Informant Bias

Conceptual Overview and Discussion

The concept of the informant was first used in positivist anthropological studies of American Indians, whose culture no longer functioned as a single entity. The informant provided information about the culture that could not be directly reported on. In the absence of observable conditions, informants were used to provide information about the cultures.

The use of the informant technique was brought forward in organizational research by Morris Zelditch in 1962. This work made the distinction between informants who reported about individual experience and those who reported about others.

[Page 460]

Using an informant is contrasted to the use of a respondent, a subject who reports directly from his or her own experience. When individuals are asked to represent the organization, their role within the organization and how closely they are involved with the information requested creates a potential gap in the information provided.

When the informant approach is used in a (positivist) ethnographic study, the presence of the observer allows for judgments of the accuracy of the information provided. The researcher's experience allows for the separation of quality information from that which is not representative of the situation under examination. The use of informants in other types of field studies however, raises the greater potential for informant bias, which impacts the findings of the study. The ability to ensure accuracy of information is compromised by the use of accounts from individuals who may not understand or perceive the situation accurately.

There are two contributors to informant bias. The first is when the individual is reporting on events to which his or her proximity was limited and thus may not include all necessary information. If someone is reporting on behalf of the organization, that person is reporting on information to which he or she may not have been directly exposed or of which he or she does not have a complete understanding. If the informant is recounting past events, then memory distortion will also be a factor that will account for the bias. This is amplified if the person has not been directly involved in the first place and therefore jeopardizes the validity of the account.

The second contributor to informant bias is based on the individual's position. Research conducted at the organizational level is usually more susceptible to informant bias. The individual reporting for the organization may not understand or reveal the true nature of the concepts in question. The individual's portrayal of what is occurring within the organization may not provide a complete understanding of the given situation; for example, information provided by an executive versus information from a line worker varies. The informants may even disagree with one another. This disagreement can be due in part to different perceptions of organizational activity, depending on the position of the individual. The amount of inaccurate information constitutes the informant bias.

...