The Geo‐Socio‐Personal Model: Mapping Complex Information Ecosystems for Research‐related Information Behaviors

ABSTRACT Creating international collaborative teams is common to address complex research problems in low‐income countries. Teams involve experts from low‐ and high‐income countries who must share information and communicate across interpersonal, organizational, and national contingencies and geographic and temporal borders. Effective information sharing between people and across institutions requires nuanced understandings of various information ecosystems, including the relationships between attitudes, values, and behaviors of individuals and organizations. This paper reports on an evidence‐based model developed from a qualitative study of research teams operating in two countries (Lao People's Democratic Republic and Australia), using constructivist grounded theory methodology. The resulting Geo‐Socio‐Personal (GSP) Model for Complex Information Ecosystems reflects multicultural relationships at four levels: geo‐structural, geo‐social, organizational, and inter−/intra‐personal. The model examines contingencies affecting information behaviors across all four levels, including interpersonal, organizational, and international relations, and the economic, political, and structural levels that posit these relations.