Are Importance Ratings Stable? A Study of Perceptions of Information Quality

Information consumption in China occurs in a rapidly shifting social and political environment. Understanding this group of information consumers is likely to play an important role in business and political decision making globally for the foreseeable future. Ratings of the importance of the dimensions of information quality and the way in which these ratings have shifted over time shed light on the beliefs of this group of information consumers. This study reports the results of a nonpanel longitudinal study involving two surveys conducted in China over a five year period examining information consumer ratings of the importance of the dimensions of information quality. Results show that Chinese information consumers rate the information quality dimensions of believability, reputation, and value-added as less important at the end of the five year period than at the beginning and rate representational consistency and concise representation as more important at the end of the five year period than at the beginning.