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The Department of Information Science of the Heinrich-Heine-University in Düsseldorf is currently conducting a research project on Informational World Cities – the prototypical cities of the knowledge society, which have been growing in the twenty-first century. In total, 31 potential Informational World Cities were identified and a set of criteria was developed to evaluate the degree of informativeness of a city through coherent criteria. The purpose of this paper is to investigate London.

The investigation was based on the Grounded Theory, ethnographic field research, interviews, bibliometrics, patentometrics, official statistics and the analysis of web content. During the stay in London, eight semi-standardised interviews according to SERVQUAL were conducted.

The characteristics of an Informational World City are well-marked in most cases, especially London’s knowledge infrastructure. Furthermore London places value on smart innovations and tries to adapt public transport to the growing population. This includes, next to an enhancement of the train capacities, information and communication technology, since the digital infrastructure keeps gaining importance. The ethnic/cultural diversity as well as the international connectivity and the creative infrastructure are also distinguishing marks of London. Nevertheless, especially the digital and smart infrastructure require enhancement. London’s government is ambitioned, though, to make progress and pursues plans which are of benefit to the city’s informativeness.

This paper gives insight into the characteristics of the prototypical city of the upcoming knowledge society.

This paper follows an interdisciplinary approach and combines information science, urban studies and sociology to analyse cities of the knowledge society. Furthermore it is the first time that London is considered an Informational World City in an empirical study.

The purpose of this study is to investigate traditional freshmen value attitudes towards the secondary research process.

The study utilized a single‐question qualitative survey, which asked the open‐ended two‐part question: “Do you like research? Why or why not?” The survey was administered to first semester freshmen communication classes where the students were able to write freely about their feelings towards the research process. These results were then contextualized through the lens of Krathwohl, Bloom, and Masia's Affective Domain.

Based on a content analysis of the written responses, three groups, which comprised eight themes, emerged. A substantial contingent of students (33 percent) described their motivations for conducting research as solely extrinsic in nature and maintained adverse emotions and attitudes towards the process, while a smaller number of students (16 percent) were both intrinsically and extrinsically driven to participate in the research process and reported no negative emotions. The majority of participants (49 percent), however, resided on what could be considered an intellectual borderland where the value of secondary research was entirely dependent on the specific topic of study.

The study adds to the well‐established macro research thread examining the relationship between information literacy and the affective domain and the less‐established micro research thread describing student emotional predispositions towards the academic library. As a result of this study, librarians will be better able not only to understand the attitudes freshmen students “carry” with them regarding the value of secondary research but also to consciously incorporate affective components into their work in order to craft more impactful library sessions.

This study examines the relationship between employees' perceptions of informational fairness and project performance. Furthermore, it examines if this relationship is sequentially mediated by (1) knowledge sharing and role clarity and (2) communication openness and role clarity.

Data are collected from 302 full-time employees of seven project-based construction organizations in Pakistan. Data are analyzed through variance-based structural equation modeling technique and the Preacher and Hayes' bootstrapping procedure.

Results indicate that project employees' perceptions of informational fairness positively predict project performance. Moreover, this relationship is sequentially mediated by (1) communication openness and role clarity and (2) knowledge sharing and role clarity.

This study provides further insights on the informational fairness and project performance relationship by examining their underlying mechanisms. It draws on the much ignored context of Pakistan, and offers some implications for managers and researchers with regard to how behavioral factors may further enhance project performance.

The aim of this paper is to establish an original database from fieldwork on microfinance institutions in Cameroon.

The main method used for the research involved statistical analysis of an original survey data. The latter fieldwork analysis has enabled us to test the hypothesis of neoclassical and neo‐structuralist economists advocating a significant relationship between microfinance savings and liberalised real bank deposit interest rates.

The statistical analysis carried out indicated that microfinance savings are associated to variables other than the rate of interest. The failure of a liberalised interest rate policy to cause a significant portfolio shift from microfinance into the banking system does not support the interest responsiveness of savings as advocated by the McKinnon‐Shaw school. This paper supports, therefore, the neo‐structuralist analysis of financial development where microfinance institutions are an important structural feature of financial systems in many developing countries.

It would be interesting to extend statistical analysis undertaken in this paper to other African countries.

The main policy issue affecting microfinance from the empirical analysis is the need to mitigate the extremely high interest rates utilised by microfinance. Banks may be encouraged to undertake a series of measures such as guaranteeing of future loans to their customer by linking savings and loans to attract microfinance members.

The contribution of this paper, therefore, is to provide a unique opportunity to investigate the association between microfinance institution assets and real interest rates in an African country.

The increase in business process management projects in the past decade has seen an increase in demand for business process modelling (BPM) techniques. A rapidly growing aspect of BPM is the use of workflow management systems to automate routine and sequential processes. Workflows tend to move away from traditional definitions of business processes that can often be forced to fit a model that does not suit its nature. Existing process modelling tools tend to be biased to either the informational, behavioural or object‐oriented aspect of the workflow. Because of this, models can often miss important aspects of a workflow. As well as managing the relationship between the types of model it is important to consider who will be using it, as process models are useful in various ways. The paper aims to address these issues.

This paper reports on a case study in a manufacturing company, where users were surveyed to see which are the notations that are most common in modelling based on two main categories (i.e. behavioural and informational).

The research outcomes showed that there is no prevailing set of standards used for either of these categories, while most users feel the need to use more than one approach to model their system at any given time. Many companies face problems when trying to model the behaviour of human workers in the business processes. Existing techniques are mostly designed at modelling information systems or business processes, and rarely attempt to integrate the two.

This paper proposes the use of a new hybrid modelling methodology, which is an original idea, on existing tools and methodologies. Key authors in the literature recommend against the trend of developing a brand new methodology, so existing tools from each end of the scale were combined to provide a solution which is capable of modelling IS and BP.

This paper aims to investigate the role of informational and relational mechanisms on equity crowdfunding investors' conformity behaviors by focusing on a relational culture of China.

The data of 108 financing projects and 7,688 investment records from a union of Chinese equity crowdfunding platforms are gathered. Lead investors' response to a campaign and follow-investors’ former links explain investors' conformity by social network analysis (SNA) and ordinary least squares (OLS) analysis.

The results show that informational and relational influences drive conformity in Chinese equity crowdfunding. Moreover, the informational influence weakens in a highly centralized structure of linked investors.

The results add new knowledge to follow-investors’ conformity behaviors in equity crowdfunding and enrich the literature on conformity theory by finding the contextual effect of information-influenced conformity and the adaption of conformity theory to cultural uniqueness. Besides, this preliminary work also suggests opportunities for future research.

The paper inspires new consideration on a strategical use of follow-investors’ conformity mentality to promote successfully financing and reminds platform managers to be alert to the interference of small groups formed based on informal relationships to the normal financing order.

This is the first study that discovers the non-informational influence and the limited influence of information on equity crowdfunding conformity through contextual concerns.

The purpose of this paper is to focus on an information technology (IT) deployment project in the specific field of agricultural cooperatives. It also aims to underline the importance of the IT implementation phase, but also the pre-implementation phase.

A four-year canonical action research project was conducted within a network of more than 300 agricultural cooperatives. Research was carried out both during the IT implementation and after deployment. Key information was gathered through unstructured and unofficial interviews, observations, field notes, meetings, focus groups, and documentary analysis.

Despite user resistance behavior, the findings show that information systems (IS) implementation may lead to unexpected results that extend beyond the tool’s initial objectives. Indeed, four hidden facets of the tool were revealed: inductor, symbol, pretext, and reference.

Although the research is limited to one single-case study, it puts the emphasis on in-depth research, vs cross-sectional data collection, to analyze the relationship between IT implementation initiatives and organizational intelligence. Furthermore, the authors argue that while IS literature has separately developed related theories (actor-network theory, competitive intelligence), the authors conceptualize a whole theoretic system interrelating the two above-stated theories.

The implication for IS practitioners is that, by focusing only on experiences that have occurred during IT implementation, one may disregard critical information, behaviors and knowledge from unforeseen effects that have occurred after implementation. In future IT projects, IS managers therefore need to capitalize on post-implementation knowledge, through sociology of translation and competitive intelligence, in order to anticipate potential diversions from the initial objectives. Finally, while most IT implementation methods tend naturally to manage resistance maximize users’ satisfaction and to reduce potential resistance, the authors support an alternative approach. It consists into enhancing resistance in order to anticipate and resolve latent resistance behaviors directly or indirectly related to the project.

Despite widespread literature on resistance, appropriation or acceptance during IT projects, there is little research that addresses the impact of IT projects on organizational intelligence, and the kind of behaviors that lead to its failure or success. In the case, the implemented IT tool revealed hidden structural and organizational roles, which were unanticipated by IT designers and managers.

This paper aims to investigate the effect of team members' informational diversity (i.e. educational and functional dissimilarity) on team cooperation, focusing on the moderating role of long‐term time orientation. The authors theorize that teams' long‐term orientation moderates the diversity‐cooperation relationship through its effect on prosocial civic virtue behaviors.

A total of 56 teams of MBA students were surveyed and data were analyzed along with third‐party records of demographic data on educational and functional backgrounds.

Mediated moderation analyses indicated that for teams with high long‐term orientation, a negative relationship exists between informational diversity and civic virtue, while no significant relationship existed for teams with low long‐term orientation.

Future research should be conducted to address remaining concerns about the generalizability of the current findings and common method bias. Further research is also recommended to uncover the potential of cultural values like long‐term orientation to inhibit or facilitate diversity effects.

The current findings highlight the importance of considering the context and team member orientations toward time in particular as factors impacting how teams with informational diversity operate. Managers of teams consisting of members with high long‐term orientation are advised to take steps to minimize the risk experienced by team members when they engage in voice‐based behaviors.

This article highlights the role of team member orientation towards time as a boundary condition of the link between team diversity and cooperation. Voice‐based civic virtue behaviors are also identified as key antecedents to cooperative teams.

An emerging application of Big Data is the addition of sensors and other micro‐electronic devices to engineer‐to‐order (ETO) goods such as one‐of‐a‐kind buildings and ships. The addition of micro‐electronic devices can enable the setting up and operation of smart buildings and smart ships. The purpose of this paper is to provide a critical realist analysis of Big Data hype. This is necessary to determine what challenges will need to be met before project businesses can achieve informational effects and transformational effects from Big Data technologies.

A critical realist study informed by reference to predictive theory and findings from action research. The predictive theory is concerned with the three different types of business effects that can come from information and communication technologies (ICTs): automational, informational, and transformational.

Critical realist analysis reveals that hype about Big Data underplays many challenges in achieving informational and transformational effects.

Many inter‐related non‐trivial factors need to be taken into account when considering investing in Big Data initiatives. These factors range from the planning of data sampling rates, through the robust fixing of sensors, to the implementation of data mining algorithms and signal models.

The originality of this paper is that critical realism is used in analysis of Big Data hype. The value of this paper is that it reveals a causal mechanism and causal context for project business Big Data application. This type of critical realist analysis can be applied to enable better understanding of necessary causal mechanisms and causal contexts for other ICT innovations.

The liberal arts hobby is a leisure pursuit that entails the systematic and fervent pursuit of knowledge for its own sake. The purpose of this paper is to introduce the liberal arts hobby as a setting for information behavior research.

The method of interdisciplinary translation work is used to relate existing research from the specialties of leisure studies, adult education, and information behavior. Drawing from leisure studies, the liberal arts hobby is presented within the context of the serious leisure perspective, a theoretical framework of leisure. Also, relevant research.

The basic informational features of the liberal arts hobby and adult learning project are discussed in terms of three issues of current interest within information behavior scholarship. The issues are: first, social metatheory and the ideal level of analysis; second, time and information behavior; and third, information behavior in pleasurable and profound contexts.

Research into everyday life, serious leisure and hobbies is extended and methodological tools are provided.

Information professionals, such as public librarians or systems designers, will have a better understanding of the information experience of a popular hobby group and be better able to meet their information needs.

Awareness and understanding of the liberal arts hobby will be increased across the field of information science, thereby creating a better alignment between the field and society.

The paper is the first to establish an interdisciplinary starting point for information behavior research in the liberal arts hobby.