Search results

Purpose — We assert that researchers developing new web interaction tools should consider an array of user motives beyond query-based information retrieval. This chapter reports on two probes used to investigate user activities that go beyond search as traditionally conceived.

Design/methodology — This chapter reviews research on user experiences with search engines and general web use. It then describes the design and case study of cards and pebbles, two search engine-based probes developed to help elicit new concepts for web-based experiences.

Findings — Participants reflect on their experiences with the probes and offer ideas regarding how to incrementally shift the traditional search paradigm and conceive of the web in new ways.

Implications/value — This investigation serves as a starting point by offering criteria that should be considered when designing new ‘beyond search’ tools.

Purpose — The purpose of this chapter is to give an overview of the context of Web search and search engine related research, as well as to introduce the reader to the sections and chapters of the book.

Methodology/approach — We review literature dealing with various aspects of search engines, with special emphasis on emerging areas of Web searching, search engine evaluation going beyond traditional methods and new perspectives on Web searching.

Findings — The approaches to studying Web search engines are manifold. Given the importance of Web search engines for knowledge acquisition, research from different perspectives needs to be integrated into a more cohesive perspective.

Research limitations/implications — The chapter suggests a basis for research in the field and also introduces further research directions.

Originality/value of paper — The chapter gives a concise overview of the topics dealt within the book and also shows directions for researchers interested in Web search engines.

The demand for healthcare innovation is increasing, and not much is known about how entrepreneurial firms search for and sell to customers in the highly regulated and complex healthcare market. Drawing on effectuation perspectives, we explore how entrepreneurial digital healthcare firms with disruptive innovations search for early customers in the healthcare sector.

This study uses a qualitative, longitudinal multiple-case design of four entrepreneurial Nordic telehealth firms. In-depth interviews were conducted with founders and senior managers over a period of 27 months.

We find that when customer buying conditions are highly flexible, case firms use effectual logic to generate customer demand for disruptive innovations. However, under constrained buying conditions firms adopt a more causal approach to customer search.

Managers need to gain a deep understanding of target buying environments when searching for customers. In healthcare sector markets, the degree of flexibility customers have over buying can constrain them from engaging in demand co-creation. In particular, healthcare customer access to funding streams can be a key determinant of customer flexibility.

We contribute to effectuation literature by illustrating how customer buying conditions influence decision-making logics of entrepreneurial firms searching for customers in the healthcare sector. We contribute to entrepreneurial resource search literature by illustrating how entrepreneurial firms search for customers beyond their networks in the institutionally complex healthcare sector.

In recent years, aceted search has been a well-accepted approach for many academic libraries across the United States. This chapter is based on the author’s dissertation and work of many years on faceted library catalogs. Not to hope to be exhaustive, the author’s aim is to provide sufficient depth and breadth to offer a useful resource to researchers, librarians, and practitioners about faceted search used in library catalogs.

The chapter reviews different aspects of faceted search used in academic libraries, from the theory, the history, to the implementation. It starts with the history of online public access catalogs (OPACs) and how people search with OPACs. Then it introduces the classic facet theory and its relationship with faceted search. At last, various academic research projects on faceted search, especially faceted library catalogs, are briefly reviewed. These projects include both implementation studies and the evaluation studies.

The results indicate that most searchers were able to understand the concept of facets naturally and easily. Compared to text searches, however, faceted searches were complementary and supplemental, and used only by a small group of searchers.

The author hopes that the facet feature has not only been cosmetic but the answer to the call for the next generation catalog for academic libraries. The results of this research are intended to inform librarians and library information technology (IT) staff to improve the effectiveness of the catalogs to help people find information they need more efficiently.

This paper aims to shed some new light on the mixed findings of previous empirical studies on the effect of knowledge search breadth (SB) on firms’ 2019 innovation performance (IP).

The paper adopts a contingent approach that examines the two organizational factors in determining the shape of the SB-IP curve. The empirical study is based on survey data gathered from 414 Chinese firms. In dealing with concerns on simultaneity and reverse causality, perceived time-lag between outcome variable and explanatory variables was introduced.

This study reveals that knowledge novelty and absorptive capacity are two functions underlying the SB-IP relationship. The results also indicate that innovation orientation and firm age moderate the SB-IP relationship in different ways: the more innovation-oriented the firm, the steeper the inverted U-shaped SB-IP relationship will be, while the older the firm, the flatter the SB-IP relationship will be. Interestingly, there is strong evidence for the shape-flip phenomenon of the SB-IP curve: SB has an inverted U-shaped effect on IP when a firm is young; however, SB has a U-shaped effect when the firm is older than 37 years.

By revealing two underlying functions and two moderators of the association between SB and IP at the firm level, this paper contributes to shed some new light to the mixed results reported by previous empirical studies that have examined the effect of knowledge search on firm innovation.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the role of smartphones among young people in everyday life, focusing on the activity of online search. This paper addresses the following research questions: What framings of the smartphone can be identified in the way that young people use, and describe, smartphones? What is the role of online search within these framings? By elucidating framings of the smartphone, this paper also seeks to discuss why and how smartphone use becomes contested in various contexts and situations.

The material has been produced through ethnographic fieldwork. Focus groups and observations have been carried out with teenagers, age 13–16 years, in three schools in Sweden. In total, 39 pupils participated in the focus groups. Interviews, classroom observations and go-alongs have also been performed.

In this study, three framings of the smartphone are identified: the entertainment framing, the easy-access framing and the challenging co-presence framing. The framings highlight the way that both the smartphone and online search is viewed, and carried out, in various situations. The smartphone is primarily viewed as a tool for entertainment, by adults and young people alike, yet the findings illustrate that the smartphone is used for more activates than what is immediately apparent.

This study contributes to the field interested in bridging the gap between in-school teachings of information literacies and out-of-school activities by showing how online search happens in various situations. Also, to the field concerned with people’s use of general web search engines in everyday life.

This paper explores the relation between online search and smartphones, a topic which has not been in focus in previous research. The topics of online search and smartphone use have primarily been researched separately but are here researched in conjunction.

Boundary-spanning exploration through establishing alliances is an effective strategy to explore technologies beyond local search in innovating firms. The purpose of this paper is to argue that it is useful to make a distinction in boundary-spanning exploration between what a firm learns from its alliance partners (explorative learning from partners (ELP)) and what it learns from other organisations (explorative learning from non-partners (ELN)).

The authors contend that alliances play a role in both types of exploration. More specifically, the authors discern three types of alliances (inside ties, clique-spanning ties and outside ties) based on their role vis-à-vis existing alliance cliques. Clique members are highly embedded, and breaking out of the cliques through clique-spanning and outside alliances is crucial to improving explorative learning. Thereafter, the authors claim that clique-spanning ties and outside ties have a different effect on ELN and ELP.

The empirical analysis of the “application specific integrated circuits” industry indicates that inside ties have negligible effects on both types of explorative learning. Clique-spanning ties have a positive effect on ELP, but not on ELN. The reverse is true for outside ties. The results show that research on explorative learning should devote greater attention to the various roles alliance partners and types of alliances play in advancing technological exploration.

The literature only emphasises the learning from partners, focussing mainly on accessing their technology. In sum, alliance partners play different roles in exploration, and their network position influences the role they are able to play.

This paper aims to discuss how search, sense making and learning have become more closely integrated, as search services have leveraged new technologies and large and media-diverse data streams.

The paper reviews progress in search over the past 60 years, summarizes different theories of sense making and learning and proposes a framework for integrating these activities.

The arguments are supported with examples from search in 2018 and suggest that even as search becomes an automated process during learning, search strategies must continue to evolve to insure that complex information needs can be met.

The work is limited to search that uses electronic search systems. Implications include the need to understand that multiple levels of system inferences/estimates are used to present search results and that different kinds of learning processes are affected by search systems.

The importance of information literacy is implied.

This paper will provide readers with an understanding of how search services and systems have evolved and their implications for human learning.

Openness to external knowledge has recently gained popularity as a means for firms to complement and leverage internal knowledge in the pursuit of innovation outcomes. However, conflicting evidence exists regarding the role of openness in external knowledge acquisition. This paper aims to propose that openness to external knowledge has a nonlinear effect on innovation performance and that this nonlinear relationship is contingent on an ambidextrous knowledge search strategy.

Based on original large-scale survey of 246 interfirm collaborations in the high-technology industry, it is found that the impact of openness to external knowledge on innovation performance exhibits an inverted-U shape and that this relationship is affected by an ambidextrous knowledge search strategy.

The results indicate that an ambidextrous knowledge strategy that addresses the depth and breadth of external knowledge significantly influences a firm’s ability to derive benefits from increased openness to external knowledge. Empirically, the authors provide an original contribution to high-technology firms by exploring how and why an ambidextrous knowledge strategy can be a critical catalyst spurring innovation performance.

The research scope is limited to a single industry. Further research could extend the theoretical framework to multiple industries, which may increase the likelihood of innovation theory development.

The results suggest that firms opening up the boundaries of their innovation activity to engage in external knowledge are able to leverage their in-house innovation to enhance their innovation performance. The authors advocate that in innovation management domains, greater emphasis is needed on how openness to external knowledge has more positive impacts not only on innovation performance but also on innovation implemented management.

This study is among the first to investigate the ambidextrous knowledge search effect on the external knowledge of high-technology firms. This paper contributes to the theoretical and practical literature concerning openness innovation and knowledge management by reflecting on the ambidextrous knowledge search strategy.

A year‐long study of free end‐user access to the Medline database (using the Grateful Med software) was undertaken in 1993. Twenty bio‐scientists from two UK universities were surveyed at the beginning and end of the year. Responses were viewed in the light of independent factors affecting user attitude and behaviour, such as familiarity with information technology and a perceived need for bibliographic data. Those concerning quality of data or the capability of the software were relatively few and these were assigned less importance than practical considerations such as the location of the PC linking the user to Medline and the quality of network connections. Most users used Grateful Med in a simplistic way—not venturing beyond keyword searching—although deficiencies in coverage or recall were protected against by recourse to other end‐user systems. Librarian‐mediated online and CDROM services have been superseded—for this group of users—by desktop end‐user services.