The Selection of Effective Mode of Communication - Research Paper Example

The selection of Effective Mode of Communication 1.0 Introduction In a recent survey made by Opinion Research Corporation, it was concluded that effective communication has a positive impact on an employee’s motivation level. An article in Business Wire ( 2009 ) reported that “employees may two times more likely go the extra mile “ and “recommend their company four times more likely” when corporate communication is effective in their organization . Corporate Communication is one area in management that has gained increasing importance since through effective communication, a company or an organization can gain cooperation from its members or employees. On a higher level, corporate communication enables the top-level executives to build support, provide stability, influence attitudes as well as promote desirable behavior that would ensure the achievement of organizational goals. Moreover, tough times call for more transparency in order to clear out issues that could affect employee morale. Also, good leaders are called forth to employ their communication skills to various audiences ; thus, face-to-face communication is a requisite and far more critical skill even in this period of sophisticated technologies. The above statement is validated by the following reasons: 1. If an organization fails to effectively communicate the present and expected situations to the involved stakeholders, it runs the risk of dissension, anxiety and confusion among the key groups that could, in turn, alienate them and damage the organization's credibility. 2. Organizational effectiveness largely depends on the management systems used by the organization and the driving wheels of the management systems are provided by the communication systems used. 3. The choice of communication has an important bearing on the effectiveness with which messages are conveyed within an organization. Thus, good communication systems are as important as the other resources and systems used by the organization. Communicating effectively is more important for the organizations today as the stakeholders of the business are spread across the world. The importance will continue to grow as globalization of businesses develops firm roots. 2.0 Significance of the Selection of Communication Media Traditionally, the communication media used in an organization were face to face meeting, telephone, note/memo, mail and standard report. Modern communication media (or technologies) include electronic mail, fax, electronic data interchange, Internet and videoconference. These are based on some electronic or computer technologies. Managers in post-industrial organizations face the task of choosing the "right" medium from a menu of new and conventional media. Consequently, communication media and their effectiveness in organizational communication have received much attention from researches in recent years. Many studies have been undertaken in this regard so as to study the effectiveness of managerial communication and organizational choice of communication media. One of the theories- Information Richness Theory - suggests that media choice is a matter of match between the richness of communication and communication medium. On the other hand, another theory -Social Influence Theory- advocates that media choice is influenced by social factors as communication is a social process. However, advanced theories such as Structuration theory is of the view that media selection is made in conformity to the appropriateness between the technology (the media) and the users over time. There are several theories on media preference whose roots can be traced from two schools of thought: rational and individual. One theory that has been popularly accepted is the Social Presence Theory developed by John Short, Ederyn Williams and Bruce Christie. At that time this theory was being developed, there were no computers yet it has heavily influenced computer-mediated communications. According to Sallnas, Rassmus-Grohn, Sjostrom, (2000) the “effectiveness of communication happens when the communication medium has the right social presence required for the level of interpersonal involvement required for a task”. The theory looks at communication from a psychological perspective : choice of media depends upon the ability of the media to transmit the nature of the relationship between communicators. Another theory, the Language Variety Theory evolved from the thought some form of communication media such as arts or music are more effective in conveying a wider range of meanings, ideas, emotions or feelings compared to mathematics. Unfortunately, this is challenging to managers since painting or music is not a commonly used form of communication in an organization. Nevertheless, this theory can provide as a base for the Media Richness Theory since this theory provides a concrete explanation of managerial behavior and organizational design. The Media Richness Theory was conceptualized by Daft and Lengel. Where the Media Richness Theory fail, other theories have risen such as “Collective-level “ theories that focus on other variables such as environment, culture, and politics. In addition to this, a more inclusive theory can be added – Social Influence Model of Technology Use which promotes the idea that a person’s media awareness is a social creation, not just a set of tasks. 3.0 The Problem of Selection of Communication Media Organizational effectiveness largely depends on the management systems used by the organization and the driving wheels of the management systems are provided by the communication systems used. Thus, good communication systems are as significant as the other possessions and systems used by an organization. Communicating effectively is more important for the organizations today as the stakeholders of the business are spread across the world. This significance will go on increasing as globalization of businesses develops firm roots. Communication systems are one of the most researched areas in management. But most of the research study has been completed in the area of communication channels, noise in the channel, factors influencing communication effectiveness, effect of individual perceptions and group dynamics on communication and effectiveness of different communication media. But, communication media have undergone a sea change over the last few years, especially with the advent of modern communication media such as electronic mail, fax, electronic data interchange, internet and videoconference. This necessitates the need for a thorough investigation of the effectiveness of media selection by managers for their day to day communication. 4.0 Methodology of Solving the Problem This paper takes an investigation into the effectiveness of the communication media in the modern organizational context as there are several modes of communication and all of them are technology based. The investigation is exploratory in nature with survey being the mode. The city of Miami been selected for the present investigation Purposive sampling technique was used to select the respondents for the investigation. The sample elements were executives working in organizations located in or around Miami. The total sample size was 50, which included Executives from different industries and different departments to ensure wider applicability. A self-developed structured questionnaire was used to collect data from the Executives. The data was collected on a `Likert type scale' of 1 to 5 with one as most effective and five as least effective. The questionnaire consisted of some statements. The statements were framed considering seven principles of communication-clarity, completeness, conciseness, consideration, courtesy, correctness and composition. 5.0 Discussion and Results After analyzing the responses from the respondents, face-to-face and phone have emerged as the most preferred media among the managers. Face-to-face communication scored first rank on all the factors except composition on which it was ranked second. Phone was ranked first on all the factors except clarity, consideration and conciseness, on them it was ranked second. The findings are in line with the Media Richness Theory by Daft and Lengel (1984, 1986) where they established a framework that ranked communication media along a continuum in terms of their ‘richness’. In this context, ‘richness’ denotes the capacity of the media to: (i) carry large volume of data; and (ii) convey meaning. The investigation also validated the results obtained by Trevino, Daft and Lengel (1990). The distance from the communication partner or partners as well as the time pressures associated with the message delivery or response also influences their choices. A critical mass of users is also a necessary component of choice. Using these criteria, oral media (e.g., face-to-face and telephone) are supposed to be more affluent than printed media because they offer opportunities for instant feedback and can have numerous cues in a natural language tailored to the circumstances. Typically, synchronous medium (i.e., with immediate feedback) are measured comfortable than asynchronous medium (i.e., involve delay in the communication process). Hence, telephone was ranked lower than face-to-face because it can transmit fewer cues (i.e., cannot see the other person). Face-to-face and phone were ranked first and second on clarity and conciseness which included the four criteria of media richness in this research. The ranking of phone and Internet as first find support from the findings of Sproull (1991) and Valacich et al., (1993) where they recognized four addition criteria for media richness i.e., concurrency, numerous addressability, externally recordable and computer processable memory.. The findings of the investigation find further support from Daft et al., (1987) when the posit that under the media richness school of thought modern communication technologies are viewed as incapable of delivering ‘rich’ information compared to face-to-face. In grading communication medium from `rich' to `lean' the fundamental argument is that the `rich' media is superior for ambiguous jobs. The writing adopting this observation suggests that face-to-face comes the top communication medium for informal communication. This judgment is usually consistent with managers' custom model of communication media in practice: Managers do appear to prefer medium by corresponding it to the richness of the medium. Studies such as that of Mintzberg (1972) did find that managers favored to employ face-to-face means of communication rather than the more official black and white reports because such official reports were said to be ill-timed and inadequate for the non-routine and uncertain tasks of managers. Under the richness scale, face-to-face communication is the richest medium. Internet (e-mail) and fax were ranked first on composition, which included concurrency and multiple address ability. In case of e-mail, by clicking on a single key one could send a message to hundreds and thousands of people anywhere in world at any time. On this characteristic, e-mail is superior to face-to-face. Steinfield (1986) found that entry to communication medium to partners had an outcome on media preference. People were more likely to use e-mail to communicate with people outside their own workgroup, as access to immediate co-workers could be accomplished more easily using face-to-face. Markus (1990) extended the concept to include access to the media itself, such as access to a computer, an account and a network, as well as the number of other active users of a particular medium. Markus, Bikson, El-Shinnawy, and Soe (1992) found proof that managers in organizations employ e-mail (a lean medium) to communicate vague information, and recommended the necessity to judge a diversity of factors beyond media richness. According to their findings, managers may use e-mail as a tool to handle the sheer quantity of messages received, viewing it as a personal convenience. Access to the technology itself was also a factor influencing the managers' choice to use the technology to send messages as well as influencing the choices of others in communicating with the managers. Further support to the findings is available from proponents of Critical Mass Theory such as Markus (1987) and Steinfield (1986) where they established facts suggesting that physical distance, quantity of communication content and time pressure (urgency of message) give a strong pressure on managers' medium preference. According to Scott (2001), e-mail and phone were preferred to communicate across distances instead of face-to-face communication because they were relatively inexpensive. Media preferences were prejudiced by time, including the importance of receiving information to or from a recipient, and the time alarmed in composing and conducting the message. E-mail was treated as both being a competent way to focus and limit the time spent on communication as well as being more time intensive than telephone or informal face-to-face meetings. The availability of communication recipients also had an impact on choice. Choices are made based on whether the recipient is working on the same shift and is immediately available or is working on a different shift and not immediately available. In these situations, either asynchronous communication or traditional communication occurred through the use of written memos/letters/notes. Relying on this assumption, a constant outlook in the literature is that an electronic form of communication is not a rich medium because it lacks the traits that are deemed to be high in richness. E-mail, for example, is very low down the scale on media richness because as a text-based media it has no social presence and has defective ability to send out any cues. This in turn directs to the common argument that wherever managers carry out vague tasks they would rely less on modern communication media (Daft et al., 1987). Respondents were asked to rate the communication media on a factor called suitability (of media in case of differing time pressure and distance). This factor is included in composition and respondents have ranked phone and Internet as first but face-to-face is not ranked low. It is ranked second. Both the theories above have evidences that e-mail and phone are ranked highest and face-to-face lowest in case of big geographical distance and urgency of message. Face-to-face was ranked second in this research maybe because the research is conducted at Indore and managers do not face much complex communication situations. This investigation indicates that the lack of technological tools may have a relationship with perceptions of lack of respect and equal standing in the organization. 6.0 Conclusion Communication is considered as an essential element, whether in the life of individual or in an organization. The reason is without communication the individual or an organization cannot survive in the world. It is through this person communicate their facts, ideas, opinions or emotions with one another. As regards to an organization the communication is essential to distribute information at all levels of management and even their success largely depends upon how effective they are in communicating with one other. Media selection and effective transmission have been an important stage in any communication process. The present investigation has come out with the findings that face to face communication among managers remains to the superior form of communication even in times of advanced technologies such as internet and email. WORKS CITED Daft, R L and Lengel, R H (1986), "Organizational Information Requirements, Media Richness And Structural Design". Management Science 32(5), 554-571. Daft, R L, Lengel, R H, and Trevino, L K (1987), "Message Equivocality, Media Selection, and Manager Performance: Implications for Information Systems". MIS Quarterly, 355-366" Effective Communication Positively Impacts Employee Motivation Levels, Employee Advocacy Latest Ouch Point Survey from Opinion Research Corporation Suggests". Business Wire. FindArticles.com. 16 Jul, 2009. http://findarticles.com/p/articles /mi_m0EIN /is_20090309/ai_n31433631/ Fulk, J, and DeSanctis, G (1999), Articulation of Communication Technology and Organizational Form in G DeSanctis, and J Fulk (Eds.), "Shaping Organizational Form: Communication, Connection, and Community" (pp. 5-32) Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Fulk, J, Schmitz, J, and Steinfeld, C W (1990), A Social Influence Model of Technology Use, in J Fulk, and C W Steinfield (Eds.), Organizations and Communication Technology (pp. 117-140) Newbury Park, CA: Sage. Markus, M L, Bikson, T K, El-Shinnawy, M, and Soe, L L (1992), "Fragments of Your Communication: E-mail, V-mail, and Fax". The Information Society, 8, 207-226. 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