Complex Information Environment Research Articles

Experts’ adaptation of apt epistemic performance: The role of practical knowledge

ABSTRACT Background Today’s complex information environment requires effective navigation and analysis of multiple sources to make reliable decisions about complex topics. Learners must enact thinking that reliably leads to well-justified decisions, adapt thinking to specific problems and contexts, and recognize the limits of their existing knowledge (i.e. demonstrate fully apt epistemic performance). Experts can enact such performance in their own discipline but questions of whether and how they adapt that expertise to other disciplines remain. More research is needed regarding whether and how experts adapt disciplinary knowledge to tasks for which they have practical knowledge. Methods We used inductive coding to analyze think-aloud data gathered from professors from a variety of disciplines (i.e. education, social sciences, and natural sciences) as they read and responded to a flipped classroom pedagogy scenario. Findings Education experts demonstrated fully apt epistemic performance and more nuanced conclusions than other participants. The social and natural scientists successfully adapted their epistemic performance grounded in practical knowledge, particularly about statistics and higher education careers, to their analysis of the scenario. However, natural scientists overgeneralized their research methods knowledge, demonstrating lower epistemic meta-competence. Contribution Our findings suggest ways in which practical knowledge supports or hinders adaptation of epistemic performance.

Do corporate site visits affect the informational role of independent directors?

AbstractThis study examines the influence of corporate site visits on information acquisition and dissemination by independent directors (IDs). Employing two unique sources of data from Chinese listed firms based on the mandatory disclosure of IDs’ (i) site visit activities and (ii) opinions about corporate decisions, we find that the acquisition of firm‐specific information and the dissemination of such information to the market are greater among IDs who conduct visits than their counterparts without such visits. Moreover, this effect is more pronounced in firms with complex information environments, in firms with lower proprietary costs, and among IDs with greater internal information asymmetry, superior external information, and stronger incentives and abilities to perform their duties. Furthermore, the firm‐specific information disseminated by IDs leads to stronger market reactions and improves stock price efficiency. Our study shows that site visits contribute to the informational role of IDs, and our evidence offers important corporate governance and regulatory implications.

Do government performance signals affect citizen satisfaction?

AbstractPrevious studies have confirmed the causal effect of performance information on citizen satisfaction, but they were primarily conducted in survey experimental settings that featured hypothetical and abstract scenarios and primed respondents to look at certain aspects of performance information. Whether the causal effects hold in the real world, which is a much more complex information environment, is questionable. We address the gaps by employing a regression discontinuity design to identify the impact of public schools’ performance grades on parents’ satisfaction with teachers and overall education in New York City. We find that performance signals have independent and lasting effects on citizens’ satisfaction. However, the effects are nonlinear, depending on the levels of performance signals. Parents’ responses are muted at the A/B performance grade cutoff, but their satisfaction increases significantly at the B/C and C/D cutoffs if their schools earn relatively higher grades.

Structural models of forming an integrated information and educational system “quality management of higher and postgraduate education”

The study examines the design of an information and educational System for quality education management. The requirements for the information environment of universities are formulated. The delineation of distinct stages in the technological process for shaping the values of information objects is outlined, achieved through the execution of information procedures. These procedures generate a technologically comprehensive product applicable within the university context. A set of heterogeneous systems for automating university activities makes obtaining integral characteristics based on information from different sources difficult. The research suggests an approach that allows you to get rid of the disadvantage. The introduction of an integrated information environment has been reviewed. To implement the information system “quality Management of Higher and Postgraduate Education,” a conceptual model of the system architecture and a logical structure was developed. The developed information model was based on the model of a complex information and educational environment of a higher educational institution and the Ontological model of the database of the integrated information and educational environment. The preliminary results of the pilot implementation of the system in the activities of Astana IT University are summarized, which made it possible to improve the quality management of the educational process.

How AI Helps to Increase Organizations’ Capacity to Manage Complexity – A Research Perspective and Solution Approach Bridging Different Disciplines

A major challenge for organizations and their strategic management today is the increasingly complex internal and external information and knowledge environment. To tackle this problem, we want to provide a fresh perspective on how to construct a modern AI-based socio-technical support system for strategic management. Methodologically, we provide a deep problem analysis and use the resulting insights to provide a solution approach drawing on different disciplines and bridging the gap between social science and computer science. Starting from challenges for strategic analysis in the age of information-overload, we analyze organizations as social communication systems. This yields a deeper understanding of organizations processing strategic information and their complex information environment. Based on the resulting insights, we propose our framework design by building on text mining and knowledge graph technology and give some guidance for its implementation. The novel system generates strategic intelligence by tapping into qualitative data: defining constantly changing information needs, interpreting information in its context as well as in reflection to the organization and making new knowledge promptly available to the right people. Throughout, we give illustrating examples from the domain of strategic research management.

Frames and sentiments of the Twitter communication by German Chancellor Scholz during the Russian invasion of Ukraine

Abstract In a complex information environment, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine presents a major challenge to the communication of political leaders throughout the world. The objective of this article is to analyse the frames and sentiments used by German chancellor Olaf Scholz, employing a novel data set of his Twitter communication (N = 612) during the Russian invasion of Ukraine between 24 February 2022 and 24 February 2023. A combination of computational text analysis approaches with natural language processing (NLP) techniques was used, including the Valence Aware Dictionary and the sentiment Reasoner (VADER) model for sentiment analysis and Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) for topic modelling. This research investigates the prevalent frames and emotions in the chancellor’s communication, providing valuable insights into the German government’s stance and strategic communication during this critical geopolitical event. The results of the study revealed that the chancellor used the frames ‘effects of the Ukraine invasion’, ‘climate & environment’, ‘solidarity’ and ‘Russian aggression’ and communicated with positive sentiments. By examining the chancellor’s Twitter communication, this study contributes to the understanding of political communication in the digital era, particularly in the context of international crises, and offers implications for policymakers, scholars and the broader public.

Analysis of the Fundamentals of UINSU Communication Study Program Journalistic Training in Facing the Digital Age

The journalistic basis of communication is a concept that combines the basic principles of journalism with the elements of communication in the context of journalistic activity. This research aims to understand communication in playing a very important role in journalism. However, to produce a good writing must have the provision of journalistic knowledge. For this reason, training and mentoring writing in journalism communication is considered important to be carried out in order to produce quality speech. The main goals of communication journalism are to increase audience engagement, strengthen relationships between journalists and readers, and expand the reach and impact of news. In an increasingly complex and diverse information environment, communications journalism has become essential to ensure the news delivered can reach and be understood by a wide audience. This research uses qualitative research methods with a descriptive approach The research method used is a qualitative approach. Data collection techniques are carried out by observation, in-depth interviews by conducting interviews with journalists and direct observation of the work process in newspaper newsrooms, and documentation. The collected data was analyzed using content analysis and thematic analysis to identify communication strategies applied by journalists in the news process. From the results of the preparation of research concluded the basis of communication journalism, there are several important elements that need to be considered, namely important to understand the intended audience or reader. Journalists need to adopt appropriate communication strategies to effectively deliver news to them taking into account the preferences and needs of the audience Keywords: training, journalism, communication.

Public attention and analyst visits: Evidence from China

This paper investigates the impact of public attention on analyst visits. To establish causality, we use Hurun Rich List as an exogenous shock to identify the impact of public attention. Using a difference-in-difference approach, we find that public attention significantly enhances the number of analyst visits. This effect is more pronounced among firms with complex information environments and higher future uncertainty. Our findings indicate that public attention affects analyst visits through influencing investor demand for analyst services. Further analysis reveals that analyst visits improve the accuracy of analysts' forecasts. We also find that the rich listing events indirectly leads to policy changes or the introduction of new policies. Overall, our findings highlight the importance of public attention to the firms' information environment.

Candidates, voters, and voting advice applications

AbstractVoters often face a complex information environment with many options when they vote in elections. Research on democratic representation has traditionally been skeptical about voters’ ability to navigate this complexity. However, voting advice applications (VAAs) offer voters a shortcut to compare their own preferences across numerous issues with those of a large number of political candidates. As VAAs become more prevalent, it is critical to understand whether and how voters use them when they vote. We analyze how VAA users process and use VAA information about their district candidates with original survey data from the 2019 Danish parliamentary election in collaboration with the administrators of one of the most widely used Danish VAAs. The results demonstrate that VAAs have substantively large effects on their users’ choices between parties and between candidates within parties.

Invasion of Ukraine: Frames and sentiments in Zelensky’s Twitter communication

ABSTRACT In a complex information environment, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine presents major challenges to the communication of the political leader of Ukraine. The objective of this article is to analyze the frames and sentiments used by the president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, using a novel data set of his Twitter communication (N = 613) during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine between 24th of February 2022 and 24th of February 2023. The study answers two questions, (1) what the political leader of Ukraine actually talks about when he communicates during the invasion, and (2) how he talks about it. By using a combination of computational text analysis approaches, I analyze the social media framing and whether there is a framing shift during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and try to understand the role of social media in this process. The results of the study revealed the emotions expressed by Zelensky to be mostly positive and focused on dialogue, cooperations, and solidarity frames. This article shows a minor discourse shift during the Russian invasion of Ukraine and thus contributes to a better understanding of the political leader’s social media communication during the crisis.

Python Implementation of Dynamic Effectiveness Modeling of Random Node Network Community Technology Assisted Open Chinese Excellent Traditional Culture Dissemination

This paper proposes a community key node shortest path algorithm based on random node social network. The algorithm divides the social network into communities and determines the shortest paths between core nodes and non-core nodes in each community. Facing the complex information and cultural environment and the influence of foreign cultures, it is necessary to use its media to integrate the advantages of new technologies and platforms, and to innovate the propagation paths and platforms of traditional culture. The path of mutual integration is expected to provide reference for the inheritance and promotion of China's excellent traditional culture and the enrichment of ideological and political education resources for college students. The hypothesis processing of the model is carried out, the dynamic performance evaluation model is established, and finally the dynamic performance modeling based on python is established.

A landscape view of news recommendation systems based on MIND dataset

Nowadays, it’s a very important way for researchers and all people to find their desired meaning instead of searching for a specific topic. Recommendation systems are strategies to solve the problems of search, finding or reducing the time of interest content for users under complex information environments. R.S. can show us the related results that are close to what we desire. In this paper, we list rates of the most used techniques applied over MIND dataset and show the results and comparisons among these techniques, we have proposed our analysis on that dataset, which has been collected from Microsoft in 2019, and we proposed new techniques and explain the views of researchers in previous studies and the techniques in R.S. that depend on.

Methods and Methodological Foundations of Keykis Counseling and Its Application in the Pedagogical Practice

The complex social and information environment where the educational process of today takes place requires the implementation of different counseling approaches, techniques and technologies as part of the pedagogical practice for the purpose of improving the latter’s effectiveness. Familiarity with and mastery of different strategies and forms of psychological support enhances the teacher’s competencies and contributes to the success and utility of his activity. One of the contemporary approaches to counseling, which has recently been adapted to the field of education, is Keykis counseling. It is an approach primarily focused on analysis of the problem situation the client has found himself in, his style of behavior and the development of multivariate solutions to the presenting problem. Analysis within Keykis counseling is based upon scientifically sound methods of assessment of the available resources, both material and non-material ones, as well as their conversion into possible norms. It is precisely this analysis of the resources and their conversion that serves as the objective foundation upon which multivariate solutions to the problem situation are formulated.

Future Directions for Digital Literacy Fluency using Cognitive Flexibility Research: A Review of Selected Digital Literacy Paradigms and Theoretical Frameworks

As learners engage, test, and apply new subject knowledge, they often expend their cognitive capacity on the technological tools designed to capture their learning progress and outcomes. The energy and attention spent on these tools reduces their capacity to engage deeply with new learning concepts. Digital literacy skills require both cognitive and technical skills to develop a learner’s ability to locate, use, and communicate information. Increasingly complex information environments create various barriers for student learning, and as our learning and working industries continue to evolve and integrate technologies, students must overcome these barriers by bridging learning needs and technology expectations. This research explores the value of developing digital literacy to improve learners’ cognitive flexibility by decreasing technological cognitive load and increasing learning fluency. The findings highlight the need for establishing scaffolded digital literacy skills and digital tool selection, and expand college readiness requirements to include digital literacy as a prerequisite skill for learners.

May I have your Attention, please? An eye tracking study on emotional social media comments

Emotions are essential in today's complex information environments, as they catch readers' attention and impact the depth of information processing. In online interactions - such as user comments on social media platforms - emotions are increasingly present. We performed a preregistered eye-tracking study to understand the effects of emotional user comments on attention. Participants (N = 155) in our study read a series of user comments with different emotional tones. We measured the effects of emotions on information processing and visual attention by comparing the dwell times of participants of two experimental groups: a heuristic processing group and a systematic processing group. Our results revealed differences in visual attention towards comments with a negative versus positive valence and between the discrete emotions of anger and fear. These findings led to a discussion about emotions' role in information processing when individuals read user comments on social media.

Data assets, information uses, and operational efficiency

ABSTRACT This paper studies the impact of data assets on firms’ operational efficiency, aiming to show how data assets work in business operations and highlight their key value. Given the rich content, data assets can increase operational efficiency as it embeds firms with valuable information used to optimize resource deployment in production and improve customer relationship management. Using a sample of A-share listed firms in China from 2003 to 2019, we empirically show a consistent and significantly positive relationship between a text-based measure of data assets and operational efficiency. Moreover, the positive effect of data assets on operational efficiency is more pronounced in state-owned enterprises (SOEs), diversified firms with redundant internal information, and firms in a more complex external information environment (i.e. more volatile earnings of the industry or a larger dispersion of analysts’ forecasts). As further evidenced by higher turnover ratios of inventory and lower turnover ratios of accounts receivables in firms with data assets, we verify that data assets lead to efficient production management and flexible customer relationship management. Overall, these results suggest that data assets are valuable in the efficiency improvement of firms by facilitating information uses.

Adaptive cognitive fit: Artificial intelligence augmented management of information facets and representations

Explosive growth in big data technologies and artificial intelligence (AI) applications have led to increasing pervasiveness of information facets and a rapidly growing array of information representations. Information facets, such as equivocality and veracity, can dominate and significantly influence human perceptions of information and consequently affect human performance. Extant research in cognitive fit, which preceded the big data and AI era, focused on the effects of aligning information representation and task on performance, without sufficient consideration to information facets and attendant cognitive challenges. Therefore, there is a compelling need to understand the interplay of these dominant information facets with information representations and tasks, and their influence on human performance. We suggest that artificially intelligent technologies that can adapt information representations to overcome cognitive limitations are necessary for these complex information environments. To this end, we propose and test a novel “Adaptive Cognitive Fit” (ACF) framework that explains the influence of information facets and AI-augmented information representations on human performance. We draw on information processing theory and cognitive dissonance theory to advance the ACF framework and a set of propositions. We empirically validate the ACF propositions with an economic experiment that demonstrates the influence of information facets, and a machine learning simulation that establishes the viability of using AI to improve human performance.

Make Me Think! Exploring Library User Experience through the Lens of (Critical) Information Literacy

While (critical) information literacy (IL) acknowledges the political, economic, and social forces that shape complex information environments, library user experience (UX) typically centers efficiency and “seamlessness,” ignoring the power structures and values that condition learning. In this article, we explore the tensions between IL and UX values and practices, with the aim of starting a conversation about how these two related fields can become more closely aligned.

Perceptions of food safety, access to information, and political trust in China

Food safety is a major concern among the Chinese public, with far-reaching political implications. In this study, we developed a theoretical framework to examine the effects of food safety problems on diffuse and specific political trust from the perspective of information in an authoritarian censorship context. Using the latest national survey data, we established an interactive process between the government, information environment, and Chinese public. Our results showed that exposure to Internet and information obtained via the grapevine were positively correlated with public concern about food safety, while information obtained via the mass media did not have a significant effect. A similar pattern emerged for the effects of access to different information sources on trust in the political system and central government. Political trust in the central government in China appeared to be pseudo diffuse trust. Our findings indicate that the complex information environment in authoritarian China affects public perceptions of food safety problems and multilevel political trust.

The influence of policy uncertainty on exchange rate forecasting

AbstractUsing the economic policy uncertainty (EPU) index of Baker et al. (2016), we examine the influence of EPU on the characteristics of USD/JPY exchange rate forecasts. Our sample period, which spans two decades, incorporates a range of economic and political conditions for the USA and Japan. Consistent with higher EPU engendering a more complex information environment, that introduces noise into the forecasting process, our results clearly demonstrate that analyst forecast errors, and forecast dispersion, increase with EPU. The empirical findings are consistent across forecast horizons ranging from 1 month to 1 year. This has important implications for market participants who use exchange rate forecasts when making business and investment decisions.