Transitions in workplace information practices and culture. The influence of newcomers on information use in healthcare

Published date09 July 2018
Date09 July 2018
Pages827-843
DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1108/JD-07-2017-0116
AuthorAnita Nordsteien,Katriina Byström
Subject MatterLibrary & information science,Records management & preservation,Document management,Classification & cataloguing,Information behaviour & retrieval,Collection building & management,Scholarly communications/publishing,Information & knowledge management,Information management & governance,Information management,Information & communications technology,Internet
Transitions in workplace
information practices and culture
The influence of newcomers on information
use in healthcare
Anita Nordsteien and Katriina Byström
Department of Archivistics, Library and Information Sciences,
OsloMet Oslo Metropolitan University, Oslo, Norway
Abstract
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to empirically investigate how new healthcare professionals engage
with information practices and information culture in their workplace, and the resulting influences on
development and change.
Design/methodology/approach A longitudinal study was conducted on a hospital training programme.
Three series of focus groups provided data from 18 recently qualified nurses, supported by observations.
Data were thematically analysed applying a framework consisting of six approaches to information use.
Findings Newcomers take a proactive approach to seek, use and share scientific information, which is
negotiated within existing information practices and organisational information culture. Their competencies,
such as research skills, values, motivation and sense of integrity to use and share scientific information, often
differ from those existing workplace practices. For this reason, they drive towards renewal and change.
Practical implications Examination of organisational approaches to information use indicates clearly the
necessity for improvements to meet the needs of information proactiveness and thus be able to face
challenges and changes in an organisation.
Originality/value This work sheds new light on newcomersinformation use, as they integrate into a
workplace and interact with information practices and organisational approaches to information use.
A significant contribution is the identification of the dynamics and interdependencies between newcomers
individual agency in their way of seeking, using and sharing information, and the established communitys
social agency promoting existing information practices and the organisational agency represented by
information culture.
Keywords Information use,Novice, Workplace learning, Information culture, Nursing,Information practice
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
This paper explores the relation between newcomers, workplace information culture and
profession-bound information practices in an organisation. In the context of this study, the
newcomers are recently qualified nurses in their first two years of work in the profession.
Newcomers are in a process of movement from the periphery towards the core of their work
community, this happens through learning and aligning their own performance to that of the
communitys work practices (Lave and Wenger, 1991). Among others, Gherardi (2006, p. 97)
claims that: Learning to become a competent member within a culture of practice is a process
by which novices appropriate within a culture of unequal power relations the seeing,
doingand sayingthat sustain this practice. However, this is a two-way process. Newcomers
mayhaveexperiencesthatarenotpartoftheexisting competence in the community.
The old-timers need to adjust to evolvements of the practice and the meaning of the practice is
constantly renegotiated (Wenger, 1998). Several researchers emphasise that newcomers bring
new knowledge, experiences and skills to the workplace, and that the newcomers choose how to
engage with different learning opportunities (e.g. Billett, 2014; Fuller etal., 2005; Hodkinson et al.,
2004). Fuller and colleagues (2005) found that newcomers in some cases were even considered
experts, since they passed on new knowledge and skills to their community of practice. In this
study, newcomers are viewed as both learners and educators.
Journal of Documentation
Vol. 74 No. 4, 2018
pp. 827-843
© Emerald PublishingLimited
0022-0418
DOI 10.1108/JD-07-2017-0116
Received 30 July 2017
Revised 1 February 2018
Accepted 18 February 2018
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/0022-0418.htm
827
Information
use in
healthcare
Information culture is an elusive concept that has been defined in many different way s,
ranging from an all-inclusive view on organisationsinformation and communication
issues, to a more specific focus on how employees relate to information. In this study,
information culture is seen as those organisational aspects that influence the use of
information, or as described by Choo and colleagues: the socially transmitted patterns
of behaviours and values about the significance anduse of information in an organisation
(Choo et al., 2006, p. 492). The related concept of information practice refers to information
related activities and skills, constituted, justified and organised through the arrangements
of a social site, and mediated socially and materially with the aim of producing shared
understanding and mutual agreement about ways of knowing [](Lloyd, 2011, p. 285).
Thus, information practice may be regarded as the role of information in activities in
social settings, such as communities of some kind (cf. Cox, 2012). In contrast, information
culture applies more readily to approaches to information use and its role in different
activities from an organisational perspective, rather than the perspective of a community.
In organisational contexts, information practice is a better term to refer to
information-related activities among organisationally unformalised communities
consisting of people sharing both professional purpose and context of work, whereas
information culture relates more readily to formal organisational constructs, such as
departments or specially assigned teams. Apart from this paper, the difference is often
elusive and not reflected on, let alone agreed on, which means that both terms may be used
interchangeably in research literature. Moreover, the two are related, since certain
information practices can partly be seen as a manifestation of values, rules and norms that
are also considered as core aspects of information culture (cf. Choo et al., 2008).
In order to focus the present research, one fundamental aspect of information culture has
been selected, and in this paper referred to as approaches to information use. According to
Choo (2013), this aspect of information culture has been under explored, despite its
presumably strong influence on information-rela ted activities of both experienced
professionals and newcomers. Thus, this study aims to empirically investigate the
dynamics between newcomers, communitiesinformation practices and organisational
information culture. The first research question addresses how new healthcare
professionals engage with professional (meaning: belonging to a profession) information
practices and organisational information culture surrounding these practices:
RQ1. How do newcomers experience and respond to existing approaches to information
use in an organisation?
The second research question explores the mechanisms of development and change as a
result of this interaction:
RQ2. How do newcomers and information practices develop through interaction?
Theoretical framework
Information culture in terms of approaches to information use
The influential study by Marchand and colleagues (2001) surveyed managers from 25 different
industries in 22 countries. The aim of the study was to illuminate how the interactions between
people, information and technology affect business performance. On e central finding was the
importance of peoplesinformation behaviours and values capability, which in this paper is
referred to as approaches to information use to avoid conceptual confusion due to differing
definitions of the term information behaviour in the work of Marchand and colleagues and
information studies in general. In the Marchand and colleaguesstudy these approaches
were found to include six interrelated dimensions that enhance effective information use:
information integrity, form ality, control, transparency , sharing and proactiveness .
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