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Following the assumption that studies of information inequality need to be based on precise discrimination between society’s information rich and poor and against the context that a mechanism for such discrimination is still lacking, the purpose of this paper is to explore the possibility of establishing a holistic informational measurement.

It does so by developing a measurement based on the conceptualization of the individual as an information agent and his/her information world as his/her characterization. The development procedure consists of four steps: operationalization of the theoretical constructs and the initial drafting of the questionnaire instrument; revisions of the questionnaire based on pilot tests with small groups of people; weighing of the questionnaire items for the purpose of calculating index-type variable scores; formal test of validity and reliability.

The resulting measurement consists of eight variables corresponding to eight theoretical constructs of an individual’s information world, each being measured by a group of questionnaire-based items which, in turn, generate an index-type score as the variable’s value. Validity and reliability tests show that the measurement is, on the whole, able to distinguish the information poor from the information rich and to measure individuals consistently.

The study demonstrates that it is possible to distinguish the information rich and poor by informational measurement in the same way as to distinguish economic groups by income, ethnic groups by race and intelligence groups by IQ; and that such a measurement has arguably multifaceted value for information inequality research.

Rich, interactive media are becoming extremely common in internet recruitment systems. The paper investigates the role of media richness in applicants’ ability to learn information relevant to making an application decision. The authors examine these relationships in the context of two competing theories, namely media richness theory and cognitive load theory, which predict opposite relationships with information acquisition. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Participants (n=471) either viewed a traditional web site or visited an interactive virtual world that contained information about an organization's culture, benefits, location, and job openings. Culture information was manipulated to either portray a highly teams-oriented culture or a highly individual-oriented culture.

Participants who viewed the low-richness site recalled more factual information about the organization; this effect was mediated by subjective mental workload. Richness was not related to differences in culture-related information acquisition.

These findings suggest that richer media (such as interactive virtual environments) may not be as effective as less rich media in conveying information. Specifically, the interactive elements may detract focus away from the information an organization wishes to portray. This may lead to wasted time on the part of applicants and organizations in the form of under- or over-qualified applications or a failure to follow instructions.

This study is among the first to use a cognitive load theory framework to suggest that richer media may not always achieve their desired effect.

The purpose of this paper, building on the media richness theory (MRT), is to propose that while communicating product information via streaming video should enhance outcome measures, such an enhancement will be evident mainly for users with equivocal, latent goals (i.e. recreational browsing) rather than for those with less equivocal, concrete goals (i.e. the search of a specific product).

The experiment involved 337 potential online consumers in Canada, and had full factorial design with four conditions (two methods to communicate product information: textual vs streaming video, and two goals: product searching vs recreational browsing). Analysis of covariance was used to test the hypotheses.

The results lent support to the hypotheses. The perceived information quality, trusting competence, and arousal for participants with recreational browsing goals were significantly affected when product information where communicated using streaming video. For participants with concrete goals (product searchers), the traditional textual method was as effective as the streaming video method.

The findings entice practitioners to use rich media such as the streaming video method to communicate online information predominantly for users with experiential browsing goals, and to use lean media for users with less equivocal, concrete goals.

The results contribute to the sparse literature that underscores the key role of user goal in shaping the effectiveness of online information. The results provide empirical support to the prediction of MRT that the use of rich media to communicate information is advantageous for users with latent, equivocal goals.

Internet2 research will lead to new technologies that will launch the Internet into another wave of unprecedented growth with enhanced interactivity and greater amounts of information delivered via richer communication. As a result, Web‐based retailers must begin to rethink the design of their sites, the amount of information to provide, and the degree of media richness to deliver. Based on a large sample of managers, this study examines media richness theory in the context of simple and complex products. The findings suggest that, overall, Internet users have more positive attitudes and higher levels of satisfaction with regard to rich sites than to lean sites, although the results for simple product sites were inconclusive. The study discusses the impact of the results for both simple and complex products and details the development of a new experimental instrument to measure user attitudes and satisfaction.

This paper aims to examine the effects of providing more information (e.g. product and price) and enhancing the interactivity of a website on consumers' willingness to pay price premiums.

An experiment tests the proposed framework and corresponding hypotheses. The test features eight versions of an experimental website, with varying combinations of online information (e.g. price information, product information, and interactivity).

Providing more information, whether about the product or price, leads to increased trust among consumers, which has the capacity to reduce consumer price consciousness and thereby enhance price premiums. E-tailers can earn price premiums by enhancing the interactivity on their websites.

Previous studies are ambivalent about the impacts of providing information online. This study examines two paths by which information provision influences price premiums: trusting beliefs and price consciousness. The results demonstrate that providing rich information, together with enhanced interactivity, increases the perceived trustworthiness of the e-tailer, which reduces consumers' price consciousness and increases the price premiums.

Addresses the issues of charging for interlibrary loans with particular reference to the experience at the University of Wittwatersrand, South Africa. Considers definitions of the information poor and the information rich and the cost of equal access to information. Proposes a method of charging the ′rich′ in order to offer free services to the ′poor′.

The potential for e-commerce is limited by a trust deficit when traders do not interact in a physical, bricks-and-mortar context. The theory of information richness posits that equivocal interactions, such as ones requiring trust, can be facilitated through communication media that transmit multiple cues interactively. This study aims to examine the potential of information-rich virtual worlds to reduce this trust deficit compared with more traditional Web-based e-tailing environments.

Rather than focusing on stated intentions, the authors adopt an experimental approach to measure behaviour. Participants receive performance-related financial incentives to perform trust games in different information-rich treatments that represent three retail environments: a physical environment representing bricks-and-mortar trade, an electronic environment representing Web-based online retailing and a virtual environment representing virtual world retail.

The authors find that the two dimensions of trust significantly differ between the treatments. In particular, as hypothesised, both trustingness and trustworthiness are higher in the virtual than in the electronic environment. However, contrary to the hypotheses, physical trade is not associated with greater trust than virtual trade.

The authors extend previous research by demonstrating how the information richness of the virtual world interface can promote e-commerce by deepening trust between trading partners. This research also complements existing work that approaches product and service interfaces through the lens of servicescapes.

The findings also contribute towards the development of services marketing practice and the design of e-commerce environments.

Much of the work in this space considers purchase intentions and attitudes around trust, whereas this study looks at actual trust behaviour in the virtual space.

Information plays a crucial role in planning and decision making in organisations. Information‐rich managers build up information networks actively and demonstrate an open‐minded willingness to expose themselves to, and trade, information with others. They harness ideas and knowledge to policy and are characterised as being those decision makers most implicated with framing policy. Theirs is information which goes beyond subject domain boundaries. They show awareness of semantic and psycho‐social barriers in information acquisition and handling, and are motivated to adopt the utility‐benefit approach to information in their company.

Capture, consumption and use of person-centred information presents challenges for hospitals when operating within the scope of limited resources and the push for organisational routines and efficiencies. This paper explores these challenges for patients with Acute Coronary Syndrome (ACS) and the examination of information that supports successful hospital discharge. It aims to determine how the likelihood of readmission may be prevented through the capturing of rich, person-specific information during in-patient care to improve the process for discharge to home.

The authors combine four research data collection and analysis techniques: one, an analysis of the patient record; two, semi-structured longitudinal interviews; three, an analysis of the patient's journey using process mining to provide analytics about the discharge process, and four, a focus group with nurses to validate and confirm our findings.

The authors’ contribution is to show that information systems which support discharge need to consider models focused on individual patient stressors. The authors find that current discharge information capture does not provide the required person-centred information to support a successful discharge. Data indicate that rich, detailed information about the person acquired through additional nursing assessments are required to complement data provided about the patient's journey in order to support the patients’ post-discharge recovery at home.

Prior research has focused on information collection constrained by pre-determined limitations and barriers of system design. This work has not considered the information provided by multiple sources during the whole patient journey as a mechanism to reshape the discharge process to become more person-centred. Using a novel combination of research techniques and theory, the authors have shown that patient information collected through multiple channels across the patient care journey may significantly extend the quality of patient care beyond hospital discharge. Although not assessed in this study, rich, person-centred discharge information may also decrease the likelihood of patient readmission.

Web‐based document management applications serve to store, organize, and manage a collection of documents within the context of a building project. The organization of documents, using mechanisms for indexing and relating these, aims to build an information structure that supports effective searching and browsing. We present a methodology for a stronger integration of project documents of different formats into a rich, highly interrelated, information structure. Specifically, we propose a decomposition of project documents by content in relation to a semantic structure for the categorization of document components. We consider a notion of typologies from architecture as a guide for constructing such a semantic structure. We discuss the application of this methodology to building projects, and propose its use in Web‐based document management applications in the AEC industry. As an illustration of this methodology, we describe a prototype application, as a presentation tool for architectural analyses in an educational context.