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This paper aims to investigate the impacts of rumors' information characteristics on people's believing and spreading of rumors online.

This study employed a mixed-methods approach by combining qualitative and quantitative methods. In study 1, the authors explored different types of rumors and their information source characteristics through qualitative research. In study 2, the authors utilized the findings from study 1 to develop an empirical model to verify the impact of these characteristics on the public's behaviors of believing and spreading rumors by content analysis and quantitative research.

The results show that five information source characteristics – credibility, professionalism, attractiveness, mystery and concreteness – influence the spreading effect of different types of rumors.

This study contributes to rumor spreading research by deepening the theory of information source characteristics and adding to the emerging literature on the COVID-19 pandemic.

Insights from this research offer important practical implications for policymakers and online-platform operators by highlighting how to suppress the spread of rumors, particularly those associated with COVID-19.

This research introduces the theory of information source characteristics into the field of rumor spreading and adopts a mixed-methods approach, taking COVID-19 rumors as a typical case, which provides a unique perspective for a deeper understanding of rumor spreading's antecedences.

This systematic literature review aims to elaborate on the research progress and features of information source preferences to help other researchers attain a more comprehensive understanding of the field.

Following a systematic review protocol, 139 research articles from 11 academic databases were analyzed.

Overall, five separate results were obtained: first, information source horizon theory is the main theoretical foundation of information source preferences research, while other theories have been applied less. Second, information source preference research has strong context sensitivity and involves health, work, consumption, learning, survival and development and emergencies. Third, preference criteria can be summarized into three categories: information characteristics, user characteristics, needs characteristics and corresponding specific criteria. Fourth, information source preferences are influenced by both internal and external factors, including five specific aspects, namely demographics, the user's cognition, the user's affection, capital and contextual factors. Fifth, this field is dominated by quantitative methods and an information horizon mapping method could be applied more.

This study is the first to reveal the general picture of information source preferences. It also elaborates on the characteristics of this field and presents potential development directions.

The purpose of this paper is to assess the influence mechanism of the word-of-mouth reputation of influencers.

This study explored word-of-mouth reputation from four characteristics of information source of influencers: credibility, professionalism, interactivity and attractiveness. The grounded theory was used to extract the characteristic indicators of influencers and used questionnaire surveys to obtain 218 valid samples. The fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) was used for the configuration analysis.

The results revealed the following: (1) a causal asymmetric correlation exists between the driving mechanism of high word-of-mouth reputation and non-high word-of-mouth reputation; (2) influencers matching high word-of-mouth reputation comprises potential, developmental and almighty types, whereas live streaming influencer matching non-high word-of-mouth reputation comprises elementary and groping types; and (3) all factors must be combined to play a role, and neutral permutations of two solutions were found among the three overall solutions to attain high word-of-mouth reputation; (4) the combination of high user activity and high exposure is the core configuration that results in high word-of-mouth reputation.

This study provides recommendation for consumers, live streamers, brand and e-commerce platform on how to promote the sustainable and healthy development of influencer marketing.

This study focused on elucidating how the characteristics of information source affect the word-of-mouth reputation of influencers and have a reference value for the research on word-of-mouth reputation in the context of live commerce.

To identify women's sources of information about cervical cancer screening, information which women report receiving during Pap consultations, information they would like to receive, and the relationships between perceived information needs, personal characteristics and information sources.

Logistic regression analysis of questionnaire data obtained from 408 screen‐eligible women resident in east central UK.

Programme documentation and the Pap consultation represent the main sources of information, although a sizeable proportion rely on other sources (e.g. mass media). The range and frequency of information services which women report receiving during their Pap consultations are variable, and around one‐sixth of women report never receiving information. “Always wanting information” is predictable from subject characteristics, which do not map precisely, owing to the variation in frequency of information being supplied. Age and women's main sources of information are significant predictors of perceived information shortfall, and such shortfalls are associated with dissatisfaction with the screening programme.

Covers all aspects of women's attitudes towards satisfactory or unsatisfactory availability of external information in the matter of screening for cervical cancer in the UK.

This paper addresses, from a knowledge management perspective, the following question: How are companies choosing the information that is considered more important for the management of the manufacturing process? We analyze empirically, from a strategic approach, how different types and sources of information may influence information characteristics like accuracy, access, and timing. In addition, we also evaluate how information is related to manufacturing competencies and performance. The results indicate that customer‐focused information and information technologies (IT) are the most important aspects that influence information characteristics.

The purpose of this research is to understand the differences in information tasks as well as the pattern and use characteristics of information sources by postgraduate students in arts and engineering faculties in Nigeria's premier university, the University of Ibadan.

Data were collected from samples of 153 and 162 postgraduate students from engineering and arts/humanities respectively using a questionnaire. Data were collected on the tasks – popular, occupational and scholarly tasks – for which the students used identified sources.

Altogether popular tasks or everyday common activities dominate the information needs of the students, although more arts students required such information than engineering students. Arts and engineering students consulted interpersonal sources but arts students consulted the library in addition more than engineering students.

The research focused only on one institution, thus limiting the applications of the results to other institutions.

Discussion forums and similar opportunities for interpersonal interaction are useful for both faculties, but arts students should have forums in the learning environment to enable them to interact with their colleagues and experts.

There is no study in Nigeria focusing on the benefits of discriminating information services to students according to their disciplines.

Despite the growing awareness of links between meat consumption and human, animal and environmental health, consumption rates of protein rich plant-based foods (PBFs) in Canada remain relatively low. The purpose of this paper is to better understand how information sources and trust relate to PBFs in Canadians’ diets, and how these variables may factor into closing the commercialization gap for PBFs in Canada.

A geographically representative sample of Canadians (n=410) participated in a 20-minute, online survey. The survey consists of 24 questions covering demographic characteristics, motivations behind current and future food choices, frequency of current PBF consumption, sources of information about PBFs and trust levels of these sources.

Most Canadians get information about PBFs from labels, the internet and family and friends, but only half trust these sources to provide accurate information. Sources of information (e.g. licensed health care professionals) that rank high in trust are only consulted by a minority of respondents. Several information sources (e.g. family and friends) are associated with consumers’ willingness to try new PBFs, whereas other sources (e.g. labels) are associated with Canadians being unlikely to try new PBFs.

Understanding the patterns of where Canadians access information about PBFs and what sources of information are trusted can help to strategically place information about PBF qualities among select information sources and to remove some of the information barriers contributing to the PBF commercialization gap.

This study aims to analyse the environmental scanning and information sources used by Jordanian firms. Furthermore, the relationship between environmental scanning and organisational characteristics (firm size and industry type), as well as organisational performance, is explored.

The empirical research was coordinated via a survey of 190 Jordanian publicly quoted firms. The results of the survey provided a rich source of data in relation to a variety of practices associated with environmental scanning in these firms.

The findings of this study show that scanning focus was higher for the general environmental sectors than the task environmental sectors. The results also demonstrate that these firms rely more on internal sources of information. Larger firms have more scanning activities, while smaller firms tend to focus on different sources of information. Additionally, some differences in the industry sector in terms of scanning behaviour were identified. This study also supports the literature regarding the positive relationship between environment scanning and organisational performance by providing new empirical evidence from the context of Middle East countries.

This paper provides empirical evidence on the nature and the practice of environmental scanning and its value for organisational performance in business firms in a Middle East context. From a theoretical perspective, this study engages in the “convergence versus divergence” debate regarding managers’ scanning behaviour around the world.

Selective dissemination of information (SDI) is an information alerting service designed to keep individuals informed of new developments in their particular fields of interest. This investigation evaluated the use of SDI by basic research scientists working in a corporate environment. The following conceptual areas were considered in developing the best model of SDI use and productivity: 1, background of the individual; 2, work environment; 3, need to keep abreast of new research developments; 4, use of information sources; and 5, product‐ivity or number of papers published. One hundred and fifty‐six scientists met the entrance criteria and were analysed using both descriptive and inferential statistics. Multivariate models revealed several interesting patterns. Frequency of SDI use was found to be related to the work environment, need to keep abreast of new research developments, and use of primary and secondary information sources, including patents. Productivity was found to be related to background characteristics of the scientist, the work environment, need to keep abreast of new research developments and the use of a variety of information sources. Based on these research findings, scientists who use SDI on a regular basis appear to be more productive than their colleagues who are infrequent users, or who do not subscribe to the service.

Generating an in-depth understanding of information needs and seeking behaviour is important both for restructuring existing agricultural information systems (ISs) and for creating new ISs. Many information seeking models have been developed over the years, most are narrowly focused on a specific role or discipline. However, no such specific model has been developed in reference to agriculture or an allied discipline. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to develop a model to explore the information seeking behaviour (ISB) of farmers.

The model proposed in this paper is based on Wilson’s model. The theoretical insights and empirical evidences comprehended at the study were embedded into Wilson’s model to develop a model that explores the ISB of farmers. The proposed model was quantitatively evaluated using empirical data gathered through a survey of 289 farmers. Furthermore, the model was qualitatively evaluated by subject experts against criteria of simplicity, comprehensiveness, exactness, generality and clarity.

The key finding of this study is the model developed to explore the ISB of farmers. The adapted model provides theoretical and empirical bases for exploring farmers’ ISBs. Thus, the model will be useful in developing valuable design insights to apply to user-centred agricultural ISs.

The originality of this study relates to its demonstration of how existing models can be reconsidered and adapted based on related literature and then tested and presented as adapted models. The proposed model will be useful to promote informational studies in agriculture.