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How insights from the field of information behavior can enrich understanding of knowledge mobilization

Davide Nicolini (IKON, Warwick Business School, University of Warwick, Coventry, UK) (Department of Strategy and Entrepreneurship, BI Norwegian Business School, Oslo, Norway)
Maja Korica (Warwick Business School, University of Warwick, Coventry, UK)
Ila Bharatan (IKON, Warwick Business School, University of Warwick, Coventry, UK) (Organisation and Management Group, University of Liverpool Management School, Liverpool, UK)

Journal of Health Organization and Management

ISSN: 1477-7266

Article publication date: 23 January 2023

Issue publication date: 18 April 2023

290

Abstract

Purpose

The authors review the literature on information behavior, an autonomous body of work developed mainly in library studies and compare it with work on knowledge mobilization. The aim is to explore how information behavior can contribute to understanding knowledge mobilization in healthcare management.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors conducted a narrative review using an exploratory, nonkeyword “double-sided systematic snowball” method. This is especially useful in the situation when the two traditions targeted are broad and relies on distinct vocabulary.

Findings

The authors find that the two bodies of work have followed similar trajectories and arrived at similar conclusions, with a linear view supplemented first by a social approach and then by a sensitivity to practice. Lessons from the field of information behavior can be used to avoid duplication of effort, repeating the same errors and reinventing the wheel among knowledge translation scholars. This includes, for example, focusing on sources of information or ignoring the mundane activities in which managers and policymakers are involved.

Originality/value

The study is the first known attempt to build bridges between the field of information behavior and the study of knowledge mobilization. The study, moreover, foregrounds the need to address knowledge mobilization in context-sensitive and social rather than technical terms, focusing on the mundane work performed by a variety of human and nonhuman agents.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

Funding: This research was partially funded by the UK National Institute for Health Research as part of the Health Services and Delivery Research Programme (HS&DR Project 09/1002/36).

Citation

Nicolini, D., Korica, M. and Bharatan, I. (2023), "How insights from the field of information behavior can enrich understanding of knowledge mobilization", Journal of Health Organization and Management, Vol. 37 No. 2, pp. 194-212. https://doi.org/10.1108/JHOM-03-2022-0092

Publisher

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Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2023, Emerald Publishing Limited

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