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The outcomes of information behaviours have traditionally been conceptualised as use or effects. The adoption of a sociological stance, based on a practices approach, provides the opportunity to challenge these understandings. The non-Western setting further enhances the possibilities for conceptualising the outcomes of information practices as forms of capital.

This ethnographic study uses a Bourdieusian approach to investigate the information practices of diasporic devotees and monks of a Theravada Buddhist Temple in Sydney, Australia. The insider position of one researcher brought strong insights into the data, while the theoretical approach shared with the other researchers reinforced an outsider perspective.

The Temple’s online sources and personal communication with other devotees provide a diverse range of sources that devotees use in information-based cultural practices and everyday life information practices. These practices lead to outcomes that can be identified as economic, social and cultural capital. Pin or merit emerges as an important outcome of practices which is not easily accommodated by the concept of outcome, nor by Bourdieu’s categories of capital.

Adding to the small number of studies concerned with information practices in a spiritual context, this study shows the value of a Bourdieusian approach in identifying the outcomes of information practices as capital, but highlights the shortcomings of applying Western concepts in non-Western settings. It proposes the possibility of a new form of capital, which will need to be tested rigorously in studies in other spiritual settings.

Discussions in contemporary spirituality frequently highlight a phenomenon of spiritual seeking; moreover, people often describe their spiritual journeys in terms of a search. This paper takes a closer look at this metaphor by presenting a study that analysed spiritual seeking and its informational features in contemporary non-institutionalised settings.

In this study, the authors conducted semi-structured interviews with thirteen spiritual teachers and speakers who were asked questions about spiritual seeking in contemporary non-institutionalised spirituality.

The authors' participants explained that contemporary spiritual seekers sought spiritual information as a result of affective, developmental and metaphysical concerns. Moreover, their analysis indicated that spiritual information-seeking behaviour incorporated practices such as prayer, yoga and meditation, and contemporary spiritual information interactions were facilitated through spiritual retreats, meditation classes, yoga classes and online social platforms.

Since the authors focused on spiritual seeking in contemporary non-institutionalised settings, their findings cannot exhaustively represent all spiritual pursuits in contemporary society. Their study (1) identifies the informational features of contemporary spiritual seeking, (2) explains spiritual seeking as an activity that may theoretically reside within a broader framework of profound information interactions and (3) helps theorise the concept of qualitative profundity in information science research.

This study provides an intuitive contextual approach for undertaking information research in under-explored domains such as contemplation and spirituality.

The aim of this study was to evaluate the efficacy with which care plans capture and make use of data on the spiritual and religious concerns of mental health service users in a UK Health and Social Care Trust.

A questionnaire was given to service users (n=71) and the findings compared with the information held on their behalf by the relevant Health and Social Care Trust at three key points in the care planning process.

The study found that the importance that many service users accorded to spirituality and religion was not reflected in the electronic records, that some information was wrong or wrongly nuanced when compared with the patient's self-description and that service users themselves were often mistaken regarding the type and quality of information held on record.

The implications of these findings are discussed in relation to the process of information gathering, to the training and support of Care Coordinators and to the monitoring and revision of Care Plans. The discrepancy between the information supplied by service users and that recorded by the Trust suggests that, despite government guidance, spiritual and religious concerns are not being given consideration in the construction of care plans. Possible reasons for this oversight are discussed.

Although there have been studies of the delivery of “spiritual care” in general acute care, there have been no similar studies in relation to mental health service users and their needs. The comparison of information from the service users themselves with the information recorded by the Trust provides a measure of the extent to which service user's own perspectives are being incorporated into their care plans.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the effectiveness of the use of spiritual intelligence into women academic leadership practices. The study designed to provide a clear understanding of the effectiveness of the use of spiritual intelligence practices within women academic leadership practices. In addition, the study will be an ideal for women in academic environment, considering that more women will have the opportunities to hold leadership positions in higher learning institutions. Understanding the unique skills and attributes of spiritual intelligence could increase their confidence towards taking on leadership positions in future. This study will also provide greater clarification on how spiritual intelligence when translated through leadership practice will contribute to a more balanced and harmonious working environment.

The study assimilated a qualitative approach guided by phenomenological inquiry to explore the effectiveness of the use of spiritual intelligence practices among the women leaders. Phenomenology best fit the researchers’ assumptions that it is possible to know, define and categorize women academic leader’s experiences in a more structured manner. It is by entering into their field of perception that the researcher pursues to understand spiritual intelligence as the leaders saw it.

The finding established three main effectiveness of integrating spiritual intelligence into leadership practices: employees inspired by vision; increase credibility and long-term sustainability of institution; and heightened moral values and reduces ethical issues. The authors conclude that bringing the attributions of spiritual intelligence will transform the workplace into a more meaningful and purposeful atmosphere by constructing balanced and harmonious relationship within employees.

The study rely profoundly on women academic leaders as a primary source of data. Due to their higher position, there may be some elements of their works which are similar to each other or different compared with other women leaders who may not have reached the higher position. The responses was mainly based on the self-perception of women academic leaders grounded on their insight of leadership and experience. This experiences probably could not be verified by others to see if their perceptions of leadership were in line with how others perceive them. The study also limited in terms of generalizability as the sample was purposively selected.

The study will be applicable for human resource personnel to develop policies and procedures that are needed to improve the holistic strategies of leading not only in public university but also throughout all the other higher educational institutions. The study assist researcher and the practitioner in the Human Resource Development (HRD) field to understand the issues related to leadership practice in current era. Hence, the information in this study could be used to aid them in advocating employee training programs and formulating HRD intervention remedial programs input for designing and facilitating of intervention for professional academic leaders, academicians and change agent to understand and analyse the characteristics of personal and organizational situation in order to contribute to the long run survival of the higher educational learning institutions.

This paper has provided unique evidence of women leadership particularly in Malaysian higher educational context on their experiences of spiritual intelligence and its effectiveness into their leadership practices.

The purpose of this paper is to explore one broad question: what do information, information processes, information services, as well as information systems and technology have to do with the spiritual?

The task is accomplished by conducting a literature review of 31 refereed texts in information studies. The paper proceeds by inspecting the manifestation of spirituality in information sources, generic information processes, as well as specific information processes: conceptualizing, seeking, processing, using, storing, describing and providing information.

A total of 11 relationships between information phenomena and the spiritual are discovered. Based on these, a definition of spiritual information is put forth. There are also some descriptive statistics on the corpus as a whole.

The results are susceptible to limitations imposed by the reviewed studies themselves. Errors of interpretation were a possibility. The article suggests many directions for further research in the context of the spiritual, and discusses how to view spirituality in information science.

Practical implications are only mentioned here and there, because research implications are of primary concern in the investigation.

This paper is the first to synthesize information research in the spiritual domain. Beyond the subject area, the article demonstrates how to classify information processes, and conduct a context‐centric literature review in the field of information studies.

The basic idea of this chapter is to utilize spiritual information in empirically exploring how its purported source beings view the impacts of such information upon various phenomena. This chapter aims at discovering and describing the most central effect dimensions in this context and, by so doing, at building theoretical constructs. The empirical work was done during 2005–2009 in Finland. Because of the relative novelty of the research topic, an inductive approach was applied. The research data were composed of a representative sample of 62 spiritual texts (printed books and articles, as well as Web and e-mail articles). The chapter examines the discovered categories and their subcategories, shows the most salient connections between them and discusses the findings in the context of previous research. The investigation explored two dimensions: the targets and actuality of the impacts of spiritual information. The impact targets were classified as organisms (human individuals, human communities, extraterrestrials, spirits), things (parts of beings, objects, information, situations), processes (events, practices, life) and spaces (areas, Earth, universe). The actuality of the impacts of spiritual information fell under these categories: desired (implicitly desired, intended, explicitly desired, requisitioned) impacts, real (possible, believed, factual, alternative) impacts, nonexistent (hypothetical, no) impacts, as well as conditional (on supernatural sender, information, humans, situation) and unconditional impacts. This inquiry revealed several new varieties of information impact and even built whole new typologies, because quite little was known about both the targets and actuality of the impacts of information before the present study.

The concept of cyber-spirituality and digital security has recently emerged due to the increasing dependence on technology. Using technology in spiritual contexts presents opportunities for enhanced spiritual experiences and risks that can compromise one's digital security. It emphasizes how the intersection of spirituality and technology can potentially result in a more fulfilling spiritual practice while adding to the existing concerns about data security.

In contemporary times, the impact of technology on mental health has emerged as a critical concern that demands ethical conduct in cyberspace. People are increasingly invested in fostering interfaith dialogues, achieving social equity, and promoting fair play within online communities. This chapter highlights the imperative need to approach technology with mindfulness while prioritizing digital safety in the fast-paced world.

In today's interconnected world, internet users are constantly exposed to a host of risks, including cyberattacks, cyberbullying, cyber-victimizations, and privacy violations. This chapter critically examines these severe threats to personal safety as well as overall societal well-being caused by increasing digitization. Focusing on critical factors such as digital literacy, digital citizenship, cybersecurity practices, and the legal framework concerning data protection, it stresses responsible conduct in the virtual space through informed decision-making by individuals.

Overall, this chapter aims to investigate how cyber-spirituality intersects with digital security in the context of the workplace. Accordingly, it advocates for an introspective attitude toward technology usage that underscores responsible behavior while helping us strike a balanced relationship with digital tools. Through this approach, we can not only safeguard against potential threats but also enhance our emotional well-being.

Americans increasingly feel a sense of wonder at the universe; meditation and yoga are on the rise; and a field known as Contemplative Studies has emerged. These indicators, among others, suggest a groundswell of interest in contemplative practice and contemplative experience and raise intriguing questions for information and Information Studies. Against this backdrop, this paper asks: How might Information Studies contribute to these developments? What is the relationship between information and contemplation? What can be explored on this research frontier?

This conceptual paper is based upon a synthesis of recent writings from the field of Contemplative Studies as well as conceptual analysis of selected papers and themes in Information Studies. It draws from discussion that occurred at a Session for Interaction and Engagement at the 2018 iConference, entitled “Contemplating Information in the Pleasurable and the Profound” (Latham et al., 2018). The authors' creative thinking and personal contemplative practices also infuse and fortify the work.

Popular and academic contemplative movements are afoot, and Information Studies has an opportunity to participate or be left behind. The field of Contemplative Studies has established the foundational concepts that can serve as contextual material for information research into contemplation. Upon closer inspection, Information Studies has already broached the topic of contemplation at various points in its history, theory, institutional practices, and information behavior research. The conceptual points of departure for a research frontier are articulated.

Beyond data, information, and knowledge are deeper and more profound aims, such as wisdom, which is related to contemplation. This paper supplies a rationale, scholarly community, conceptual resources, historical precedents, and guiding questions for bridging information and contemplation.

This paper aims to understand the religio-spiritual insights of the consumers and investigate their relationship with the consumers’ attitude towards advertising and its antecedents. Religious festivals, such as Ramadan, are celebrated with high religio-spiritual contemplations, which are often targeted by intensive marketing campaigns. During these religious festivals, consumers’ attitude toward advertising is influenced when television commercials contain “unnecessary” entertainment, “inappropriate casting” of celebrities with less credibility, “cluttered” information, “phony claims” related to good for economy and “annoying content” increasing consumers’ irritation.

This study developed a higher-order construct of religio-spiritual insights and used “Theory of Reasoned Action” for measuring the effect of religio-spiritual insights on consumers’ attitude toward advertising. Exploratory sequential mixed methods research design was used to develop and validate the instrument. A total of 30 semi-structured interviews were conducted during i-depth analysis phase to generate themes and questionnaire. During instrument validation phase, 839 Muslim consumers were surveyed by using the questionnaire, and instrument was validated by using the co-variance-based structural equation modeling approach.

This study develops and validates the instrument of religio-spiritual insights and identifies its significant direct and mediating effects between the consumer’s attitude toward advertising and its determinants.

The newly developed instrument of religio-spiritual insights is based on six dimensions, namely, “beliefs and practices,” “association with higher power,” “interconnectedness,” “self-actualization,” “heart and mind involvement,” “knowledge and meanings.” This instrument of religio-spiritual insights was validated and then tested by using a conceptual framework based on the several variables, such as attitude toward advertising, irritation, good for economy, entertainment, credibility and information.

The purpose of this study was to examine the experience of strategic-level leaders whose spiritual beliefs or practices inform their organizational decision making.

Using a phenomenological methodology, 25 executives were interviewed to understand their lived experience. All participants held executive level positions, engaged in spiritual practices at least once a week and described spirituality as important in their lives.

Thematic analysis revealed themes that pointed to the locus of spirituality in the lives of the executives (innate but not overt) and the types of decisions for which they turned to their spirituality (decisions concerning people). When facing these types of decisions, leaders described an additional step we named “executive discernment.” This additional step sought to establish a connection with the transcendent and was described as heightening their decision-making abilities, serving as a model or “North Star,” or guiding them to a decision.

This study builds on prior theoretical work and gives insight into a process not usually visible: executives' reliance on spirituality during organizational decision making. These insights highlight the potential benefits and provide specificity to the potential risks for leaders who turn to spirituality when making organizational decisions. These risks include an overconfidence in one's decision-making abilities, reliance on an authority inconsistent with organizational aims or failing to convince others of the wisdom of the chosen direction.