Information-Flow Waste in Organizations: Conceptual Development and Empirical Validation of a Measurement Scale

Information-flow waste refers to activities within organizational information flows that consume resources without creating value, yet standardized instruments for systematically measuring this construct remain lacking. This study aims to clarify the construct structure of information-flow waste and develop a corresponding scale. Candidate items were generated through literature analysis, expert interviews, and cognitive interviews. The scale was then purified and validated using two independent manufacturing samples (n = 266 and n = 287) through exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, measurement invariance testing, and nomological validity testing. The results support a second-order structure comprising information acquisition, information transmission, information storage, and information processing, yielding a final 23-item Information-Flow Waste Scale. The scale demonstrates good reliability, convergent validity, and discriminant validity and achieves strict measurement invariance across production and operations, professional and technical, and supervisory and managerial job groups. Information-flow waste is significantly and positively associated with information overload, providing initial support for the scale’s nomological validity. This study provides a standardized measurement instrument for subsequent empirical research on information-flow waste and, in manufacturing contexts, a measurement basis for identifying manifestations of waste across stages of information flow and conducting subsequent problem analysis.