Information Technology Reference
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information, the cost of information behavior for the HFS is only the cost of
offering the information. To discern what kind of information is desired, a partici-
pant must scan information that has already been gathered on the HFS platforms.
Thus, the participant has to pay time and cognitive costs. Additionally, if the
participant does not have the desired information or cannot be convinced of its
accuracy, he or she may not offer information or do any additional searching.
Thus, a prospect of obtaining information affects a participant's motivation or
commitment to the HFS. In this regard, this study defines 'information
prospectability' as a factor affecting the decision whether to offer information.
Information prospectability is a subjective expectancy about the cost of information
behavior required to obtain information about a target. The lower the cost of
information behavior is required, the better information prospectability becomes.
Thus, if information prospectability is high, in accordance with the expectancy
theory of motivation, expectancy becomes higher.
Information prospectability depends on both individual attributes and the avail-
able information. The individual attributes include information-handling skills and
self-efficacy. Available information means both the quality and quantity of infor-
mation. Available information provides clues for additional searching and
identifying ambiguous information. Excessive information, however, may increase
the cost of scanning information. Moreover, information without coherency or
context may become 'noise' and worsen information prospectability. Thus, ensur-
ing high information prospectability requires not only increasing the amount of
available information but also organizing and directing information. In HFS, these
functions are provided primarily by On-A contributors.
14.9 Online and Offline Loops in HFS
In the HFS process, there are two 'loops', the online and offline loops (Fig.
14.9
).
Both loops start at with a limited offering of information by a contributor. In the
online loop, if the cost for additional searching is estimated to be relatively small,
online contributors search online and offer more information including noise. An
increase of available information makes the cost for additional searching smaller.
However, at the same time, the increase in noise makes the cost for discerning
information higher and it decreases participants' motivation. According to the
balance of the amount of information and noise, further online search may not
occur.
The offline loop is the same as the online loop regarding estimating costs and
offering information, although offline searches can reduce noise. Because of this, a
combination of online and offline loops forms a positive feedback loop and it can
provide more powerful searching than each loop alone. Nevertheless, for offline
contributors, the cost of information behavior tends to be higher than for online
contributors.
