Affiliations: School of Management and Social Sciences, Edge Hill College of Higher Education, Ormskirk, L39 4 QP, UK. Tel.: +44 (0) 1695 584204; E-mail: [email protected]
Abstract: Taking as its departure point a recent article on information behaviour research, this article seeks to identify the dimensions of a framework for information behaviour research. The framework aims to facilitate an understanding of the relationship between the models and knowledge generated by research projects which investigate the nature of information behaviour in different contexts, and for different purposes. Inspiration for the framework is drawn from consumer behaviour research. Key issues in this field are the decision making process, user characteristics and profiles, contextual and environmental influences on user behaviour, and communication processes. A typology of user behaviour, which includes complex searching, limited searching, quality searching and lazy searching is proposed. The issue of the impact of lifestyle on information behaviour is identified as an area, which would benefit from further investigation. Description of environmental influences, including reference groups, and situation, might lend a further perspective on information behaviour. The dynamics of communication processes both between information intermediaries and users, and between users pose a number of interesting questions. The dimensions of the proposed framework are search processes, users, environments and communication processes.
Keywords: Information behaviour, information retrieval, consumer behaviour
