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“Oral documents in concept and in situ, part I” aims to conceptualize and provide a means to empirically observe an oral document. Part II aims to report the results of continued analysis of the oral data gathered to increase understanding of one type of document, i.e. a managerial decree, which is also conceptualized and empirically observed. Additionally, the results further validate the oral document concept.

This study analyzes oral data by: exploring how they adhere to the articulation of the concept of an oral document; and reporting on an investigation that operationalizes the properties of documents to facilitate empirically observing managerial decrees.

The results reveal one type of oral document, i.e. a managerial decree, being used in practice. This outcome further validates and further clarifies the concept of an oral document. Additionally, three new properties of documentary practice are identified.

The method utilized limits the research results to identifying one type of oral document identified within a small sample of face‐to‐face oral data gathered from a single kind of context.

The identification of three additional properties of documentary practices contributes additional ways to identify documents. The method used to identify properties and documents may be repeated in similar research. The reification of the new type of oral document managerial decree allows for orality in organizational contexts to be discussed and trained on, with goals of increased management and staff understanding of and success in their oral communications.

This paper conceptualizes a new type of oral document (managerial decree). This paper also incorporates recommendations for future research.

Although research indicates the importance of oral information, our understanding of it remains limited. This paper accordingly aims to suggest that some utterances are oral documents and explore how to identify them.

This study analyzes certain oral artifacts through: exploring how research in social constructionism, information behavior, document studies and allied literatures facilitate the articulation of the concept of an oral document; and reporting on an investigation that operationalizes the properties of documents to facilitate empirically observing an oral document.

The results reveal an oral document observed in situ, which further validates the concept. Additionally, the results indicate that the method used, however systematic, prevents a full understanding of data gathered and that subsequent study of that data would generate further understanding of the oral document concept (presented in Part II).

The method utilized limits the research results to identifying a single oral document identified within a small sample of face‐to‐face oral data.

The reification of oral documents broadens the scope of information science and implies a need to understand them better, in order for practitioners to carry out their professional responsibilities to collect, describe, organize and preserve them.

This paper conceptualizes a major new object of study for the field – an oral document. This paper also presents recommendations for research that expands on the method used herein, and suggestions for continued analysis. Some of these techniques will likely also prove valuable in analyzing some informal online communication, which shares some characteristics with oral documents.

The purpose of this paper is to explore a new research area: orally‐based information.

The study utilizes a social constructionist approach. The social constructionist meta‐theory, which holds that contributions to knowledge can be made orally, frames it.

The paper explicates how orality, or word‐of‐mouth transactions, conveys information; describes approaches for investigating orally‐based information; and articulates the need for future information behavior investigations that focus on orality.

The research exploration focuses on face‐to‐face oral data. It calls for increased attention to orally‐based information, and offers tentative suggestions for accomplishing this goal.

The results provide insight that assist in understanding how orally‐based information intersects with information behavior, knowledge management, information policy, cultural heritage, and professional development that involves orality.

The paper builds a theoretical foundation for increased understanding of the meaning and functions of orally‐based information.

Americans increasingly feel a sense of wonder at the universe; meditation and yoga are on the rise; and a field known as Contemplative Studies has emerged. These indicators, among others, suggest a groundswell of interest in contemplative practice and contemplative experience and raise intriguing questions for information and Information Studies. Against this backdrop, this paper asks: How might Information Studies contribute to these developments? What is the relationship between information and contemplation? What can be explored on this research frontier?

This conceptual paper is based upon a synthesis of recent writings from the field of Contemplative Studies as well as conceptual analysis of selected papers and themes in Information Studies. It draws from discussion that occurred at a Session for Interaction and Engagement at the 2018 iConference, entitled “Contemplating Information in the Pleasurable and the Profound” (Latham et al., 2018). The authors' creative thinking and personal contemplative practices also infuse and fortify the work.

Popular and academic contemplative movements are afoot, and Information Studies has an opportunity to participate or be left behind. The field of Contemplative Studies has established the foundational concepts that can serve as contextual material for information research into contemplation. Upon closer inspection, Information Studies has already broached the topic of contemplation at various points in its history, theory, institutional practices, and information behavior research. The conceptual points of departure for a research frontier are articulated.

Beyond data, information, and knowledge are deeper and more profound aims, such as wisdom, which is related to contemplation. This paper supplies a rationale, scholarly community, conceptual resources, historical precedents, and guiding questions for bridging information and contemplation.

The purpose of this paper is to begin a conversation about the term “nondocument.” It analyzes this term’s possible concepts, components and contexts.

This conceptual paper draws upon the work of documentation studies scholars, including Michael Buckland, Bernd Frohmann and Niels Windfeld Lund, to begin an exploration of the term “nondocument,” framed within the context of the 2013–2014 Israeli–Palestinian peace negotiations brokered by the USA. It is comprised of seven sections revolving around different questions regarding non-document.

The document at the center of the 2013–2014 Israeli–Palestinian peace negotiations aimed to establish a framework for an eventual final-status peace agreement. There was skepticism, however, about the document’s proposed reservations inscription permitting either party to express reservations with any part of the framework. It was claimed that this reservation inscription made the document self-negating and therefore a non-document. This document was arguably a hybrid entity: a document-non-document. It was a document in the context of the negotiations. It became a non-document in the context of the collapse of the negotiations.

The 2013–2014 peace negotiations between Israel and Palestine, brokered by the USA, revolved around a diplomatic document outlining provisions for a final peace settlement. The two parties were skeptical of a proposed provision permitting reservations to be expressed over other provisions within the document. An official involved in the negotiations stated that this provision made the document a non-document. But what exactly is meant by this term? This paper takes the opportunity to begin exploring such a notion. The aim, however, is not to definitively define non-document but instead to raise questions and provoke further discussions of this term.

The concept of non-document is underdeveloped. This paper presents questions and conceptual tools to help develop this term whilst providing possible points of departure for further examinations of how documents are or might be non-documents. These questions and tools also point in directions for various other approaches to phenomena that could be regarded as documents in some respects but not in others, or the ways in which something could is “almost” but “not quite” a document, or even help determine what is “not document.” Ultimately, this term could help expand other “conventional” approaches to documentation.

This study examined teachers’ cognitive development when interacting with video ethnography. It used grounded theory to discover embedded meanings and relationships that emerge from descriptive data collected from six teachers. Findings revealed (a) the categories of cognitive activities when using video ethnography, (b) the influence of experience and beliefs on these activities, (c) the scaffold that video ethnography provides, and (d) teachers’ progression in a cognitive development process through interaction with video ethnography. The study has implications in improving technology use in teacher development, production of multimedia cases, and research on case-based pedagogy and other related areas.

Scholars in information science have recently become interested in “information experience,” but it remains largely unclear why this research is important and how it fits within the broader disciplinary structure of information science. The purpose of this paper is to clarify this issue.

The discussion unfolds in the form of a philosophical dialogue between the Epistemologist, who represents the traditional and majority epistemological viewpoint of information science, and the Aestheticist, representing the emerging paradigm of experiential information inquiry.

A framework emerges that recognizes dual conceptualizations of truth (veritas and aletheia) and consequently information and knowledge (gnostic and pathic). The epistemic aim of understanding is revealed as the common ground between epistemology and aesthetics.

The value of studying human experiences of information is grounded in work spanning philosophy, psychology and a number of social science methodologies, and it is contextualized within information science generally. Moreover, the dialogic format of this paper presents an opportunity for disciplinary self-reflection and offers a touch of heart to the field.

Non-verbal communication (NVC) remains largely understudied despite its importance in today's fast-paced and cross-cultural management and research landscape. This article is significant because it reveals valuable insights into NVC, which represents 65–93% (Mehrabian, 1981) of communication and has the potential to considerably increase management effectiveness and efficiency by providing leaders and researchers with the knowledge they need to understand and handle diversity with competence.

This article draws on social identity theory (SIT) (Tajfel and Turner, 1979) and rapport management theory (RMT) (Brown and Levinson, 1987) to analyse illustrative interview extracts of co-occurring verbal and NVC from an interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) study focussed on understanding how London-based Romanian migrant entrepreneurs experience acculturation.

Romanian migrant entrepreneurs use a variety of verbal and non-verbal communication approaches in their acculturation narratives, providing depth and occasionally shifting meaning. These tactics include repeating verbal discourse with non-verbal clues, replacing verbal communication with non-verbal gestures, complementing verbal communication and juxtaposing non-verbal cues with verbal descriptions.

This study makes a valuable contribution to the fields of qualitative organisational management and entrepreneurial studies by addressing the lack of methodological tools available for analysing non-verbal language in interpretative research. This study presents a systematic technique for assessing non-verbal language symbols that has been developed through face-to-face interviews. The article utilises the first-hand interview experience of a Romanian co-researcher to demonstrate the significance of NVC in the transmission of meaning and the formation of identities amongst Romanian migrant entrepreneurs. These findings contribute to a better understanding of organisational management and research practices, particularly about this understudied entrepreneurial minority of Romanian businesses in London, by helping researchers and managers better grasp the cultural and contextual meanings communicated non-verbally. The article holds significance in the context of cross-cultural and organisational management practices.