Digital Workplaces and Information Access: Some Research Perspectives from the French Context

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1 DOI: /JLIS /705 Digital Workplaces and Information Access: Some Research Perspectives from the French Context Eric Thivant Magellan Research Center, iaelyon, University of Jean Moulin Lyon 3, France Digital workplaces present new challenges for organizations, and also for researchers (Borlund, Mandl, Womser-Hacker, 2013; Widén, Steinerová, Voisey, 2014). Companies change their everyday working environments with digital innovations (Germain & Malaison, 2004; Choo, 2016), especially when they require employees to use new tools that modify information access, including employees seeking and use behavior. Thus, research should better take into account information seeking behavior in the professional digital workspace and take into account the succession of professionals tasks (Byström, 2007 & 2005). Together with S. Boulesnane, Associate Professor in Information Science, and L. Bouzidi, Professor in Information Science, we have been conducting multiple different research projects investigating information behavior in digital workspaces. We also work with researchers from other disciplines, including computer science, mathematical science, management and economical science who are based in the Magellan Research Center. As illustrated in Table 1, we use different approaches in our research, including sense-making, psycho-social, sociological, and socio-cognitive approaches. Our research focuses on: the information behavior of business managers in the finance sector; the information mobility in the hotel industry; and, the information space of small to medium enterprises (SMEs), including the question of the use of new information systems in international enterprises. Table 1. Research approaches used Approaches References Publications Sense-making Dervin, 1999, 2003a, 2003b Thivant, 2003, 2005; Thivant & Bouzidi, 2005 Psycho-social Jodelet, 2003 Thivant & Bouzidi, 2008 Sociological Callon, 2005; Latour, 2006 Thivant & Bouzidi 2010 Socio-cognitive Wilson, 2006 Thivant & Bouzidi, 2006 圖書館學與資訊科學 42(1):95 99( 民一 五年四月 ) 95

2 Our first main research domain focuses on information seeking and use behavior of professionals mainly in the financial sector, but also in other economic sectors. I developed an original qualitative method, called situation, complexity and information activity (SICIA), which underlines the relationship between situations, professional contexts and strategies. In this method, we first analyze the discourse of professionals in relation with a questionnaire, looking for matches between a main professional context and a specific strategy for each situation mentioned by professionals. We found similarity in information seeking and use strategies used by different sectors of finance in most situations. But some differences were also found, and these differences were explained by the relevant activity goals in each sector. We applied this method in different sectors of Finance and demonstrated that the activity and also the professional context can directly influence information, seeking and use (ISU) behavior (Thivant & Bouzidi, 2004 & 2006). Continuing our focus on the finance sector, we also conducted research on the concept of information sources for financial professionals using a psycho-social approach (Thivant & Bouzidi, 2008). We have continued using the SICIA method and psycho-social approaches to investigate educational sectors, e.g., focusing on the ISU behavior of PhD students in Management Science (Thivant & Bouzidi, 2010), and focusing on the competitive intelligence sector (Frion & Thivant, 2014). Our colleagues also use these approaches to investigate ISU behavior the field of collective intelligence (Boulesnane & Bouzidi, 2013a, 2013b; Comtet, 2013). Our second research domain concerns the concept of information space, mobility and ISU behavior. This second series of studies focuses on the hotel industry. This work was launched in a Portuguese-French collaborative research project. Using the socio-cognitive approach (i.e., activity theory), we conducted qualitative interviews with hotel representatives and sent a questionnaire to hotel managers in order to know if they use and how they use information and communication technology (ICT) in their hotels, and how they represent themselves in the information space of their hotels. The definition of information space used in this study is: the part of the information system that the searcher has navigated, as well as the information space anticipated by the searcher. (Pharo, 2004) This research helps us to demonstrate that hotel managers have extended their information space with new ICT technologies and develop new ISU behavior in their everyday activities. (Boulesnane et al., 2009) After this initial study, we developed a new series of studies in this sector, concentrating more on information access problem. In these studies we focus on hotel websites with Web 2.0 in the Rhône-Alps region (Boulesnane et al., 2015). Our third research domain concerns information access in small to medium business enterprises (SMEs) in different sectors (production, services). We have participated in several 96 Journal of Library and Information Science 42(1):95 99(April, 2016)

3 different research projects, including the Discotec ANR Project (Moriset, 2010). We would like to better know the managers information environment and identify information access barriers. Specifically we would like to understand the use of heterogeneous information systems by these managers in the decision-making context (Boulesnane & Bouzidi, 2013c). We compared the ICT uses in SMES and more precisely the differences in practice between national and international enterprises (Collin, Moriset & Thivant, 2011, 2012). We conducted a case study (Lelorieux & Thivant, 2013) in order to understand how SMEs use their territorial environment in order to better seek and use information. We have also used different qualitative and quantitative approaches in order to know the information barriers of SMEs (Thivant, Moriset & Collin, 2013). With this research area, we hope to have a better view of digital workplaces in enterprises. References Borlund, P., Mandl, T., Womser-Hacker, C. (2013). The second workshop of the European Network for Work Information (ENWI). SIGIR Forum, Advance online publication. doi: / Boulesnane, S., Bouzidi, L., Zaidi-Chtourou, S., Durand, A., & Thivant, E. (2009). Étude exploratoire sur les systèmes d'information communicants et mobiles dans le secteur de l'hôtellerie: Évolution de l'espace informationnel des acteurs professionnels. Revue Électronique Suisse de Science de l'information-ressi, 10, 1-8. Retrieved from Boulesnane, S., & Bouzidi, L. (2013c). The mediating role of information technology in the decision-making context. Journal of Enterprise Information Management, Advance online publication. doi: /JEIM Boulesnane S., Bouzidi, L., Zaidi-Chtourou, S., & Thivant E. (2015). Quelle stratégie adopter dans un contexte de distribution multicanal? Application aux PME de l hôtellerie, Revue Management des Technologies Organisationnelles, 05, Boulesnane, S., & Bouzidi, L., (2013). A case study analysis in the context of information technology: Toward a collective intelligence approach, International Journal of Technology Management & Sustainable Development, 12(2), doi: Boulesnane, S., & Bouzidi, L. (2013b). The mediating role of information technology in the decision-making context, Journal of Enterprise Information Management, 26(4), doi: JEIM Byström, K. (2007). Approaches to «task» in contemporary information studies. Information Research, 12(4). Retrieved from Byström, K. (2005). Information activities in work tasks. In K. Fisher, S. Erdelez & L. McKechnie (Eds.), Theories of information behavior (pp ). Medford, N J: ASIST. Callon, M. (2006). Sociologie de l'acteur réseau. In M. Akrich, M. Callon & B. Latour (Eds.), Sociologie De La Traduction, Textes Fondateurs, (pp ). Paris: Les presses Ecoles des Mines de Paris. 圖書館學與資訊科學 42(1):95 99( 民一 五年四月 ) 97

4 Choo, C. W. (2016). The inquiring organization: How organizations acquire knowledge and seek information, Oxford University Press. Collin, P.-M., Moriset, B., & Thivant, E. (2012, June). Les usages en matière de Technologies de l Information et de la Communication des petites et moyennes industries françaises & leur développement à l international, Trends in International Business: 3e colloque franco-tchèque (pp ). Lyon: Service Edition de l'université Jean Moulin Lyon 3. Collin, P.-M., Thivant, E., Moriset, B., & Brette, O., (2011, June). Spécificité des PME de services supérieurs français à l'international: le rôle des technologies de l'information et de la communication, Trends in International Business: 2e Colloque Franco-tchèque, (pp ). Prague: Université d'economie de Prague. Comtet, I. (2012). Les environnements collaboratifs de travail au service de l intelligence collective économique? Communication & Organisation, (42), Dervin, B. (1999). On studying information seeking methodologically: The implications of connecting metatheory to method, Information Processing and Management, 35(6), doi: doi: / S (99) Dervin, B. (2003a). A sense-making methodology primer: What is methodological about sense-making, Meeting of the International Communication Association, San Diego, CA. Dervin, B. (2003b). Human studies and user studies: A call for methodological inter-disciplinarity. Information Research, 9(1), Retrieved from Frion, P., & Thivant, E. (2014, Sep). Information seeking and use behaviour, Information Overload: Analysis of the Intelligence Competitive Discourse. 10th ISIC (Information Seeking in Context). Leeds. Germain, M., & Malaison, C. (2004). L intranet dans tous ses états, une approche interculturelle de ses multiples dimensions. Montréal: I. Quentin. Jodelet, D. (2003), Les représentations sociales, 7e éd., Paris, Presses Universitaires de France, Sociologie d'aujourd'hui. Latour, B., (2005). Reassembling the social: an introduction to actor-network-theory. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Maurel, D. (2010), Sense-making: A model of reality enactment and an approach to information for individuals and groups, Études de communication, 35, Moriset, B., (2010), Présentation d un projet de recherche ANR ( ): DISCOTEC, Netcom, 24(1), Pharo, N., (2004). A new model of information behaviour based on the Search Situation Transition schema. Information Research, 10(1), Retrieved from Thivant, E., (2003). Information Seeking and Use Behaviour for financial product design. The New Review of Information Behaviour Research. Studies of information seeking in context, 4(1), doi: / Thivant, E., (2005). Information seeking and use behaviour of economists and analysts. Information Research. 10(4), Retrieved from Thivant, E., & Bouzidi, L., (2005). Les pratiques d accès à l information professionnelle : le cas des concepteurs de produits de placements financiers. Revue RESSI, 9. Retrieved from num02/article_ Journal of Library and Information Science 42(1):95 99(April, 2016)

5 Thivant, E., & Bouzidi, L. (2006). Tridimensional audiovisual information system analysis used in humanities and social sciences. Colloque SIAV. Fribourg, Switzerland. 21 sept. Thivant E., & Bouzidi L., (2008). Analysis of information sources representation for financial product design: New perspectives for information seeking and use behaviour. Information Research. 13(4). Retrieved from Thivant E., & Bouzidi L., (2010, Sep). New perspectives for Information Seeking and Use Behavior with Actor-Network Theory. 8th ISIC (Information Seeking in Context) International Conference. Murcia, Spain. Thivant, E., & Lelorieux, O. (2013). Mise en place de nouveaux Systèmes d Information par les PME de la Région Rhône-Alpes avec l approche de l acteur-réseau, 18ème Colloque de l AIM, Lyon, France. Thivant E., Moriset B., & Collin P.-M., (2013), Les TIC comme moteur de développement des territoires ruraux: le cas des PME Industrielles, Les Cahiers de la SFSIC, 8, Widén, G., Steinerová, J. and Voisey, P. (2014). Conceptual modelling of workplace information practices: a literature review. In Proceedings of ISIC, the Information Behaviour Conference, Leeds, 2-5 September, 2014: Part 1, Retrieved from Wilson, Tom D., (2006). A re-examination of information seeking behaviour in the context of activity theory. Information Research, 11(4). Retrieved from 圖書館學與資訊科學 42(1):95 99( 民一 五年四月 ) 99