ABSTRACT
This chapter uses several approaches to analyze human service information needs. It discusses the organizational influences on human service decision making, contrasting human service organizations with business production organizations to better understand the influences. The chapter also discusses external organizational influences on information needs in terms of sociocultural, economic, political/legal, and technological aspects. Sociocultural force influencing human service information needs is the view that society has an obligation to care for its members in need. A second group of influences on human service information needs stems from the internal components of goals, people, structure, tasks, and technology. The chapter examines the processes and decision making at each level of the human service delivery system and presents the information needed to support the processes and decisions. It discusses the implications of human service information needs for designing and developing information technology applications.
