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Open Access
Article
Publication date: 6 September 2022

Reijo Savolainen

The purpose of this paper is to elaborate the nature of everyday life as a context of information behaviour by examining how researchers have approached this issue. To this end…

2833

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to elaborate the nature of everyday life as a context of information behaviour by examining how researchers have approached this issue. To this end, particular attention is directed to how they have characterized everyday life as a constellation of work-related and non-work constituents.

Design/methodology/approach

Evolutionary concept analysis was conducted by focussing on 40 studies on the topic. It is examined how the conceptualizations of everyday life and the relationships between work-related and non-work constituents have been evolved since the 1990s. The analysis is based on the comparison of the similarities and differences between the characterizations of the above constituents.

Findings

Early conceptualizations of everyday life as a context of information behaviour were largely based on Savolainen's model for everyday life information seeking. Later studies have proposed a more holistic approach to everyday life in times when the boundaries between work-related and free-time activities have become blurred, due to the growing use of networked information technologies and telecommuting. Since the late 1990s, the understanding about the nature of everyday life as a context of information behaviour has become more nuanced; thanks to a more detailed identification of the overlaps of work-related and non-work constituents.

Research limitations/implications

As the study is based on a sample of studies examining the relationships of work-related and non-work constituents, the findings cannot be generalized to concern the contextual nature of everyday life as a whole.

Originality/value

The study pioneers by offering an in-depth analysis of the nature of everyday life as a context of information behaviour.

Details

Aslib Journal of Information Management, vol. 75 no. 5
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2050-3806

Keywords

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 21 December 2021

Mirka Kans and Anders Ingwald

The purpose is to describe new business opportunities within the Swedish railway industry and to support the development of business models that corresponds with the needs and…

1934

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose is to describe new business opportunities within the Swedish railway industry and to support the development of business models that corresponds with the needs and requirements of Industry 4.0, here denoted as Service Management 4.0.

Design/methodology/approach

The study is an in-depth and descriptive case study of the Swedish railway system with specific focus on a railway vehicle maintainer. Public reports, statistics, internal documents, interviews and dialogues forms the basis for the empirical findings.

Findings

The article describes the complex business environment of the deregulated Swedish railway industry. Main findings are in the form of identified business opportunities and new business model propositions for one of the key actors, a vehicle maintainer.

Originality/value

The article provides valuable understanding of business strategy development within complex business environments and how maintenance related business models could be developed for reaching Service Management 4.0.

Details

Journal of Quality in Maintenance Engineering, vol. 29 no. 5
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1355-2511

Keywords

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 18 July 2023

Anthony W. Dunbar

This paper is an extension of a panel presentation delivered in response to a joint call for panels by the Social Informatics and Information Ethics and Policy Special Interest…

1274

Abstract

Purpose

This paper is an extension of a panel presentation delivered in response to a joint call for panels by the Social Informatics and Information Ethics and Policy Special Interest Groups for the 2022 Association for Information Science and Technology conference. The purpose is to introduce critical race frameworks and tenets as a lens to develop, assess and analyze the social informatics (SI) within information science (IS) research, professional discourse, praxis and pedagogical paradigms. This paper spotlights one of the presentations from that panel, an iteration of Critical Race Theory (CRT) designed specifically for information studies: CRiTical Race information Theory (CRiT).

Design/methodology/approach

Just as importantly, using SI as part of the context, the paper also includes a discussion that illustrates research and theory building possibilities as both counter and complement to the technocratic advances that permeate society at every level (macro, mezzo and micro), which can also be reasonably framed as the information industrial complex. Thus, CRiT joins other forms of critical discourse and praxis grappling with deconstructing, decolonizing, demarginalizing and demystifying the influence and impact of information technologies. While CRiT has global intentions and implications, this specific discussion has an extensive American focus.

Findings

If we consider the rapid pace in which techno-determinism is moving toward the vise grip of techno-fatalism controlled by frameworks generated from the information industrial complex, we can reasonably consider that humanity on a global basis is living within a meta-large technocratic crisis moment. This crisis moment is both acute and chronic. That is, the technocratic crisis is continuously moving quickly while simultaneously worsening over an extended period of time with no remedies and few responses to substantively address the crisis.

Research limitations/implications

Part of the nature of information and data is measurability. Thus, identifying compatible nomenclature connecting the descriptiveness of intersectionality (a seminal CRT tool) as a qualitative research method to the measurability of data connected to quantitative research, a mixed method approach moves from possible to plausible. Additionally, within IS, there are often opportunities to measure human engagement, such as social media content, search engine use, assessing practices of categorizations, and multiple forms of surveillance data as a short list. Hence, the descriptiveness of intersectional qualitative research “mixed” with the measurability of quantitative research within information settings implies exponential methodological possibilities.

Practical implications

CRiT is multilayered, on the one hand, with the intention of being a discipline-specific, information-specific form of CRT. On the other hand, CRiT theory building is interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary based on information as omnipresent phenomena. An ongoing challenge for CRiT theory building is identifying and working within a balance between, practitioners who typically throw anything and everything at practical problems, while scholars often slice problems into such small segments that practical understanding is severely limited. Embracing and integrating the dynamic interplay between developing ideas and using them is the key to evolving CRiT within the social sciences.

Social implications

There is plenty of room as well as a need for additional narrative discussing or challenging the use or appropriation of information from a technocratic approach, a counter to the information industrial complex.

Originality/value

CRiT is emerging and cutting edge in discussion that addresses the technocratic determinism found in most scholarly discourses.

Access

Only Open Access

Year

Last 12 months (3)

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