Message Equivocality, Media Selection, and Manager Performance: Implications for Information Systems.

Author List: Daft, Richard L.; Lengel, Robert H.; Trevino, Linda Kiebe;

MIS Quarterly, 1987, Volume 11, Issue 3, Page 354-366.

A field study of middle- and upper-level managers was undertaken to explain managers' selection of communication media. The findings indicate that media vary in their capacity to convey information cues. Managers prefer rich media for ambiguous communications and less rich media for unequivocal communications. The data suggest that high performing managers are more sensitive to the relationship between message ambiguity and media richness than low performing managers. Implications for managers' use of information systems and electronic media are discussed.

Keywords: Communication media; computing milieux.; information processing; information systems; managerial performance

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List of Topics

#203	0.394	communication media computer-mediated e-mail richness electronic cmc mail medium message performance convergence used communications messages face-to-face findings participants results work
#127	0.210	systems information research theory implications practice discussed findings field paper practitioners role general important key grounded researchers domain new identified
#88	0.203	managers managerial manager decisions study middle use important manager's appropriate importance context organizations indicate field experience management major organizational results
#231	0.078	information management data processing systems corporate article communications organization control distributed department capacity departments major user hardware cost applications expansion