The Sources of Information Usage by Public Servants:An Empirical Study in Kuwait

摘要

The purpose of this study is to investigate the information needs of public managers in Kuwait. Four information behavior dimensions (information characteristics, information types, information sources, and obstacles to information usage and access) are used to paint a picture of public managers' information behavior. A sample of 321 public managers working in 18 Kuwaiti ministries is used in this study. The main source for the study's data is a questionnaire which is completed by the respondents and return to the researcher. The study s findings provide empirical evidence that Kuwaiti public managers do have unique information behavior characteristics compared to others reported in the literature. More specially, study's findings indicated that the usefulness characteristics, information type related to organizational plans and procedures, traditional information, and problems related to lack of coordination between agencies and lack of new technologies are, respectively, ranked as the most important in the four information behavior dimensions previously defined. Furthermore, the study s findings indicate that two contextual variables, gender and management level, play a role in changing information behavior.