Transitions in workplace information practices and culture: The influence of newcomers on information use in healthcare

The purpose of this paper is to empirically investigate how new healthcare professionals engage with information practices and information culture in their workplace, and the resulting influences on development and change.

A longitudinal study was conducted on a hospital training programme. Three series of focus groups provided data from 18 recently qualified nurses, supported by observations. Data were thematically analysed applying a framework consisting of six approaches to information use.

Newcomers take a proactive approach to seek, use and share scientific information, which is negotiated within existing information practices and organisational information culture. Their competencies, such as research skills, values, motivation and sense of integrity to use and share scientific information, often differ from those existing workplace practices. For this reason, they drive towards renewal and change.

Examination of organisational approaches to information use indicates clearly the necessity for improvements to meet the needs of information proactiveness and thus be able to face challenges and changes in an organisation.

This work sheds new light on newcomers’ information use, as they integrate into a workplace and interact with information practices and organisational approaches to information use. A significant contribution is the identification of the dynamics and interdependencies between newcomers’ individual agency in their way of seeking, using and sharing information, and the established community’s social agency promoting existing information practices and the organisational agency represented by information culture.