Informational Environments: Organizational Contexts of Online Information Use

Before the Web, the story of online information services was largely one of over-estimates and unmet expectations. This study examines sustained use and non-use of online services within organizations in a way that overcomes limitations of the traditional approaches that repeatedly led to exuberant usage projections. By adopting an open-systems view, we see that firms in highly technical and highly institutional environments have many more incentives to gather data and go online than do firms in low-tech, unregulated industries. But firms make important choices about partnering and outsourcing that can shift informational activities across organizational boundaries. Our analysis focuses on the informational environments of firms in three industries: law, real estate and biotech/pharmaceuticals. This environmental model provides richer conceptualizations about the use of information and communication technologies, including Internet technologies, and better projections about future use. In support of our analysis, we briefly discuss insights from an ongoing intranets study informed by an informational environments perspective.