Managerial CommunicationFour Questions

• Is there a standard pattern to managerial work?• What causes this pattern of work?• Can you improve how they work?• How can you support it at a distance?

Outline

Pattern of managerial

communication

Functional?

Support at a distance

Remediate

Y N

How do managers spend their time?

• In talk • Cumulatively with lots of others• Talk with peers & subordinates, not boss• Meetings are frequently small, informal, and

spontaneous• In fragmented activities

• Multiple tasks per day• Each task gets a small slice of attention at a time• Pattern is accentuated for senior managers

Time allocation among different managers (1980s & 1990s)

Medium (% of day) Average CEOCollege

presidentMiddle

managerMiddle

managerSchool

principal

Elementary school

principalScheduled face-to-face 27.8 35 34 10 34 26Unscheduled face-to-face 37.4 32 26 55 34 40Phone 8.8 6 6 9 13 10Total verbal 75.0 78 75 66 74 81 76Alone 25.0 22 25 34 26 19 24

Participants (% interactions)Subordinates 54.6 48 52 37 66 70Larger organization 18.8 7 8 52 21 6Peers & public 26.4 45 40 11 12 24

RhythmWork hours 45.4 44 52 42 44 45% of inteactions with 1 person 50.2 48 47 32 25 60 89# verbal contacts/day 15

Tasks per day

Interactants per day

% day in communication

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90

Senior MgmtOther

Face-to-face

Phone

Other communication

Solitary work

0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16

Senior MgmtOther

Tasks on stack

0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5

Senior Mgmt

Other

• Days are filled with people and interlocking tasks

• Each episode gets a few minutes

• Tasks are accomplished in small chunks

• Senior managers have more demands, but shorter attention spans

Minutes per episodes

OtherSenior

Phone Company Execs, 1990

IBM Managers, 2002

• Time-sampling method

• Face-to-face communication ~50% of time

• Unplanned ~40% of communication time – Planning increases

with number of participants

– With managerial level

IT & Financial Consultants 2004Gonzalez & Marks

Time spent in desk vs communication work~ 48% of work day in communication

Average time per episode before switch in form or substance

• ~ 48% of work day in communication• 2/3s in verbal communication• Short work episodes

Interrupted

• > 50% of all task externally interrupted• Average time on task 3-11 minutes

Q: Does this pattern of communication serve a purpose?• Lots of communication• Many partners, especially peers & reportees• Spontaneous communication• Preference for face-to-face & interactive communication• Short episodes of communication & work, with lots of interruptions

• Functional explanations• Based on the evolution-like assumption that common behaviors are

retained because they benefit the person/organization exhibiting them

• Mechanistic explanations• Identify the underlying mechanisms that produce the pattern• No assumption of beneficial outcomes

What causes this pattern?Is it functional or dysfunctional?

Functions of “Informal Communication”

Mintzberg: Debunking the traditional view of managerial work

• Myth: Manager as systematic, analytic planner– Reality: Works in short time blocks, time pressured, responding to

problems, in communication

• Myth: Delegates & oversee, rather than works– Reality: Many ritual & regular duties, responding to crises

• Myth: Uses abstract, aggregate data to see “big picture”– Reality: Strong preference for verbal media over documents– ad hoc

meetings, phone calls, meetings

• Myth: “Scientific management” exists– Reality: Management is still highly craft-based and intuitive

Managerial work

• Functions– Plan– Organize– Coordinate– Decide– Control

• Roles– Interpersonal

• Figurehead• Leader• Liaison

– Informational• Nerve center• Disseminator• Spokesperson

– Decisional• Entrepreneur• Dispute resolver• Resource allocater• Negotiator

COMMUNICATION IS ESSENTIAL TO ALL

FUNCTIONS & ROLES

Functional: Benefits from this type of communication

• Informal communication – Helps managers do environmental scanning, get info from lots of

sources, predigested, just in time decision making, incrementally shaping organization (nudging) towards larger plan

– Provides managers with fresh information to deal with uncertain tasks– Allows managers to fulfill communication roles– Gives managers better quality communication

• Interactivity for common ground• Visual elements for focus on work objects• Rich media for complex, equivocal, & ambiguous communication

tasks (?)

• Examples of informal workplace communication

Can you support this type of communication at a distance?

• What kind of communication do you need?• What kind of information do you need?• How do you provide it?

Can you support this type of communication at a distance?

• Three video based systems:– Cruiser

– VideoWindow

– Montage

• Alternate technologies– IM (interaction & outeraction)

– Virtual team rooms

What are the problems with this style of communication?

Possible problems

• Interruption costs & switching costs– Too little time for sustained analysis & decision making

– http://interruptions.net/

• Opportunistic communication – Over exposure to local partners

– Importance of communication not a criteria

• Managerial communication needs lead to communication burden on individual workers

Interruptions

• O'Conaill and Frohlich (1995). – 29 hours of shadowing of two managers– 125 interruptions - unscheduled, synchronous interactions

taking recipient away from current task• Every 13.9 minutes• 80% face-to-face, 20% by phone

– Interrupter benefits more than recipient– Recipient often fails to return to ongoing task

Interruptions II Tétard (2002)

Length of Interruption

26%

18%

12%8% 8% 8% 8%

3% 3% 3% 3% 3%

0%5%

10%15%20%25%30%

Time for recovery after interruption

47%

39%

4%

0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

35%

40%

45%

50%

0-5 min 5-15 min 15-30 min

Reason for Interruption

30%

16%

8%

26%

0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

35%

Ask for advice Social interaction Docum entationissues

Organnisationalissues

Impact of Interruption

20%

15%

42%

8%

32%

0%5%

10%15%20%25%30%35%40%45%

Promoteslearning

Promotessocial

interaction

Disturbed myconcentration

Not part of mywork

Delayed mywork

• Managers at 6 firms in 1999 each describe 5 interruptions

Perlow (1999): Time FamineResearch Methods

• Multiple methods– Participant observation– Interviews– Shadowing– Diaries: Beeper-Report activities in last hour

Perlow (1999): Mechanistic

Perlow’s explanation• Managers (and engineers) need to communicate for organizational success• But also need solo work time Engineers think interrupts are helpful to the organization, but get in the way of “real” (i.e.,

technical) work

• Failure of synchronization• A particular communication is likely to be more beneficial to the initiator than the recipient• Initiator knows own current need, but not recipient’s state• Initiator schedules communication to fit own schedule• Much communication is opportunistic

• Coordination failures compounded by “heroic culture”• Best performers work 80-100/hrs weeks

• Engineers spent 60% of time in solo work• Short bursts, interrupted with interactions• 60% < hour long• 25% < 30 minutes long

What do you recommend to improve managerial communication?

• To handle the tension between spontaneous, informal communication vs. need for sustained periods of concentration

Perlow: One Attempt to Fix This Problem

• Concentrated “quiet time” gave impression of improved efficiency– Phase 1: Quiet morning vs interactive afternoons– Phase 2: Quiet 11-2– Phase 1: Quiet morning vs interactive afternoons

• Engineers report ~ 50% productivity gains• Gains evaporated as organizational culture reasserted itself

• Why?

Will Email Help? Shift from immediate to asynchronous interaction

• Trade-offs btw information delays & interruption

Control is Only Hypothetical

• Email is only slightly less interruptive than face-to-face or phone interaction

– Study of 16 employees for 160 hours using Outlook– Software checks new mail every 5 minutes & had alerts

• Employees respond to 70% of new msgs < 6 sec and 85% in < 2 minutes of arriving

• Disruptions of work (time to return to prior task) 64s– Less than 15 min disruption– Differ by worker type

Jackson, T., Dawson, R., & Wilson, D. (2003). Reducing the effect of email interruptions on employees. International Journal of Information Management, 23, 55-65.

Pricing Communication as Coordination Mechanism

• Interruptions typical benefit interrupter over interruptee• Pricing encourages sender, who knows the content, to evaluate

a message.• For receive, price serves as

– Signal — “Is the message worth my time?”– Incentive to communication

Email Pricing Examined in Lab Experiments & Field Trials

• Serio.com offers a virtual economy for email

– Users get 100 ‘serios’ per week – Senders can place value on

particular msg they send

Sender: Pricing a msg Receiver: Sorting by price

Results of 11 Week Field Trial

• 26 people in a single department

• Serios influenced speed of attending: < 1-9 serios 37 min

> 20 serios 20 min

No serios 28 min

Attention Costs of Pricing Mail

• Fix priced email may make it easier to figure out whether reading is worth the time

• Subjects play a memory game & can send mail to others to get help– No market– Variable priced market

• Send sets an arbitrary ‘bids’ for help• Receive sets an arbitrary reservation price• Help exchanged if bid >= reservation price

– Fixed priced market• Send pays $.20 for help• Receivers get $.20 for giving help• Help exchanged if sender asks and receiver agrees

Game Interface

No market

Variable market

Fixed market

Everyone Wins With Fixed Market

• People ask for less help, but more requests are honored

• Earnings– Markets > No market– Fix market > Variable market

EXTRAS

Voluntary Regulation: Letting Interrupters Know When Interruptee is Busy

• Can we predict whether someone is interruptable?

Wizard of Oz Interruption Study Fogarty, Hudson, Forlizzi, Kiesler, Atkeson, Yang, Lee, & Avrahami

• Person passing by can quickly judge whether “Now is a bad time”

• Current interfaces & communication devices are blind to this human context– End up being “rude”

• Can we judge interruptibility with sensors in the room?– How (what predicts)?– How simple can we get away with?

• Wizard of Oz study to find out

The Study• Long term audio

and video recording in a space

• After the fact, human “plays sensor” – Code for 27 simulated sensor values

• Experience sampling to get estimate of current interruptibility– Audio prompt averaging every ½ hour– “How interruptible are you on a scale of 1 to 5?”

• Machine learning techniques to build predictive models

Study Data

• 4 Subjects in office (similar job function)• 602 hours of video, 672 samples• 51 hours of simulated sensor values

– 5 minutes prior to each interruption

0.0%

10.0%

20.0%

30.0%

40.0%

Most Least

Interruptibility

Try to predict least interruptible via

machine learning

Can We Predict – Yes!

• 82.4% prediction of least interruptible state (68.0% baserate)

• Equivalent results via 2 different models

• Better than human observers (76.9% accurate)

Can it be Simple – Yes!

With just 5 simple sensors:• “Someone is talking” • Phone off hook• Keyboard activity• Mouse activity• Time of day

we get 79.2% (statistically equivalent to people)

Interesting fact:

Almost all the result comes from this one

sensor (~75%)

Replication in corporate research

• Three classes of subjects: Managers, researcher/programmers & summer interns

• Sensors: – Computer & room mike anyone talking?– Door position: open, cracked, closed– Phone off-hook– Keyboard, mouse move & mouse clicks– Title, type & name of active window

Results

Phone off-hookTalking> 30 mouse moves

Talking> 60 mouse moves in visual studio (programming)> 60 characters types interruptible

Eclipse programmingMotion detector firingguest in roomLong talking

Does This Reduce Interruptions?

• Fogarty et al MyVine for modeling availability

• Deployed at IBM, 16 people, 4 weeks• User “hovered” to find someones

availability ~ once every 20 min– More common when partner was

‘moderately available’ MyVine showing availability

MyVine suggesting communication channels

• Participants didn’t seem to respect availability when phoning, but did with IM (Urgency?)

• ‘Hovers’ showing partner talking did not deter conversation

MyVine Only Partially Regulated Communication

Pricing Communication as Coordination Mechanism

• Interruptions typical benefit interrupter over interruptee• Pricing encourages sender, who knows the content, to evaluate

a message.• For receive, price serves as

– Signal — “Is the message worth my time?”– Incentive to communication

Email Pricing Examined in Lab Experiments & Field Trials

• Serio.com offers a virtual economy for email

– Users get 100 ‘serios’ per week – Senders can place value on

particular msg they send

Sender: Pricing a msg Receiver: Sorting by price

Results of 11 Week Field Trial

• 26 people in a single department

• Serios influenced speed of attending: < 1-9 serios 37 min

> 20 serios 20 min

No serios 28 min

Attention Costs of Pricing Mail• Fix priced email may make it easier to figure out whether

reading is worth the time• Subjects play a memory game & can send mail to others to

get help– No market– Variable priced market

• Send sets an arbitrary ‘bids’ for help• Receive sets an arbitrary reservation price• Help exchanged if bid >= reservation price

– Fixed priced market• Send pays $.20 for help• Receivers get $.20 for giving help• Help exchanged if sender asks and receiver agrees

Game Interface

No market

Variable market

Fixed market

Everyone Wins With Fixed Market• People ask for less help, but more

requests are honored

• Earnings– Markets > No market– Fix market > Variable market

Extra

Displays for Peripheral Awareness Laura Dabbish & Robert Kraut

• Can one support spontaneous, interaction at a distance, while minimizing disruption?

• Consider help requests– Can a requester get help, while minimizing impact on the

helper?– Investigate impact of displays and motivation on joint

performance • Hypothesis: Requesters will time interruptions to be

least disruptive if:– Have motivation to consider partner's well-being (e.g.,

team identity) – Have information that tells them about a recipient’s

workload• But too much information in a display will distract the

interrupter

Asker: Tries to guess a puzzle & asks helper for hint

Helper: Tries to save jumpers. Is interrupted when Askers asks for hint.

Asker Helper

Send

Type your question

Does it have four legs?

Asker Helper

Question from other player

Does it have four legs?

[ Yes ] [ No ] [ ? ]

Vary Information Displays

Abstract Feedback

No Feedback

Full Feedback

Vary Team Identity

• Team– Joint Rewards– Common identity through

team name, jersey

• Solo– Individual Rewards– No common identity

Displays Regulate Interruptions• Probability of Asker

sending question when jumpers were on Helper's screen

• Askers sent fewer questions in team condition

• No interaction of display with team identity on – Number of questions

asked – Timing of questions 0

0.1

0.2

0.3

0.4

0.5

0.6

0.7

0.8

None Abstract Full

Pro

bab

ilit

y o

f se

nd

ing

a q

ues

tio

n

Helper’s performance improved when asker had displays

• Displays– Reduced number of

questions asked

– Appropriate timing of questions

66

67

68

69

70

71

72

73

74

None Abstract Full65

66

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pe

rce

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Display Condition

Study 2: Display are more effective when subjects are on the same team

20

25

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60

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None Abstract Full

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cen

t Ju

mp

ers

Sav

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Non-team

Team

1

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1.6

1.8

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None Abstract FullJu

mp

ers

on

sc

ree

n w

he

n q

ue

sti

on

se

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Independent

Team

Too Much Information Harmed the Asker

• Asker took longer to complete puzzle with full information display

• Best joint performance (askers + helper) with an abstract display

100

105

110

115

120

125

No Info Abstract Info Full Info

Tim

e T

o C

om

ple

te P

uzz

le (

se

c)

Display Condition

Eye-tracking shows whether displays capture attention

Higher Fidelity Display Requires More Visual Attention

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

No info Abstractinfo

Full info

% Ti

me V

iewi

ng D

ispl

ay

• Askers spent over twice as long looking at full vs. abstract information display (p <0.001)

• Askers reduced time attending to primary task and formulating questions

Display Condition

How to construct the display?

• Experiment suggested that an appropriate display about partner’s interruptibility could improve joint performance

• Is it feasible to measure interruptibility with technology?

Overview

• Substance

• Managers (more so than scientist & other professionals) spend their time in talk

• Talk supports frequent, interactive & rich communication

consistent with managerial and collaborative tasks

• Physical proximity is the medium for this type of

communication

• Proximity has major influences on communication patterns

and outcomes

• Discussion

• Why does this occur?

• How can you improve on managerial work practice?

• Can you/should you enable this pattern for distributed work?

Focus of attention• Use letters to shareholders to infer managerial focus of attention• Track letters for 5 year prior to a bankruptcy & compare matched bankrupt

and successful firms• Relative to successful firms, bankrupt firms

– Shift attention away from to internal factors– Shift environment factors from demand factors to input factors

0.00

0.05

0.10

0.15

0.20

0.25

0.30

12345

bankruptcy-output

bamkruptcy-input

bakruptcy-Internal

success-output

success-input

success-internal

•Rationalistic:

•Plan

•Organize

•Coordinate

•Control

•Leader

•Set direction - challenging, but doable

•Align employees & stakeholders

•Motivate people

Traditional views of management

•Leader

•Liaison

•Scanner

•Disseminator

•Fire fighter

•Resource allocator

•Negotiator

•Decider

Managerial roles based on communication

TaskUncertainty/Equivocality

Media richness

Low

High

Low High

++ --

++--

Reports Email Phone Face/face

Low High

Functional: Benefits from this type of communication

• Timeliness of communication• Each episode of communication is

improved– Interactivity for common ground– Visual elements for focus on work

objects– Rich media for complex, equivocal, &

ambiguous communication tasks (?)

• Possible problems– Opportunistic communication =>

• Over exposure to local partners• Importance of communication not a

criteria• Interruption costs• Switching costs

When are “rich media” valuable?• Richness is probably the wrong concept.• Media can be broken down into potentially important features

• Intrinsic

• Amount of information (multiplicity of cues)

• Interactivity

• By convention

• E.g., Difference btw email and instant messaging

Dennis & Kinney (ISR,1998)

• Lab experiment varying equivocality & media richness– Equivocality:

• High equivocality : Undergrad admissions problem, witharguments about weighting SATs,

GPA, extracurricular activities, jobs, residency,

etc.• Low equivocality: SAT problem solving questions

– Richness:• Immediate feedback: Full duplex vs. half-duplex

audio/video Chat vs. email

• Multiplicity of cues: Full duplex audio/video vs. chat Half-duplex audio/video vs. email

– Outcomes: Time, Consensus, Decision quality, Satisfaction

Results

0 10 20 30 40

Full DupA/V

Half DupA/V

Chat

Email

Minutes to completion

Lo EquivHi Equiv

• No effects on decision quality

• No effects on consensus• No effects on

communication satisfaction• Interaction between

multiplicity of cues & equivocality on completion time, but inconsistent with theory

• Multiple 2-person referential communication

tasks

• Common results:

• Voice speeds solutions

•Faster times•More turns•More words

• Visual channel doesn't help (in a

talking head set-up)

Solution time0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

Face to face

Voice

Writing

Typing

Solution time0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

VoiceVoice+videoWritingWriting+videoTypingTyping+video

(fm Chapanis, 1972)

Interactivity consistently helps

Managerial social networks• Communication primarily with subordinates, peers & outsiders, not

boss• Manager as liaison & gatekeeper

– By virtue of position (representing organization) and personal attributes, manager is more likely than others to be group gatekeeper for information

– Importance of communication with outside constituencies• Customers, suppliers, rivals, community leaders, etc.• Failure to maintain strong communication with external environment is

associated with group and organizational failure• Smith et al data: More frequent & informal communication internal to

the group is associated with lower firm performance (sales growth & ROI)

• Crisis can be associated with withdrawal from external communication

IBM Managers’ Assessment of Interrupt-driven Nature of their Work

• Perceived benefits

• [It’s] useful to be open to interruption to – in an informal way – pick up information or be able to make a connection that you wouldn’t have otherwise. Often [the] more relaxed or offhand way… can be more effective than setting up an appointment.

• Being flexible enough to respond and respond quickly to certain kinds of interruption, I find to be useful in getting things done.

• One [benefit of interruption] is so that I don’t have such a short-term memory load. I can deal with something now and not have to deal with it later.

• I have sort of come to rely on interrupts. If I’m not being interrupted, I don’t know what to do. I have to generate an internal interrupt of some sort to get me going.

• Interruption management

• Either my door is open, in which case I’m available, or it’s closed, in which case I’m not there.

• I can’t tell you how many degrees of door openness or closeness there are, but there are many degrees. And people generally interpret those fairly well.

• If someone decides not to bug me [not only] will I not know that in most cases, but I might disagree with their decision. In fact, I know this. I know that there are times when people did not tell me about this thing or the other thing because they said, “Well, your door was closed. I didn’t want to interrupt you.” And, I very strongly disagreed and was unhappy about that decision.

• It’s like reaching for the chocolate or potato chips you’re not supposed to have. I just don’t have enough willpower to stop myself from reaching for [the email] and seeing what it is.

Informal communication

Formal Informal

• Scheduled in advance • Arranged participants • Participants in role • Preset agenda • One-way • Impoverished content • Formal language & speech register

• Unscheduled • Random participants • Participants out of role • Unarranged agenda • Interactive • Rich content • Informal language & speech register

Methods

• People grossly misestimate how they spend their time– Over-report important activities and longer time blocks

– Under-report mundane and short activities

• More accurate measures through:– Shadowing

– Time diaries: Recording as events unfold or with a short recall. Use temporal cues (What did you do next)

– Instrumentation & random sampling (Experience Sampling Method)

Craft (landscape

gardening)

Non routine (strategic

planning)

Engineering(Law,

accounting)

Routine (Sales)

Variety

Analyz-ability

-

+

- +

Mostly mechanistic(Moderate formalization;

moderate centralization; formal

training; moderate span; written

& oral communication)

MechanisticHigh formalization; high

centralization; little training;

wide span; vertical, written

communication)

OrganicLow formalization; low

centralization; training +

experience; narrow span;

horizontal communication &

meetings)

Mostly organic(Moderate formalization;

moderate centralization;work

experience; moderate to wide

span; horizontal oral

communication)

Fit between task and organizational structure

How do you evaluate media richness theory?

• Conceptually: – Is the uncertainty/equivocality distinction valid?

– Is the concept of richness well specified?

• Empirically: Do predictions about choice and effectiveness hold?

Initiators Benefit More than Receivers

0

0.5

1

1.5

2

Use

fuln

ess

Other

Self

Who Initiated

More

Less

Other

Self

Who Initiated

0

0.5

1

1.5

2

Other

Self

Who Initiated

Fax

Email

Phone

Face

Work Relationship News

0.3

0.4

0.5

0.6

0.7

0.8

0.9

Deg

ree

of in

terr

upti

on

Other

Self

Who Initiated

Fax

Email

Phone

Face

• Communication is less costly and more beneficial to for its initiator

Markets for AttentionKraut, Sunder, Morris & Telang

• Markets are societal mechanisms to balance supply and demand for scare resources without revealing private information

• In this case, the scare good is human attention• Can markets for attention balance

– Information producer’s goals to get a message seen– Receiver’s interests in conserving attention?

• Research– Economic modeling– Empirical studies

Economic Modeling Suggests Charging for Communication Can Help

• Scenario– Consumers have attributes that

imperfectly predict interest in messages

– Consumer can only process a fraction of all messages they receive

• With costless or fixed rate communication (e.g. email):– All vendors broadcast

messages to all consumers– Harms both senders & receivers– Irrelevant messages crowd out

the relevant

• With costly communication– Vendors are motivated to send only to

interested consumers– Benefits both senders & receivers

• Prerequisites– Per-recipient pricing– Information to discriminate recipients

Hei

ght

Income

CrossWord Figures

Experimental Test of Model• Players earn money by completing puzzles • Communication is valuable

– Get help from other players– Provide answers to others, earning money for each accepted

• Communication interrupts puzzles• Pricing regime

– Inexpensive rate ($.02/message sent)– Costly rate ($.04/recipient)

• Message types– Advertisement – Can’t differentiate recipients– Questions – Can differentiate expert vs. non-expert recipients

Predictions are Confirmed• With variable rate postage,

sender– Rations communication– Targets communication

• Rationing is greatest when sender has information about relevance of message to potential recipients

Dependent variable Postage p Cheap Costly Rationing Unique messages sent 13.6 9.8 ** Recipients per message 3.6 3.0 * % high priority message

81% 41% ***

Targeting % relevant messages 32% 45% **

2.5

2.7

2.9

3.1

3.3

3.5

3.7

3.9

Cheap CostlyPostage

Rec

ipie

nts

per

mes

sage

No discriminating info Descriminating info

But those aren’t real sensorsCan it be done with noisy sensors?

Processed the recorded audio (very poor quality) with “silence detector” from local speech recognition package– Get quite high error rate (~20% )

Using this instead of “someone talking” get 76.9% (equal to human performance)

Robustness of result: Suppose you can’t use a camera or microphone

Recall that “someone talking” was primary sensor (75% prediction alone)

Can still get good results!– No microphone: 80.4%– No microphone or camera: 78.6%

What’s going on here??

Robustness of result: Suppose you can’t use a camera or microphone

Recall that “someone talking” was primary sensor (75% prediction alone)

Can still get good results!– No microphone: 80.4%– No microphone or camera: 78.6%

What’s going on here??

Less predictive sensors combine to pull out underlying behavioral phenomenon

Social engagement

Uncertainty versus Equivocality

• Daft & Lengel:• Uncertainty = absence of information to answer well defined questions• Equivocality = ambiguity about what question to ask, often generated by conflict in values

• E.g. What kind of bullets should a police department buy?• Easy decision if there is consensus about importance of stopping power versus safety of

bystanders => collect data & run studies• Difficult decision if there is disagreement about whether protecting the police under threat

or protecting bystanders has the highest priority

• E.g., Should the US invade Iraq?• A decision filled with uncertainty about its consequences for US security• A decision filled with equivocality when the discussion is about the relative value of Iraq’s

national sovereignty, US security, & international coalitions. ,

Media richness hypothesis:

Example of contingency theory

Task Equivocality

Media richness

Low

High

Low High

Preferred &Effective --

--

Reports Email Phone Face/face

Low High

• Attempts to explain managerial preference for face-to-face communication

• Predictions at both organizational and interpersonal levels

• Media vary in richness• Rich media are useful for

complex, equivocal, & ambiguous communication tasks

• 'Fit' will influence both media choice & task outcomes Preferred &

Effective

Dennis & Kinney (ISR,1998)

• Lab experiment varying equivocality & media richness– Equivocality:

• High equivocality : Undergrad admissions problem, with

arguments about weighting SATs, GPA, extra

curricular activities, jobs, residency, etc.

• Low equivocality: SAT problem solving questions– Richness:

• Immediate feedback: Full duplex vs. half-duplex audio/video

Chat vs. email• Multiplicity of cues: Full duplex audio/video vs. chat

Half-duplex audio/video vs. email– Outcomes: Time, Consensus, Decision quality, Satisfaction

Results

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

Lo Equiv Hi Equiv

Tim

e to

co

mp

lete

tas

k

Fewer cues

Multi-cue

• Faster with– Multiple cues– Interactivity

• Contingency effects– No effects on decision quality– No effects on consensus– No effects on communication

satisfaction– Interaction between multiplicity of cues

& equivocality on completion time, but inconsistent with theory

• Multiple cues improves performance most for SAT task, not admissions task

Media richness X Task equivocality

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

Lo Equiv Hi Equiv

Tim

e to

co

mp

lete

tas

k

Non-interactive

Interactive

Spontaneity of conversations

02

04

06

0

**

**

*

*

**

*

s c h e du l e d i n t e n d e d o p po r t u n i s t i c s po n t a n e o u s

S p o n t a n e i t y

mi

nu

te

s

0.

00

.2

0.

4

S p o n t a n e i t y

%o

fc

on

ve

rs

at

io

ns

s c he d u l e d i n t e n de d o p p o r t u n i s t i c s po n t a n e o u s

• Much of the talk is unscheduled

• Proximity increases odds of spontaneous communication

Examples from Bellcore

Interruption rules (L. Sproull)