Information Acquisition is the most essential and the most widely¡Vused function on the Internet. The Internet provides a platform on which News to be communicated to users faster and services to be delivered more efficiently. With the growth of users on the Internet, the online news database becomes a powerful tool of information acquisition under the integration of computers and communication technologies. Users can find useful information related to their work and daily life very easily. The purpose of this research is to investigate the information acquisition behavior affiliated with different uses of on-line news database. We use the Task-Technology Fit Model proposed by Goodhue and Thompson (1995) to investigate whether a better fit can result in a better decision satisfaction. An experiment was designed to study the user satisfaction under different settings of task characteristics and search tools. The results indicate that different search tools result in different satisfaction levels. More specifically, the keyword search has resulted a higher user satisfaction than the classified catalog search tool. Unfortunately, we do not find a better fit between task characteristics and the search tool can result in a higher user satisfaction. The findings can tell why Google, a pure keyword search engine, becomes dominating on the Internet search. It also provides implications for the design of search tools and the improvement on the functions of classified catalogs for developing on-line news Databases.

The rapid growth of World Wide Web has created a new platform for information exchange. Although WWW makes more data easily available, it has also created many problems such as information overload, disorientation, and reduced quality of data. In order to solve these problems, most current approaches primarily focused on information filtering and searching based on the technical perspective. Few researches have provided analytical results of the information acquisition behaviors over the Web. Based on the cognitive fit theory and task-technology fit (TTF) theory, this study proposes a comprehensive research model to describe the individual information acquisition strategies on the World Wide Web. To examine the research model, a laboratory experiment was performed on a group of 120 students. Sixteen task scenarios were designed and one prototype website was developed according to the specifications defined through the literature review and a pilot study. The research results show that both task structure and system characteristics have an impact upon individual information acquisition behaviors over the website. The experiment also confirms that subjects feel more satisfactions at adopting formal search and purposeful browsing strategies. The understanding effect of the research object is a function of scanning and purposeful browsing strategies. The interaction between task structure and system characteristics is also significant. These findings allow us to have a better understanding of information acquisitions behavior on the Web.

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Just like in other national legislatures in recent years, women have increased in numbers in Uganda, owing mostly to the introduction of affirmative action policies. These measures are regarded as fast track approaches to counter previous historical injustices and imbalances. However, these developments, which also reflect transposition in the social positioning of women from a marginal and probably limited outlook, to a broader, public and visible status in the public sphere, come with various challenges. The constraints are attributed to lack of adjustments within the organizational norms and procedures. Thus the main questions addressed by the study are: What happens when this previously less represented group becomes part of the mainstream? What are the implications in information access, information communication and information use? How can this inform us about the overall process of integration and social transformation? What information possibilities can women exploit to gain a more central place in mainstream politics? One of the assumptions is that access to and use of information is essential to full integration and in occupying a dominant position in the political environment which would consequently transform governance. The thesis is based on qualitative in-depth interviews and observations of legislators and non legislators with strong connections to Parliamentarians’ tasks. The findings reveal that a legislator’s versatility, world outlook and social positioning within the Parliamentary structures greatly improves ability to acquire and use information and possibly a legislator’s capability to influence national policy making. Women face challenges at two levels; the social and political context. There are possibilities of change through their own network. / Akademisk avhandling som med tillstånd av samhällsvetenskapliga fakulteten vid Göteborgs universitet för vinnande av doktorsexamen framläggs till offentlig granskning kl. 13.00 tisdagen den 29 september 2009 i sal E310, Högskolan i Borås.

<p>This paper analyzes a manager's optimal ex-ante reporting system using a Bayesian persuasion approach (Kamenica and Gentzkow (2011)) in a setting where investors affect cash flows through their decision to finance the firm's investment opportunities, possibly assisted by the costly acquisition of additional information (inspection). I examine how the informativeness and the bias of the optimal system are determined by investors' inspection cost, the degree of incentive alignment between the manager and the investor, and the prior belief that the project is profitable. I find that a mis-aligned manager's system is informative</p><p>only when the market prior is pessimistic and is always positively biased; this bias decreases as investors' inspection cost decreases. In contrast, a well-aligned manager's system is fully revealing when investors' inspection cost is high, and is counter-cyclical to the market belief when the inspection cost is low: It is positively (negatively) biased when the market belief is pessimistic (optimistic). Furthermore, I explore the extent to which the results generalize to a case with managerial manipulation and discuss the implications for investment efficiency. Overall, the analysis describes the complex interactions among determinants of firm disclosures and governance, and offers explanations for the mixed empirical results in this area.</p> / Dissertation

<p>This paper establishes the life-cycle dynamics of Corporate Venture Capital (CVC) to explore the information acquisition role of CVC investment in the process of corporate innovation. I exploit an identification strategy that allows me to isolate exogenous shocks to a firm's ability to innovate. Using this strategy, I first find that the CVC life cycle typically begins following a period of deteriorated corporate innovation and increasingly valuable external information, lending support to the hypothesis that firms conduct CVC investment to acquire information and innovation knowledge from startups. Building on this analysis, I show that CVCs acquire information by investing in companies with similar technological focus but have a different knowledge base. Following CVC investment, parent firms internalize the newly acquired knowledge into internal R&D and external acquisition decisions. Human capital renewal, such as hiring inventors who can integrate new innovation knowledge, is integral in this step. The CVC life cycle lasts about four years, terminating as innovation in the parent firm rebounds. These findings shed new light on discussions about firm boundaries, managing innovation, and corporate information choices.</p> / Dissertation

This dissertation studies an economy where efficiency depends on the correct match between projects and two experts. A low-skill expert has low fixed cost and low productivity, so he is more efficient in handling low-potential or low-difficulty projects. And the opposite is true for a high-skill expert. The dissertation studies the effectiveness of markets and organizations in overcoming asymmetric information issues, experts' incentives to acquire project information at a cost, and how experts use the information to facilitate the correct match. The first chapter studies a market where a referring expert privately knows a project's potential and may refer it at any price. Inspection benefits the referred expert. First, it allows him to find out the project's potential before accepting the referral offer. Second, it allows him to tailor production effort to the project's potential for maximum efficiency. In equilibrium, the referring expert pools projects into subsets and refers each subset at a different price. A higher price signals a subset of projects with higher potentials. The referred expert almost always inspects and then uses the information to make the acceptance decision. Each subset must be small enough to incentivize the referral at a price, but also large enough to incentivize inspection by the referred expert. The second chapter studies contract design within an organization. A principal has to rely on the two experts to learn about projects' difficulties. If information cost is small, the principal can implement the first best by an optimal mechanism with the low-skill expert acting as a gatekeeper. The low-skill gatekeeper expert is incentivized to acquire information and report it truthfully. Subsequently, the principal efficiently assigns the project based on the report. The third chapter studies a market where each of the two experts can exert a variable effort to acquire project information imperfectly. In the first best, experts coordinate their information acquisition efforts. In the market, either one or both experts acquire information. The two experts may fail to coordinate because one acquires information for efficient match but the other acquires information again to protect himself.

I collect data on subjects' information acquisition during real and hypothetical risky choices using process-tracing software called Mouselab. I also measure subjects' cognitive ability using the cognitive reflective test (CRT). On average, measured risk preferences are not significantly different across real and hypothetical settings. However, cognitive ability is inversely related to risk aversion when choices are hypothetical, but it is unrelated when the choices are real. This interaction between cognitive ability and hypothetical setting is consistent with the notion that some individuals, specifically higher-ability individuals, treat hypothetical choices as "puzzles" and may help explain why some studies find that subjects indicate that they are more tolerant of risk when they make hypothetical choices than when they make real choices. On average, subjects demonstrate a similar degree of consistency across settings, and there are also no significant differences across settings in the amount of time subjects take to make a choice, the amount of information they acquire, or how they distribute their attention. I also find evidence to suggest that subjects acquire information in a manner consistent with the implicit calculation of expected utility. Specifically, individuals do not merely make choices "as if" they are integrating probabilities and outcomes, it appears that they actually are. Moreover, as they progress through a series of choices in a commonly used risk preference elicitation method, their information acquisition becomes progressively more consistent with integration models. Finally, on average, individuals appear to acquire information in real and hypothetical settings in similar ways.

Fantasies are defined as byproducts of human imagination and mental activities to internalize unusual external objective stimulus. In the literature, utilization of fantasy in educational settings promoted intellectual and emotional improvements. However, the research implications from these fantasy research studies are mostly limited to traditional game design and classroom teaching. There are two research purposes in this study. The first is to examine how different types of fantasy and student fantasy proneness influence science learning, factual information acquisition, and game engagement in a 3D educational game environment called “Alien Rescue.” To accomplish this purpose, this research investigated the effects of fantasy type and fantasy proneness on science learning, factual information of alien characters, and game engagement. The second purpose of this study is to investigate student’s perception of the varying types of fantasy. To accomplish the second purpose of the study, this research inquired how student identified each type of fantasy and related his or her past experience to the embodied characteristics in alien characters. The participants of the study were 103 students who used Alien Rescue in four classes as their science curriculum for 10 days. The students in two classes were assigned to a treatment group using models with portrayal fantasy and the students in two classes were assigned to the other treatment group using models with creative fantasy. Employing mixed methods, this study analyzed both quantitative and qualitative data such as surveys and student interviews. The results in the quantitative part of the study showed that portrayal fantasy was effective for science learning, alien information acquisition, and game engagement. Specifically, the students who used portrayal fantasy models showed higher improvement of science knowledge and scored better on both alien information acquisition and game engagement. High fantasy proneness group also showed better game engagement. The finding with qualitative data showed that the students pointed out eight elements in identifying 3D fantasy objects, and those elements were relevant to the design elements that the researcher included in the 3D modeling procedure. The students also showed a perception pattern that they understood 3D game characters based upon previous experience regardless of fantasy type. The findings suggested that portrayal fantasy was effective in enhancing content learning, factual information acquisition, and engagement in educational games because the familiarity of the fantasy elements makes the identification of the fantasy characters easier and faster. However, too deep involvement in fantasy resulted in ineffective and inefficient learning outcomes. The findings also suggested that eight components of 3D models were essential elements in identifying fantasy game characters by learners as well as designing the 3D characters by game designers. / text

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