The effects of COVID‐19 on information management in remote and hybrid work environments

Abstract

AbstractThis empirical research examines the effects of the COVID‐19 pandemic on information management (IM) in remote or hybrid work. We present an in‐depth statistical analysis of 716 responses to questionnaires received from employees and managers of four Israeli government ministries. The participants were asked to report characteristics such as accessibility, retrieval speed, ease of locating, and relevance of information, in order to assess the quality of organizational IM before and during COVID‐19. The findings reveal that IM quality was maintained even when organizations were forced to quickly adapt to working remotely during the pandemic. Regardless of work location, differences in perception of IM were found among organizations of different sizes: large, medium, and small. The majority of respondents who reported not using IM systems (IMS) before COVID‐19 also stated that even after the pandemic's onset, they still did not use them. A lower frequency of IMS use has been associated with a decline in IM quality. Given the far‐reaching changes in IM induced by the pandemic, many of which have the potential to be long‐lasting, these findings serve as an opening for valuable future research.