Information overload in marketing management

Developments in information and communication technology have facilitated the generation of management information considerably. Thus, managers are confronted increasingly with an information flood which provides more information than managers are able to process. This results in an information overload, which, while being advantageous, also carries considerable problems for both consumers and manager. This paper presents the scientific controversy surrounding the information overload problem, its behavioural background and the implications made. The studies presented in the review are mainly experiments. A complementary non‐experimental study by the author using a questionnaire to measure the subjectively perceived information overload of managers in various managerial fields is presented in the second part of this paper. The hypothesis, that the subjectively perceived information overload is positively related to the disposable information volume, was confirmed.

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