Gunilla Widen

• PhD
• Professor (Full) at Åbo Akademi University

Technology could assist older adults in managing their lives independently, yet many face challenges in using it. This article explores solutions from the perspective of older adults to address the challenges. A qualitative research approach was used, featuring 15 semi-structured interviews with individuals aged 65 or above. Data was analysed thema...

Introduction. This paper considers the function and use of umbrella concepts within the library and information science (LIS) discipline. Method. This paper uses the example of information avoidance to examine how umbrella concepts shape LIS theoretical work, including how they impact the theorisation of an emerging discipline. Analysis. We use on...

Information avoidance has long been in the shadow of information seeking. Variously seen as undesired, maladaptive, or even pathological, information avoidance has lacked the sustained attention and conceptualization that has been provided to other information practices. It is also, perhaps uniquely among information practices, often invoked to bla...

The objective of this study was to examine how information literacy can aid in infodemic management in the context of university students in a developing country. A printed survey questionnaire was employed to collect data on information literacy and infodemic management from a sample population consisting of university students. A total of 300 res...

The article presents findings from a study that examined how young people select, consult and evaluate multiple information sources to validate the information they seek. It contributes to the field of information behaviour and helps in designing better information services. Eight focus group interviews were carried out in four different locations...

Digitalisation has had an overwhelming impact on the workplace in recent years, making it more associable, editable, interactive, programmable, traceable, communicable and distributable. But this change comes with substantial changes to ways of working. New technologies almost always translate into new work processes, work arrangements, collaborati...

Digitalisation has had an overwhelming impact on the workplace in recent years, making it more associable, editable, interactive, programmable, traceable, communicable and distributable. But this change comes with substantial changes to ways of working. New technologies almost always translate into new work processes, work arrangements, collaborati...

The paper aims to state the research protocol for the innovation-seeking behavior of Small- to Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs), related to the classification of knowledge needs expressed in the networking databases. The dataset of 9301 networking offers as the outcome of proactive attitudes represents the content of the Enterprise Europe Network (E...

The objectives of this study is to investigate how public libraries in Bangladesh work to achieve some of the UN SDGs and the strategies they adopt to work in line with the mission of UNSDGs. Data were gathered from 59 public librarians working in public libraries of Bangladesh who provided qualitative answers to three open‐ended questions in a sur...

Purpose This study aims to investigate the sustainable development goals (SDGs) awareness of public librarians, their perceived understanding of public libraries to achieve United Nation Sustainable Development Goals (UNSDGs) and identify the challenges affect the library adoption to SDGs. Design/methodology/approach In this study, a quantitative...

Purpose This study focuses on specifically women refugees' experiences of accessing information and how sociocultural barriers impact these experiences aiming to broaden the LIS literature of women refugees' information problems from sociocultural aspects. The socioculturally formed roles of a woman can impact the information practices of women ref...

Human resources and intellectual capital are best utilised through an ongoing interaction between individual and social processes. Still there is a research gap of empirical multilevel studies, focusing both on individual and organisational aspects of knowledge processes. To fill this gap, this article reports on a quantitative study, where the rel...

Female refugees and immigrants face various challenges in accessing, using, and sharing information during their integration process. In the context of COVID-19, this study aims to identify the user information satisfaction of female refugees and immigrants living in Finland and Sweden. Using a dataset comprising 232 respondents, the research model...

Introduction. This paper presents empirical research on whether young people’s perceived information literacy influences their perceived service quality of a youth information and counselling agency. Method. An online survey was distributed and 3,287 responses of young people between fifteen and twenty-nine years old were collected from sixteen dif...

This exploratory study seeks to understand information experiences, emotional reactions, and coping mechanisms of young adults concerning the COVID-19 pandemic. Studying two different populations, the Finnish sample included 49 young adults, while the US sample included 154. A qualitative content analysis approach was utilized in analyzing research...

This paper focuses information literacy (IL) from a methodological perspective, addressing quantitative IL measures, suitable for evaluating the role of IL in supporting work activities. So far, IL in workplace contexts has mostly been studied using qualitative methods, designed for studying situational and context-dependent practices. Therefore it...

Purpose VINE Journal of Information and Knowledge Management Systems (VJIKMS) is one of the oldest and leading journals in the knowledge management (KM) field. The purpose of this study is to conduct bibliometrics analysis of publications published in VJIKMS for the past two decades. For doing this, this paper covered the past two decades of public...

This article addresses a framework for conceptualizing the preparation of leaders for the library and information science (LIS) profession. The framework has three components: curriculum, pedagogy, and assessment (CPA). Moreover, this framework is mirrored in examples from two LIS programs (one in Finland and one in the United States) and discusses...

The chapter is a Preface for the 8th international conference on Well-being in the Information Society (WIS).

Introduction. Information literacy and digital literacy skills have become increasingly important capabilities in the digital world, as such it is of the utmost importance to assess how individual’s literacy skills impact people’s intention to use digital technology. Method. In this paper, based on the current literature, we design our research and...

Introduction. There is a substantial amount of research on refugees and integration. Also in library and information science there are studies focusing on refugees. However, this research knowledge doesn’t easily transfer between disciplines. This paper is a scoping literature review on main perspectives studied within integration research. The aim...

Generational traits generally have mixed impact on work activities. From previous research we have a very scattered picture of the impact of generational differences in the workplace context. This paper investigates how generational differences influence the knowledge-sharing behaviour in organizations. Interviews were conducted in two Finnish orga...

The present study aimed to analyse the role of digital literacy on the intention to use digital technology by professionals in the creative industries. There is consensus among academic literature and governmental reports that creative activities are essential for economic and socio-cultural development. Therefore, there is a need for ongoing resea...

Internet-based applications, such as social media, offer potentially effective and efficient vehicles to access, use, and distribute information as well as means to network with other actors. However, for realizing this potential, critical competencies are information and digital literacy. In this chapter we discuss the importance of information li...

To evaluate the service quality and to understand the perception of young people towards youth information and counselling services, ERYICA conducted a survey for service users back in 2013. At the end of 2017, a new survey was conducted across Europe in the framework of the Erasmus+ KA2 Project Youth.Info: Future Youth Information Toolbox. This ti...

The present study investigates the relationship between CEO’s information literacy and innovation in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Even if information literacy’s business value has been recognized in recent literature, its impact on organizational innovation, a critical and strongly information intensive process, has never been studied...

Movies appeal to people globally and can be used as a very valuable intellectual exercise in understanding diverse workplace settings, stimulating curiosity toward other cultures, and learning the nuances of leading and managing in a global information context. This study demonstrates how a learning experience involving movies can be utilized in co...

As digitalisation disrupts businesses ever more profoundly, the concern is growing about how creative workers and designers use digital technologies in their day-to-day practices. This study investigates factors that influence the intention of creative workers to use digital technology. The relationships between digital literacy, perceived usefulne...

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Well-Being in the Information Society, WIS 2020, held in Turku, Finland, in August 2020. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic the conference was held online. The 19 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 25 submissions. The submitted pape...

Introduction: The aim of the study was to observe the propensity of actively avoiding information among the youth and explore whether their demographics and information literacy self-efficacy have any influence on this tendency. Method: An online questionnaire survey was conducted and young people between 15 and 29 from different countries in Euro...

Considering the speed at which new digital technologies are evolving, this paper aims to investigate the impact of digital transformation on multiple dimensions of literacy. An empirical research using antecedent factors of adoption is conducted to investigate the relationships between factors influencing digital immigrants’ and digital natives’ in...

A significant constituent of knowledge making in expert organizations are the knowledge sharing practices within which knowledge is both disseminated and created. These practices give access to information sources and are based on individual networks. This means that individual and team-based motives to knowledge sharing are prerequisites in expert...

Knowledge work is comprised of specialists who collaborate by ex-changing expertise and skills to develop products and services - this is exactly what happens also in open-source software development communities in a virtual and globally distributed fashion. In this study, we address some of the information practices of a large and well-known open-...

Introduction. The aim of this paper is to outline and discuss the significance of organizational leadership in fostering employees’ information literacy at the workplace. Method. The conceptual discussion is based on the organizational leadership and information literacy research. Findings. It is argued that organizational leadership behaviour ch...

Considering the speed at which new digital technologies are evolving, it is the aim of this paper to assess the impact of multidimensionality of literacy on intention to use digital technologies. An empirical research, using antecedent factors of adoption, is executed to investigate the relationships between factors influencing digital immigrants a...

Individual-level knowledge sharing is an important collaborative activity that is critical for organisational performance. As multilingual workplaces are becoming common, it has become increasingly important to understand the impact of language on knowledge sharing. Although previous research on knowledge management acknowledges the influence of la...

Purpose The purpose of the presented study is to explore the roles of public libraries in the context of Big Data. Design/methodology/approach A mixed method approach was used and had two main data collection phases. A survey of public libraries was used to generate an overview of which professional roles connect public libraries with Big Data....

Big data has been widely discussed. The diverse impacts and potential of big data have been pinpointed and empirically proven.Nevertheless, there is no consensus on the understanding of big data. Big data has been used to refer to different things and its characteristics are not universally accepted either. Therefore, this study aims to generate an...

Workplace knowledge sharing is a complex process and there are a large number of studies in the area. In this article three theoretical approaches in library and information science are used to discuss knowledge sharing in the workplace. The approaches are information behavior, social capital, and information culture, and they bring important insig...

Introduction. Managing information sharing in organizations requires an understanding of information behaviour at several levels. The aim of this short paper is to add the generational approach to the understanding of workplace information sharing. Method. A survey was conducted in a multinational organization (n=237) to explore different factors...

Professionally, people often conduct their work in settings containing a range of different collaborative situations and work practices in which people handle information and work activities. Still, work tasks are usually considered and perceived as individual activities although the technology and the characteristics of the tasks require collabora...

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Well-Being in the Information Society, WIS 2016, held in Tampere, Finland, in September 2016. The 21 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 42 submissions. With the core topic "Building Sustainable Health Ecosystems" WIS 2016 focus...

Knowledge sharing is a product of the collaborative and supportive environment shaped by socialization and informal communication between employees. Under the pressure of globalization and business internationalization, workforces have become increasingly diverse, particularly in terms of language. This has implications for knowledge sharing. It ha...

Introduction. This paper reports some of the results from a workshop organized by the European Network for Work Information (ENWI) in Malmo 12-13 June 2013, concerning theoretical frameworks for studying workplace information practices. Method. A combination of literature review and workshop discussions was used. Before the workshop the network mem...

This paper discusses the current state of the art of knowledge sharing research, and central premises and implications of effective knowledge sharing in organizations. The aim of the paper is to propose a framework for studying knowledge sharing from multiple perspectives. A review of previous research shows that as well individual, social, organiz...

Earlier research has shown that the virtual world of Second Life is an environment that fosters the emergence of social capital. The central finding of this study is the pertinence of emotional communication and information sharing in the emergence of social capital in Second Life, and consequently, the significance of emotional intelligence as a b...

Library 2.0 is a change in the way libraries interact with their users. Technological developments on the Web have had a major influence on these changes. The change also places new requirements on librarians’ competencies and skills. This research investigates how librarians themselves see this change in terms of their work identity and working kn...

Introduction. The aim of this paper is to combine insights of collaborative information behaviour and information cultures in organizations to bridge different aspects of managing knowledge-creation and information sharing in order to highlight the importance of supporting collaborative handling within business environments. Method and Analysis. Th...

The purpose of this book is to collect current research representing different aspects of social information with emphasis on the new innovations supporting contemporary information behavior. To begin with, we need to define what we mean by social information in general and in the area of information science in particular. It is interesting to noti...

Purpose The focus of this paper is to study the influence of social media on scholarly communication. The aim is to provide an overview of researchers' use of Web 2.0 techniques, and discuss a possible change of information behaviors in the context of scholarly communication. Design/methodology/approach A web survey was distributed to a targeted s...

Social capital is put forward as a suitable theoretical framework to explain knowledge sharing mechanisms in organizations. The aim of this paper is to summarize lessons learned from different contexts where the social capital dimensions have been used to explain information and knowledge sharing. The contexts studied are mainly within business org...

This paper explores the processes connected to information and knowledge sharing in the context of expert work in an organization undergoing technical succession. The qualitative empirical research was conducted among six senior-junior pairs participating in the technical succession in the studied company. According to the results, factors affectin...

Social interaction technologies can successfully employ the previously untapped power of the web to utilize the collaborative creation of information and user-driven content. In this chapter, the social capital framework is applied to illustrate how Web 2.0 tools and techniques can support effective information and knowledge management in organizat...

This paper focuses on the extent to which online information sharing practice is socially motivated. A key interest is how knowledge of the existing social connections between actors may predict their information sharing behaviour when they move into an online environment, and the relative importance of these connections when set against other fact...

Purpose Second Life is a user‐created online virtual world, which is a place where people with shared interests can meet and be together and share information. The purpose of this study is to investigate whether Second Life communities foster and nurture social capital, whether social capital within Second Life is related to social capital outside...

This chapter works out a method on how information resources in organizations can be turned into a knowledge sharing (KS) information culture, which can further feed business success. This process is complicated, and the value chain can be broken in many places. In this study this process is viewed in the light of resource-based theory. A KS-model...

Purpose The aim of this paper is to define both theoretically and empirically the concept of Library 2.0. Design/methodology/approach Written answers to the question “What is Library 2.0?” given by practitioners and researchers ( n =29) interested in Library 2.0 issues were analyzed by using co‐word analysis to map the underlying elements of the c...

This article works out a method on how information resources in organizations can be turned into a knowledge sharing (KS) information culture, which can further feed business success. This process is complicated, and the value chain can be broken in many places. In this study this process is viewed in the light of resource-based theory. A KS-model...

This chapter works out a method on how information resources in organizations can be turned into a knowledge sharing (KS) information culture, which can further feed business success. This process is complicated, and the value chain can be broken in many places. In this study this process is viewed in the light of resource-based theory. A KS-model...

In this panel we investigate the relation between social capital and methods of populist, post-coordinate knowledge management which has popularly been termed “Web 2.0” or “Library 2.0.” We include in this examination the management of persons and groups, as matrixes and agents of knowledge, and we center our examination upon the ways that document...

Health education programmes are generally based on the assumption that health-promoting knowledge and corresponding behaviour are automatically created as people are subjected to a rich flow of information. Improved knowledge is, however, not the same as good behaviour. Information is not synonymous with knowledge; neither is the transformation of...

Much research has been done on the favourable influence of social environment and social networks on knowledge production. The aim of this article is to design a theoretical framework where both information behaviour (IB) research and social capital (SC) research are integrated. Integrating these areas is seen as an advantage when focusing on the s...

Introduction. This paper focuses on information sharing in a university context within the social capital framework. This embraces a new way of looking at the collaborative information behaviour in the university context and the purpose is to discover whether the theory of social capital is useful for exploring mechanisms behind knowledge sharing....

It is clear that a lot of information acquisition happens through networks and therefore the focus in this article will lie in the relationships that bind a network together. The attempt is to map the motives as well as the group identity factors as means of exploring the reasons for sharing. The theoretical framework is brought from the social cap...

Introduction. In this paper, we discuss the link between information sharing and organizational knowledge production in two very different organizations; a company that handles insurance claims and a small, entrepreneurial hi-tech company. We suggest that this link has not been adequately addressed by studies of information behaviour, though a numb...

Addresses the key skills that are required in organisations in the information intensive society. The book examines the power of information behaviour on the construction of different kinds of shared knowledge and social identity in a group. An introduction to the different dimensions of social capital that is structural and cognitive, and looks at...

Introduction. In this paper, we discuss the link between information sharing and organizational knowledge production in two very different organizations - a company that handles insurance claims and a small entrepreneurial hi-tech company. We suggest that this link has not been adequately addressed by studies of information behaviour, though a numb...

This article works out a method on how information resources in organizations can be turned into a knowledge sharing (KS) information culture, which can further feed business success. This process is complicated, and the value chain can be broken in many places. In this study this process is viewed in the light of resource-based theory. A KS-model...

The faceted classification system of information interactions proposed by Cool and Belkin is discussed in the light of two case studies. The two examples use the classification scheme as a structural research instrument in two different phases of investigation: in framing the collection of data and in the analysis of already existing data. The disc...

Timing of organizational information sharing is an under-explored area of research in information science. Timing has been addressed on the individual level in the context of sense-making, or in terms of moves in information seeking. In related areas, time has been treated, largely, in terms of life cycle theories, which then again does not feature...

The increasing complexity of organizations, together with the growing scale of information activities, puts new demands on business corporations. It is believed that investing in social values based on mutuality, trust and respect could yield long-term benefits such as corporate well-being and innovativeness. The benefits are believed to be based o...

This paper is based on a study of information cultures in Finnish insurance companies. The material consists of 40 in-depth interviews in 15 companies. The focus is on the information behaviour in different work processes in the organization. This information behaviour is important to map, in order to describe how the knowledge base is built up in...

This paper crystallises out some key findings of knowledge management practices from a Finnish survey on the insurance industry. 15 Finnish insurance companies of different sizes and product portfolios are studied. We propose a model of the functioning of a knowledge sharing organization. Knowledge sharing is effective, when the learning organizati...

This research project is going to review the existing information cultures in 15 Finnish insurance businesses through a qualitative study. The interview-material consists of 40 in-depth-interviews and they are being analysed through the multiple case study method. The analysis is conducted in 5 stages considering information environment, informatio...

This research project is going to review the existing information cultures in 15 Finnish insurance businesses through a qualitative study. The interview-material consists of 40 in-depth-interviews and they are being analysed through the multiple case study method. The analysis is conducted in 5 stages considering information environment, informatio...

English summary: The information culture as a driving force in the business organisation. Diss. -- Åbo Akademi.