The Impact of Information Literacy in the Digital Workplace

Information literacy is a standardized concept, developed within education and focusing how information literacy skills support learning and study outcome.Information literacy is increasingly recognized also in working life but clear measurement tools to study the impact of information literacy in the workplace are lacking. This would be crucial while we have an increasingly complex information environment, a convergence between physical and digital, and with several generations present in the workplace, having substantial differences in their attitudes to information practices and hence information literacy skills.The overall aim of the project is to find suitable methods to study the impact of information literacy skills on different levels and to develop workplace information literacy standards. Knowledge intensive workplaces and global organizations are studied where differences in information literacy skills are expected to have substantial effects on work outcome.

As organisations are going through digital transformation, the ability to manage digital information becomes a crucial part of the working skills. In this project information literacy (IL) has been focused as a key condition for successful digitalization. Through four sub-studies, the project has gained in-depth knowledge about the impact of IL on innovation, leadership, and development of social
networks and social capital in digital workplaces. The project has shown the importance of supporting employees awareness, attitudes and ability to appropriately use information technology to manage information and knowledge in their work. The project has shown the importance of understanding IL in context, addressing e.g. generational and cultural differences affecting employees’ IL skills. Finally,
the project has developed measures to study workplace IL which can be used for developing course of action to better support employees’ IL, making digitalization more efficient.

The project has developed quantitative measures for studying IL in workplace context, something that was lacking when the project was planned and started. The survey instruments will be further elaborated and tested in ongoing PhD projects. The instrument has also been adopted by researchers outside the project team. The project has also developed information literacy theory, and will further that work through an ongoing book project (Edited book on the importance of workplace information literacy in the context of digitalisation). The book will address
theoretical and methodological aspects, it describes different settings as examples on the impact of information literacy in the workplace, and it presents consequences and directions for future work in the area. It is accepted for publication at Facet publishing, London, UK. The readership of the book as primarily academics interested in information literacy, management and organization studies. The book is also
relevant for markets interested in digitalization within industrial organizations, public administration as well as in educational institutions.