Management of information‐credibility risk in an ICT society: A social implementation

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to propose a new direction for managing information‐credibility risk in the current information and communications technology (ICT) era, where ICT has had both positive and negative effects on contemporary society.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper takes a practical and inductive approach to study the Kyoto avian influenza panic and countermeasures taken in 2004.

Findings

The paper identifies factors which led to enormous damage through harmful rumors and proposes new perspectives for devising countermeasures, such as increasing consumer confidence in an agency as a source of information and effective management of knowledge transfer from experts to non‐experts.

Practical implications

The study gains a better understanding of both technological and social factors that enable or detract from effective nationwide management of information‐credibility risk. Many related ICT projects have been based on either human resource systems or advanced technology. It considers the integration of both factors from three perspectives.

Originality/value

This is a new perspective for examining the transfer of knowledge from experts to consumers in terms of practical solutions, in contrast to the many existing knowledge‐related articles that have mainly focused on knowledge management among experts.

Citation

Hirose, Y. and Sonehara, N. (2008), "Management of information‐credibility risk in an ICT society: A social implementation", Internet Research, Vol. 18 No. 2, pp. 142-154. https://doi.org/10.1108/10662240810862202