This chapter examines the use of IO as a new metric to measure effective information use across companies and industries, and within the business units of global companies. It evaluates the strengths and weaknesses of the three schools of management thinking and practice related to business performance metrics. It notes that none of the schools has provided an integrated theory and empirical validation of a metric directly linking information use in companies to business performance. It presents the Information Orientation Dashboard as a new diagnostic tool for evaluating IO inside and across companies over time. It adds that there is an initial assessment of the types of management strategies, and actions that can be used to improve the behaviours and capabilities associated with the three information capabilities of IO within companies.

This chapter empirically shows the existence of IO as a new comprehensive measure of effective information use. It then establishes a direct causal link between higher IO and higher business performance. It notes that the integrated IO perspective demonstrates how senior managers perceive the three information capabilities contribute to a comprehensive measure of effective information use in their companies. It frames this discussion as an answer to an ongoing controversy over the IT productivity paradox, and the elusive connection between IT investments and practices and improvements in business performance.

This chapter explores how companies become more mature in their information usage effectiveness. Based on the theoretical underpinnings of each information capability, and the cross-capability interaction effects of the ‘spiral of information effectiveness’, it develops the prescriptive paths that a company must follow as it becomes more IO mature. It theorises and tests the causal path between dimensions of each information capability using statistical path analysis. It examines the causal interaction effects across information capabilities. It explains that the paths within and between the three information capabilities of IO are discussed based on the theoretical arguments as well as five key characteristics of effective information use that surface in the interpretation of results. It notes that the findings indicate that in more mature IO cultures, the synergy across capabilities is greater. It adds that people are prepared to use IT in new ways to manage information support of decision making.

Information is the raw material of public decision-making. Within the sphere of European Union law, administrative decision-making relies heavily for this raw material on information networks based upon systems of decentralized information gathering and subsequent information sharing. The generation and use of information within network administration is thus one of the most essential elements of EU administration, and thus an essential subject of EU administrative law. This chapter addresses the various rules and principles — written and unwritten — on the generation, use, and dissemination of information by European and national administrative bodies for implementing EU law, focusing especially on those of general applicability across all sectoral areas.

This chapter focuses on the strategies employed by the West in using the information that they acquired. It discusses that fear of wire was instigated by the intelligence of a huge Soviet arms build-up using German weapons technology. It adds that intelligence influenced war planning and weapons development. It explains that in order to gather more information, the USAF used overflight, radar detection, and signal interception. It also discusses that the embargo was based on the information provided by the spies and that it had some success in preserving the West's lead time in applying science and technology to military capability. It also tells that disinformation was certainly an element in British covert action against the Soviet Bloc and included the dissemination of bad scientific ideas in order to conceal technical progress.

This chapter discusses why the personal information economy is of fundamental and growing importance. It notes that the economy's operation increasingly will define our experience and choices as consumers, yet its impact is insufficiently understood and inadequately addressed. While debates such as those on identity cards capture extensive media coverage in the UK, it argues that the everyday, pervasive ways information use affects consumers lies largely unexplored. It outlines the personal information economy and some of the key issues it raises.

This chapter demonstrates how the use of personal information can expand overall access to credit and insurance. It focuses on impacts that are potentially exclusionary, to understand better the distribution of the risks and benefits of personal information use — and to consider the scope for creative solutions to new forms of exclusion. It also discusses what is known about the adverse effects data use can have on access to credit and insurance and then examines the success of policy responses.