Relationship Among Message Equivocality, Media Selection, and Manager Performance: Implications for Information Support Systems

摘要

A field study of 95 middle-level and upper-level managers was undertaken to explain top managers' selection of communication media. The findings indicate that media vary in their capacity to convey information cues, and that media richness is correlated with message equivocality. Managers prefer rich media for equivocal communications and less rich media for unequivocal communications. The data suggest that high performing managers are more sensitive to the relationship between message equivocality and media richness than low performing managers. Implications for managers' use of information systems and electronic media are discussed.