The Information Needs and Information Seeking Behaviours of SME Managers in Botswana

Abstract

This study investigates the information needs and information seeking behaviours of SME (small and medium-sized enterprises) managers in Botswana's manufacturing industry, using a self-administered questionnaire. The respondents were largely male (171 or 79%) while only (45 or 21%) were female. The key findings of the study indicate that: (1) SME managers consider customer and competition information to be the most important types of information to their firms; (2) SME managers devote a significant amount of time to active information-seeking and on average spend approximately five hours per week seeking information; (3) SME managers spend time seeking customer and competition information; (4) they use both personal (e.g. customers, business associates) and impersonal sources (newspapers, broadcast media and government publications); (5) information source selection is largely determined by accessibility and ease of use; and (6) managers use information for making important decisions and performing their routine activities. Several recommendations are made for future research in information behaviour of managers and mainstream user studies. Replication of this study with a different sample of firms would be highly useful.