Moderating effects of task characteristics on information source use: An individual-level analysis of R&D professionals in new product development

Through an individual-level analysis of R&D professionals in technology-based firms, the current study examines the moderating effects of task characteristics on the relationships between source characteristics and information source use in terms of use frequency and source internality, in the context of new product development. The results show that task characteristics moderate the effects of source characteristics on information source use. Specifically, task uncertainty moderates the effect of source accessibility on use frequency for both internal and external sources. The positive relationship between source accessibility and use frequency of information sources is stronger when task uncertainty is low than when it is high. Furthermore, the results reveal that task characteristics moderate the effects of source characteristics on source internality. The present study provides strong evidence that the key to understanding how task characteristics affect information source use and reconciling the disagreements between the least effort principle and the quality-driven perspective is to examine the moderating effects of task characteristics on information seeking behaviour, and take into account the potential substitution effect between internal and external sources in information seeking.