Review: A Cognitive-Affective Model of Organizational Communication for Designing IT

Dov Te'eni
2001 MIS Quarterly  
There are several theories available to describe how managers choose a medium for communication. However, current technology can affect not only how we communicate but also what we communicate. As a result, the issue for designers of communication support systems has become broader: how should technology be designed to make communication more effective by changing the medium and the attributes of the message itself? The answer to this question requires a shift from current preoccupations with
more » ... e medium of 1 Richard Watson was the accepting senior editor for this paper. 2 MISQ Review articles survey, conceptualize, and synthesize prior MIS research and set directions for future research. For more details see communication to a view that assesses the balance between medium and message form. There is also a need to look more closely at the process of communication in order to identify more precisely any potential areas of computer support. This paper provides the spadework for a new model of organizational communication, and uses it to review existing research, as well as to suggest directions for future research and development. Beginning with the crucial aspects of action, relationship, and choice, an integrated model of how people communicate is developed. This model incorporates three basic factors: (1) inputs to the communication process (task, sender-receiver distance, and values and norms of communication with a particular emphasis on inter-cultural communication); (2) a cognitiveaffective process of communication; and (3) the communication impact on action and relationship. The glue that bonds these factors together is a set of communication strategies aimed at reducing the complexity of communication. edge of the mechanisms that guide behavior is used to demonstrate the potential for developing design principles for future communication support systems.
doi:10.2307/3250931 fatcat:mxm5pcngdzd3jfwh5ebd7alfhq