How Much Time Does the Workforce Spend Searching for Information in the “New Normal”?

Nakash, Maayan; Bouhnik, Dan

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/122794 Copy

Description

Title

How Much Time Does the Workforce Spend Searching for Information in the “New Normal”?

Author(s)

• Nakash, Maayan
• Bouhnik, Dan

Issue Date

2024-03-20

Keyword(s)

• COVID-19
• New Normal
• Search Time
• Information Seeking
• Information Management
• Information Behavior

Abstract

This paper puts a unique spotlight on key aspects related to information be-havior in organizations during the “new normal.” Specifically, the study sought to examine how much time the workforce spends searching for in-formation they need for work, and how the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak affected the perception of this time. We also investigate the relationship be-tween organizational information search times and information management (IM) quality during the pandemic. A web-based questionnaire was distributed during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic in four government offices in Israel, and was completed by 716 employees. The results show that since the pandemic outbreak, 22.34% of the respondents spend about half a work-ing day a week and 10.47% spend one and a half workdays a week on in-formation searches. Additionally, 31.42% agree strongly or completely agree that COVID-19 has increased the organizational information search time. The long search times have been found to be significantly linked to the de-cline in IM quality during the pandemic. The current research may increase the recognition of the importance of the development of technological tools to facilitate speedy information retrieval and improve IM performance.

Publisher

iSchools

Series/Report Name or Number

iConference 2024 Proceedings

Type of Resource

Other

Language

eng

Handle URL

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/122794

Copyright and License Information

Copyright 2024 is held by Maayan Nakash and Dan Bouhnik. Copyright permissions, when appropriate, must be obtained directly from the authors.

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