Information seeking and use in diverse organizational contexts

Abstract This session combines individual presentations with a group discussion. The focus of this session and the expertise of this panel bring together ways of thinking about information seeking and use in diverse organizational contexts. Organizational contexts are not uniform. Quite the contrary, they are very diverse in terms of the individuals, cultures, habits, routines, systems and infrastructures within them. The panelists offer varying viewpoints on how to best address information seeking and use diversity in the workplace. Though each panelist offers different perspectives on how to do this, collectively they rally a persuasive need to not assume homogeneity in our understanding and investigation of information seeking and use in organizational settings. Rather, they suggest it would be better to recognize the acute diversity in the individuals, tasks, cultures, technologies, and information practices that exist in organizations today, and to develop models, approaches, and recommendations of information seeking and use that reflect our understanding of this diversity.