ABSTRACT
The entry provides an overview of knowledge creation and information use within the organizational context. It is claimed that research focusing on these issues has developed since the 1990s within library and information science (LIS). Research on information use within organizational settings belongs to the research field of information behavior and information seeking and has gained attention in research focusing on information needs and uses of different professions and tasks and recently on outcomes or effects of information. Research on knowledge creation, in turn, is related to the multidisciplinary field of knowledge management (KM) and has been more focused on within the field of organization theory and management studies. In this entry, first, the distinctive nature of the concepts of information and knowledge is highlighted, and the main types of organizational knowledge are presented. Information management (IM) and KM as the fields of LIS and their research traditions are discussed. Research on information use is reviewed by placing the emphasis on information use environments in particular. Moreover, a model of organizational information use that includes knowledge creation is examined, and the Japanese models of knowledge creation are presented. These models are compared to highlight their potential relationships. After that, an alternative framework will be presented as a theoretically consistent foundation to understand knowledge creation in organizational settings. Finally, future research trends are outlined.
