Search results

This paper aims to identify the most popular travel information sources used among tourists and investigates how travel information selection differs across travel experience and gender.

This study used convenient and quota sampling strategy, questionnaires were distributed to 270 respondents at Sultanahmet and Grand Bazaar areas. A screening question was used to classify respondents.

First, past travel experience, travel agent, travel websites and hotel websites are generally the most frequently used travel information sources in destination selection due to conveniences and reliability. Second, first-timers prefer to use external information sources such as Facebook, guidebooks, travel agents and newspapers to gather information about destinations, whereas repeat visitors prefer to use internal information sources such as friends’ suggestions and past travel experience. Lastly, female visitors rely more on internal information sources such as friends’ suggestions and past travel experience. However, males prefer to use external information sources like Facebook, television, blog, travel agents, newspaper and guidebooks in choosing Turkey as a destination.

Because factors studied, travel information sources selected, number of respondents and questionnaire distribution area are limited, future studies can expand to a bigger area so more respondents could get more reliable results.

This paper could help tourism industries understand searching behaviours among different types of tourists better to promote businesses in convenient sources and reach target customers easily.

This paper fulfils an identified need to study how travel information searching behaviours differ among tourists.

The purpose of this paper is to compare and contrast research on collaborative information seeking (CIS) and expertise seeking (EXS) to identify focal themes, blind spots, and possibilities for cross-fertilization.

Existing research was reviewed. The review consisted of a content analysis of 70 (CIS) and 72 (EXS) studies with respect to the context, scope, process, and setting of CIS and EXS, supplemented with a bibliometric analysis of the references in the reviewed studies.

In CIS, the context is a group of actors collaborating on a shared task. In EXS, the information need is held by an individual but resolved by consulting other people. While the typical scope of EXS studies is source selection, CIS studies mostly concern the consultation of the sources and the use of the obtained information. CIS and EXS studies also attend differentially to the information-seeking process. Only 4 percent of the references in the reviewed studies are cited in both CIS and EXS research. The author concludes that, at present, CIS and EXS are different discourses about similar issues.

Increased interaction between CIS and EXS will advance research in both areas and prevent duplication of effort. Topics for future research are identified. It should be noted that the findings are limited to the 142 studies reviewed.

By analyzing CIS in the context of EXS, and vice versa, this study provides a fresh look at the information-seeking research that attends to collaboration.

Argues that the growing availability of information, especially from electronic sources, offers both potential and problems for the researcher. Increasingly, information has become a commodity, commissioned for a specific purpose and shaped to fit the needs of the commissioner. It follows that user requirements will dictate not just the research remit (what information to collect) but also the selection criteria (why the information is needed). Establishing why information is needed is an integral step in deciding on the particular focus or slant that any search strategy, and subsequent information analysis, must take. A comprehensive, or indeed a balanced, collection of information may be neither necessary nor desirable. End users may only require information that will support their information need. Choice of information sources will also be governed by these information needs, and their selection is a vital factor in the provision of useful, relevant information and its successful communication to the end user.

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.

This study aims to explore the influence of topic familiarity on the four stages of college students' learning search process.

This study clarified the effects of topic familiarity on students' learning search process by conducting a simulation experiment based on query formulation, information item selection, information sources and learning output.

The results characterized users' interaction behaviors in increasing topic familiarity through their use of more task descriptions as queries, increased reformulation of queries, construction of more purposeful query formulation, reduced attention to a topic's basic concept content and increased exploration of academic platform contents.

This study proposed three innovative indicators which were proposed to evaluate the effects of topic familiarity on college students' learning search process, and the adopted metrics were useful for observing differences in college students' learning output as their topic familiarity increased. It contributes to the understanding of a user's search process and learning output to support the optimization function of learning-related information search systems and improve their effect on the user's search process for learning.

The purpose of this paper is to explore multiple factors affecting online library resource selection by undergraduate students. Three dimensions of factors are investigated including usefulness and ease-of-use, resource quality, and individual differences.

An instrument was developed to measure various aspect factors and online library resource use intention. A survey was administered to 332 undergraduate students. Quantitative analysis, including structural equation modeling, ANOVA, and t-tests, was used to statistically examine the effects of the identified 11 factors on the use intention of online library resources.

The findings indicated that both usefulness and ease-of-use positively influenced the undergraduates’ use intention of online library resources. Also, five resource quality constructs – accessibility, credibility, coverage, currency, and format – were the determinants of online library resources use intention. Interestingly, the effect of accessibility was the strongest, while that of credibility was the weakest. In addition, this study found that familiarity with sources and use of good search skills had a significant effect on users’ use intention at the individual user level.

This study is one of the few studies investigating multiple factors comprehensively that influence online library resource selection.

The fund selection process of investors in a mutual fund needs to be understood for designing better marketing strategies. Knowledge and perception about the mutual funds can affect investor’s behaviour towards information search and selection criteria during the decision process. Therefore, this study aims to examine Indian mutual fund investors under the framework of Theory of Planned Behaviour and consumer’s behaviour model.

The data have been collected from mutual fund investors in the National Capital Region–Delhi, India, through structured questionnaire. The collected data were examined with relevant statistical tools.

Knowledge and perception affect information search behaviour of the investor. Investors having better knowledge of mutual funds access impersonal sources of information and performance of fund affects their choice, whereas investors having lesser knowledge of mutual fund take advice of experts and select funds based on fund characteristics. Investors with better return perception for mutual funds ignore performance as selection criteria, whereas investors having poor risk perception tend to reduce their bias by accessing personal sources of information. Education and income of investor affect knowledge and perception of mutual funds.

The financial advisor-driven investors ignore performance as selection criteria and could lead to dissatisfaction later. Therefore, to make the industry investor driven, mutual funds need to focus on improving the knowledge of investors.

This paper shows the unique effect of knowledge and perception on information search behaviour of investors towards mutual funds. The knowledgeable investor selects mutual funds by understanding all risks and benefits.

Building on consumer purchase behavior and self‐confidence theories combined with insights from marketing segmentation literature, this study aims to investigate the influence of self‐esteem and self‐efficacy on consumers' selection of sources of information when making a product buying decision.

Multivariate analysis of variance was used to analyze the main and interaction effects of the independent categorical variables on multiple dependent interval variables. An online survey was distributed using search engine marketing.

The results indicate that sources of information are used differently among individuals with differing levels of self‐esteem and self‐efficacy. For example, individuals with higher self‐efficacy relied on themselves for information, while those with lower self‐efficacy relied on impersonal sources of information, such as the media or internet. Individuals with higher self‐esteem relied on themselves and impersonal sources (media and internet) as important sources of information, compared with those respondents with low self‐esteem.

Measuring situational influence using brief descriptions of hypothetical consumption situations was required. These descriptions could not include all possible facets of a natural setting resulting in subjective interpretations by respondents of what constitutes socially acceptable behavior.

Consumer experiences and expectations will vary during a purchase situation. Understanding how individuals seek varied sources of information based on self‐esteem and self‐efficacy is pertinent to marketing professionals when creating advertising programs particularly for products which offer potential socially risky situations, such as gift‐giving.

This research contributes by expanding the understanding of search behavior and the influence of self‐esteem and self‐efficacy on different purchase situations.

Probes affluent investor mutual fund investment decisions. Develops several different investor profiles from data on approximately 300 affluent investors. These investor types differ in sources of information regarding mutual fund investments, particularly the use of financial advisers, and in the selection criteria employed for mutual fund purchases. In addition, they have distinguishable mutual fund behaviour and demographic characteristics. Develops specific implications for financial services firms.