Putting Knowledge to Use - Evolving Global Information Infrastructure and Information Transfer - page 118

ledge is both an economic resource and a commodity. The world of Facebook,
Google, LinkedIn, Twitter, and other social media highlights the increased import-
ance of content and knowledge rather than only information dissemination. Cus-
tomization of information services, creating packages of information and repack-
aging it, and information utility services add value to products that lead to greater
utilization. As society created new knowledge ever more quickly and implemen-
ted new technologies that intensified the creation, mass production, dissemination,
and diffusion of knowledge, the utilization process became more complex, and the
information infrastructure's complexity has challenged utilization.

Utilization Defined

Larsen (1980, 421) raises the question, what is knowledge utilization? How do
we define it, and is it situation-specific? Larsen notes that utilization studies are
affected by “the world of political pressure, historical traditions, hunches and the
like.” Early assumptions were that an entire set of recommendations, as seen in
the Iowa hybrid corn studies, must be accepted for utilization to take place. Nonutil-
ization was not considered in that study. However, like diffusion, utilization is a pro-
cess with several stages: knowledge awareness is evaluated in a context of other
options, and then utilization starts, perhaps with partial implementation, becomes
part of the work routine and organizational policy, and eventually becomes integ-
rated into the work process.

Stages of Utilization

A further amplification of classifying utilization and nonutilization is by Larsen
and Werner (1981, 79-80). They note that implementation may occur in several
stages:

• Complete implementation of information as presented;

• Adaptation of information—it is changed from its original presentation;

• Partial use of information; or

• Steps that have been taken toward implementation, although full imple-

mentation has not occurred.

Larsen and Werner (1981, 80) also classify stages of nonutilization:

• Information has been considered by a potential user but then is rejected;