A Benevolent Community: Information Exchange Among University Staff

Abstract

Universities face increasing demands for the use of data to inform decision- making; with increasing amounts of data collected, the access and exchange of information continues to become more difficult in organizations. This study examines the roles of social capital and brokerage in the exchange of institutional information among administrative staff in a public university. The analysis is based on data from a survey completed by over 400 participants and eight interviews completed by administrative staff at a public research-intensive university. Findings suggest that several measures of social capital are associated with the perceptions of quality of information accessed, while information accessed through social networks is perceived to have lower quality, on average, than information accessed through information technology systems. Findings also suggest that, although information brokers within universities are willing to respond and are supportive of information requests from colleagues, constraints of time and resources make it difficult for them to provide the information requested.