How do people in organizations get the information they need to do their work, and what are the effects of their research --positive and negative--on their organizations? Indeed, says the author of this unique, provocative study, the forces that promote ignorance within organizations often outweigh the drive to obtain knowledge. Johnson explores both sides of the information-seeking dilemma, the reasons why people do and do not look for and get the information they need--and why the multi-billion-dollar technologies that have been developed to facilitate information gathering so often fail. Research-based, with a model to explain how information seeking works in organizations, Dr. Johnson's book will be fascinating, essential reading not only for gatherers of information in all types of organizations, but for the purveyors, their technological support staffs.

The study of information seeking is one of great pragmatic importance for individuals, organizations, and our society. It is also one that is more complex than it might at first appear, presenting many dilemmas for the organization. Chapter 1 provides a basic overview of the importance of information seeking and a definition. Chapter 2 describes the more general communication structure of organizations in which individual information seeking is embedded. While traditional views of structure were based on the need to restrict information access in order to reduce information load, more modern views try to capture how organizations can process ever larger volumes of information. Chapter 3 describes the information fields outside of the organization. Chapter 4 develops a more complete picture of the information carriers that individuals have to select from. Chapter 5 describes the barriers to information seeking which often result from the real benefits of ignorance for both individuals and organizations. Chapter 6 details strategies individuals can use in their search for information. Chapter 7 discusses what management can do to facilitate a seeker's search for information. In summary, Chapter 8 weaves all of the themes of the book together in discussing the importance of the development of a theory of information seeking and the pragmatic implications of information seeking for our society as a whole.

Structural research in many ways is the most narrowly based of all the approaches to organizational communication. This book seeks to broaden the perspective by discussing the heuristic value of each of the four major approaches for examining the larger concept of structure.

Dosage: A Guiding Principle for Health Communicators uses "dosage" as a metaphor to help all healthcare professionals apply basic communication principles to their work. After a general overview of communication and its paramount importance in the health care setting, J. David Johnson, a professor of communications and former media research analyst for the U.S. Information Agency and author of five previous books, outlines the best practices for *Interpersonal communication in health care relationships, including that between physician and patient. He answers questions such as "How Much Do I Reveal and When?"; *Interprofessional teams, including teamwork, interdependence, stress and burnout, and communication in decision-making; *Mass Media, including searching for information and gaps in knowledge; *Knowledge diffusion and dissemination; *Change in communication, including social media; *Health information technology and how to handle the flood of communications we receive today. Johnson effectively expands his metaphor of dosage, detailing its many elements (amount, frequency, delivery system, sequencing, interaction with what other agents, and contraindications) as well as discussing the use and limits of metaphor generally. He explicitly addresses the following contexts: interpersonal communication, with a focusing on health professional-client interactions; inter-professional teams; mass media that are increasingly important for broader approaches to public health; how change is adopted and implemented within health care organizations and individuals; and the new technologies for health communication. The book's final chapter turns to broader policy issues raised by application of the metaphor of dosage as well as detailing its implications for methods of communication research. It concludes with a discussion of how dosage can serve as a bridging metaphor to close the gap between researchers and practitioners which is fundamental to clinical and translational science.

Examining the role of symbolic innovations in higher education institutions, this book distinguishes between the real, material changes universities undergo and the ways universities present them and symbolic changes to outside and internal stakeholders. By defining symbolic innovations and their general role in organizations, this book provides a thorough view of innovations in university contexts and the underlying factors that motivate and generate them. This volume addresses ethical concerns about the impact of symbolic innovations and how they relate to traditional and current views of academic leadership.

The study of health information seeking has become increasingly important in recent years due to the growing emphasis on the consumer/client relationship in the health arena. This trend implies a shift away from the development of health campaigns with one unitary message to a recognition that alternatives must be provided and options discussed. Indeed, health agencies are adopting the role of information-seeking facilitators through the creation of telephone services and sophisticated databases. A greater understanding of the public's needs, especially why people seek information, may help us to accomplish the many behavioral changes that will lead toward decreases in morbidity and mortality and a more balanced approach to wellness and prevention. This is especially important in the context of the revolution in access to information brought about by the many recent advances in databases and telecommunication systems, perhaps best represented by the advent of the Internet. This book provides a comprehensive treatment of these issues appropriate for advanced undergraduate and graduate students, practitioners, and researchers.

Dosage: A Guiding Principle for Health Communicators uses "dosage" as a metaphor to help all healthcare professionals apply basic communication principles to their work. After a general overview of communication and its paramount importance in the health care setting, J. David Johnson, a professor of communications and former media research analyst for the U.S. Information Agency and author of five previous books, outlines the best practices for *Interpersonal communication in health care relationships, including that between physician and patient. He answers questions such as "How Much Do I Reveal and When?"; *Interprofessional teams, including teamwork, interdependence, stress and burnout, and communication in decision-making; *Mass Media, including searching for information and gaps in knowledge; *Knowledge diffusion and dissemination; *Change in communication, including social media; *Health information technology and how to handle the flood of communications we receive today. Johnson effectively expands his metaphor of dosage, detailing its many elements (amount, frequency, delivery system, sequencing, interaction with what other agents, and contraindications) as well as discussing the use and limits of metaphor generally. He explicitly addresses the following contexts: interpersonal communication, with a focusing on health professional-client interactions; inter-professional teams; mass media that are increasingly important for broader approaches to public health; how change is adopted and implemented within health care organizations and individuals; and the new technologies for health communication. The book's final chapter turns to broader policy issues raised by application of the metaphor of dosage as well as detailing its implications for methods of communication research. It concludes with a discussion of how dosage can serve as a bridging metaphor to close the gap between researchers and practitioners which is fundamental to clinical and translational science.

The study of health information seeking has become increasingly important in recent years due to the growing emphasis on the consumer/client relationship in the health arena. This trend implies a shift away from the development of health campaigns with one unitary message to a recognition that alternatives must be provided and options discussed. Indeed, health agencies are adopting the role of information-seeking facilitators through the creation of telephone services and sophisticated databases. A greater understanding of the public's needs, especially why people seek information, may help us to accomplish the many behavioral changes that will lead toward decreases in morbidity and mortality and a more balanced approach to wellness and prevention. This is especially important in the context of the revolution in access to information brought about by the many recent advances in databases and telecommunication systems, perhaps best represented by the advent of the Internet. This book provides a comprehensive treatment of these issues appropriate for advanced undergraduate and graduate students, practitioners, and researchers.

Examining the role of symbolic innovations in higher education institutions, this book distinguishes between the real, material changes universities undergo and the ways universities present them and symbolic changes to outside and internal stakeholders. By defining symbolic innovations and their general role in organizations, this book provides a thorough view of innovations in university contexts and the underlying factors that motivate and generate them. This volume addresses ethical concerns about the impact of symbolic innovations and how they relate to traditional and current views of academic leadership.

This book provides the first truly comprehensive treatment of three topics that have traditionally been treated separately: teamwork, leadership, and communication. Teamwork has become central to the operation of the modern organization. People from diverse backgrounds culturally, professionally, and demographically must work together to develop the well-rounded decision making needed for organizations to survive in our modern economy. Leadership, and relatedly management, have more traditionally been the focus of organizational operations. While it is easy to rule by dicta, it is much more difficult to establish a framework in which true teamwork is possible. Teamwork is a very fragile thing. The minute managers start becoming too directive a slippery slope is started in which one's followers, perhaps better cast as team members, constantly look to them for direction and approval rather than acting on their own best instincts. Communication plays a central role in resolving these tensions. Messaging is central to traditional management functions, while providing a communication network structure that enables action is a more subtle, but longer lasting function of leaders. All three processes, teaming, leading, and communicating, must act in concert for the many benefits of teamwork to be realized.

The information context of the modern organization is rapidly evolving in the face of intense global competition. Information technologies, including databases, new telecommunications systems, and software for synthesizing information, make a vast array of information available to an ever expanding number of organizational members. Management's exclusive control over knowledge is steadily declining, in part because of the downsizing of organizations and the decline of the number of layers in an organizational hierarchy. These trends, as well as issues surrounding the Web 2.0 and social networking, mean that it is increasingly important that we understand how informal knowledge networks impact the generation, capturing, storing, dissemination, and application of knowledge. This innovative book provides a thorough analysis of knowledge networks, focusing on how relationships contribute to the creation of knowledge, its distribution within organizations, how it is diffused and transferred, and how people find it and share it collaboratively.

The information context of the modern organization is rapidly evolving in the face of intense global competition. Information technologies, including databases, new telecommunications systems, and software for synthesizing information, make a vast array of information available to an ever expanding number of organizational members. Management's exclusive control over knowledge is steadily declining, in part because of the downsizing of organizations and the decline of the number of layers in an organizational hierarchy. These trends, as well as issues surrounding the Web 2.0 and social networking, mean that it is increasingly important that we understand how informal knowledge networks impact the generation, capturing, storing, dissemination, and application of knowledge. This innovative book provides a thorough analysis of knowledge networks, focusing on how relationships contribute to the creation of knowledge, its distribution within organizations, how it is diffused and transferred, and how people find it and share it collaboratively.

This book provides the first truly comprehensive treatment of three topics that have traditionally been treated separately: teamwork, leadership, and communication. Teamwork has become central to the operation of the modern organization. People from diverse backgrounds culturally, professionally, and demographically must work together to develop the well-rounded decision making needed for organizations to survive in our modern economy. Leadership, and relatedly management, have more traditionally been the focus of organizational operations. While it is easy to rule by dicta, it is much more difficult to establish a framework in which true teamwork is possible. Teamwork is a very fragile thing. The minute managers start becoming too directive a slippery slope is started in which one's followers, perhaps better cast as team members, constantly look to them for direction and approval rather than acting on their own best instincts. Communication plays a central role in resolving these tensions. Messaging is central to traditional management functions, while providing a communication network structure that enables action is a more subtle, but longer lasting function of leaders. All three processes, teaming, leading, and communicating, must act in concert for the many benefits of teamwork to be realized.

This book provides a detailed examination of the processes that lead to unsustainable growth of nonessential personnel in the modern university. It explores administrative bloat, a major contributor to the rising costs of a college education, comprehensively detailing its development through the examination of case studies. After defining bloat and considering many of the factors that contribute to it (and its associated consequences), a number of case studies are used to elaborate and expand on the themes developed in the initial chapter. The first case focuses on the complex infrastructures being developed to promote the strategically ambiguous focus on student success. Universities have developed a number of information dissemination programs in recent years. One such program that is also explicitly targeted at the commercialization of university research is the development of technology transfer offices. Relatedly, the next case focuses on the institutional pressures brought by various stakeholders to emulate the success of the famed Research Triangle in North Carolina by developing technology incubators and research and development parks that promote entrepreneurship. The final case study focuses on the promise of technology, particularly in the form of distance learning. The final chapter summarizes the book and addresses some more general issues, asking questions such as: What is success? What are the ethical concerns raised by bloat? How do they relate to the individual interests? What manifest and latent functions does it serve?