The main aim of this study is to investigate the provision and use of industrial information in Saudi Arabia, to compare it with corresponding patterns in the UK, and to examine what conclusions follow from this comparison for the information infrastructure in Saudi Arabia. To achieve this aim four main objectives have been established: (1) to determine what major information services are available to Saudi and British industry; (2) to examine the level of service and relevance of the information provided; (3) to investigate how aware industries are of information services and to what extent they use them; (4) to look for differences in the use of information services as a function of the type of firm concerned. The major focus of the work is on provision and use of this information in Saudi Arabia. It is not intended as a comprehensive overview of all business information in the UK. The first stage of the methodology involved a questionnaire survey distributed to Saudi manufacturing firnls in the building, chemical and metals industries. For the UK, the same industries were selected, and the size and distribution of the sample surveyed were chosen so as to parallel the Saudi sample. The second stage of the methodology involved a series of interviews carried out in both Saudi Arabia and the UK with the main information providers cited by the respondents. The main findings of this study show that Saudi firms tap a greater number of government information sources than Britishfirms do, but the latter use more non-government sources. This difference reflects the stronger emphasis on information provision by the government in Saudi Arabia, as compared with government provision in the UK.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:241014 |
| Date | January 1994 |
| Creators | Arif, Mohammad Jafar |
| Publisher | Loughborough University |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | https://dspace.lboro.ac.uk/2134/10453 |
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