Suchergebnisse

Recent innovations in organizational forms, such as delayered management, empowered workers, telework, and ad hoc work groups, have created a need to ensure that communication between dispersed knowledge workers can be supported. The movement toward a less cohesive workplace suggests a need to deploy computer-based media, but it is not clear which media should be deployed and under what circumstances. Addressing such significant issues must begin with insights into why knowledge workers choose particular media for particular tasks in the first place. Prior research theorizing about media choice has focused on: (1) task, (2) medium, (3) the fit between task and medium, and (4) social environment. It has not sufficiently considered the role of the availability of the intended recipient or the interaction between recipient availability and task social presence variables which could have a significant impact on media choice. To examine the effects of these two factors, the authors conducted an initial exploratory study and a subsequent controlled factor study. In the initial study, an analysis of 1,669 hypothetical scenarios from 100 knowledge workers at a worldwide transportation company indicated that social presence (SP) theory proves to be a good predictor of media choice, as does the recipient availability construct. The analysis also suggested that the interaction between recipient availability and task social presence might be a good predictor. With a partial replication, randomized treatment design, including 1,883 scenarios from 257 workers, the controlled factor study at a large financial institution generally confirmed the study hypotheses. The authors examine rival explanations simultaneously along the dimensions of task, medium, fit between task and medium, and social environment. They propose and test a new model of media choice and suggest directions for future testing of a new "task closure" model of media choice. They conclude by offering guidelines for managers deploying electronic communications in the workplace.

Most psychological contract research examines single-agency situations in which a breach only affects one firm. In a multiple-agency relationship, however, the individual performs work that simultaneously satisfies the requirements of two firms, allowing for the possibility that breach outcomes extend across both the breaching and the nonbreaching firms. We theorize two mechanisms through which breach outcomes extend across organizational boundaries. First, we propose spillover effects for feelings of violation and for organizational citizenship behaviors from the breaching firm to the nonbreaching firm. Second, we propose that, in cases where the individual expects the nonbreaching firm to intervene and rectify the other firm's breach as part of a regulatory obligation, there are direct and moderating effects of meeting (or failing to meet) these perceived obligations. Using professional service firms as the empirical context, we find evidence of breach outcome spillover between the two firms in the multiagency relationship and direct and moderating effects of unmet obligations to intervene by the nonbreaching firm. We also find some key differences in the nomological networks depending on whether the breaching firm was the consulting firm or the client firm. These insights highlight the importance of extending psychological contract study to multiple-agency relationships.