Janet Fulk

Emerging Theories of Communication in Organizations

This article reviews recent theoretical developments in four areas of organizational communication that have a common concern with information processing: communication media choice, computer-supported group decision making, communication technology and organizational design, and communication networks. For each topic the article includes a review of current theory, an assessment of the empirical evidence to date, and proposals for further theoretical and empirical development. The wealth of scholarship in these areas in the last 5 years testifies well to the substantial contribution of information processingrelated theories to a new core of organizational communication theory.

Executive Scanning and Perceived Uncertainty: A Multidimensional Model

The present study examined how executives’perceptions of the environment affected their decisions to collect strategic information. It was hypothesized that two dimensions of perceived uncertainty would have unique relationships with environmental scanning. Interviews were conducted with 72 senior executives in a cross-section of industries and produced the following results: (1) strategic importance was the primary determinant of scanning; (2) scanning declined as the environment was perceived to be more complex; and (3)perceived variability interacted with importance to positively affect scanning.

Age differences in perceptions of online community participation among non-users: An extension of the Technology Acceptance Model

This study examined age differences in perceptions of online communities held by people who were not yet participating in these relatively new social spaces. Using the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), we investigated the factors that affect future intention to participate in online communities. Our results supported the proposition that perceived usefulness positively affects behavioral intention, yet it was determined that perceived ease of use was not a significant predictor of perceived usefulness. The study also discovered negative relationships between age and Internet self-efficacy and the perceived quality of online community websites. However, the moderating role of age was not found. The findings suggest that the relationships among perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, and intention to participate in online communities do not change with age. Theoretical and practical implications and limitations were discussed.

A Test of the Individual Action Model for Organizational Information Commons

This research elaborated and empirically tested the individual action component of the collective action model as applied to individual contributions to organizational information commons. The model extended prior theory and research by making six elaborations on the classic collective action model based on unique characteristics of information goods compared to material collective goods. The structural equation model was tested via LISREL analyses of data provided by 781 respondents in three high-tech firms who had access to corporate intranets as shared information goods. The results were highly similar across organizations and indicated that (a) level of production, information retrieval, and cost predicted the perceived value of information, (b) information value and cost predicted gain, and (c) information retrieval and gain predicted the level of individual contributions to the commons.

Motivations to Resolve Communication Dilemmas in Database-Mediated Collaboration

In organizational settings, a communication dilemma exists whenever the interests of a collective (i.e., team, organization, interorganizational alliance) demand that people share privately held information, but their individual interests insteadmotivate them to withholdit. This article develops andtests an expectancy model that predicts specific conditions under which collective benefits can be made to converge with private ones, thus resolving communication dilemmas and motivating voluntary contributions to a collectively shared database. In the model, motivation is a multiplicative function of individual-level attitudes and beliefs: (a) organizational commitment; (b) organizational instrumentality, an instrumentality that links successful collective information sharing to broader organizational gain; (c) connective efficacy, an expectation that information contributedto the database will reach other members of the collective; and(d) information self-efficacy, the self-perceivedvalue of a contributors information to other database users. The model was tested by a survey administered to members of an intact work team using a discretionary database. The multiplicative model was significant and explained sizeable amounts of variance in the motivation to contribute discretionary information. Implications for theory and practice are discussed. The model can be readily extended to predict information sharing by means of other communication media.

Expertise Directory Development, Shared Task Interdependence, and Strength of Communication Network Ties as Multilevel Predictors of Expertise Exchange in Transactive Memory Work Groups:

Building on Kozlwoski and Klein’s emergence framework, this research developed and tested a set of multilevel hypotheses regarding individual and team transactive memory processes in work teams. Literature from social psychology suggested hypotheses on how shared task interdependence influences individual expertise exchange. Social network theory suggested hypotheses that individual expertise exchange is channeled according to communication tie strength. Using data collected from 218 individuals from 18 organizational teams, the proposed hypotheses were tested using hierarchical linear modeling techniques. The results showed that at the individual level the relationship between directory development and expertise exchange was mediated by communication tie strength and moderated by shared task interdependence.Team-level variables also were significantly related to individual-level outcomes such that individual expertise exchange happened more frequently in teams with well-developed team-level expertise directories, as well as with higher team communication tie strength and shared task interdependence.

Access to Information in Connective and Communal Transactive Memory Systems

This research tested a transactive theory model of how individuals allocate and retrieve task-related information in work teams. It extended prior research by exploring the role of communal information repositories in the context of human information resources. Structural equation modeling of six integrated hypotheses revealed several significant results. First, usage of information repositories was significantly related to individual access to information. However, the relationship between individual direct information exchange with team members (the human repositories) and individual access to information was significant only among average-level users of organizational information repositories. Second, development of individual expertise directories significantly influenced individual direct information exchange with team members. Third, perceived usage of organizational information repositories by team members significantly influenced actual usage. Finally, technology-specific competence in using intranets significantly influenced the actual usage of intranets as organizational information repositories.

Maintenance of Occupational Control: The Case of Professions.

Contemporary conditions relevant to the maintenance of occupational control are examined for five professions (accounting, architecture, civil engineering, law, and medicine) in the United Kingdom and the United States as an impetus for the analysis of control by occupations in general. Four areas in which conditions affecting occupational control are analyzed include: restriction of access to the occupations knowledge base; context of professional employment; power and authority in the relationship of client and professional; and relationships between the profession and agencies of the state. Differences across countries and between professions are described, and notations are made regarding generalizability to a broader set of occupations.

Location, Motivation, and Social Capitalization via Enterprise Social Networking

This article conceptualizes how the affordances of enterprise social networking systems can help reduce three challenges in sharing organizational knowledge. These challenges include location of expertise, motivation to share knowledge, and social capitalization in the form of developing and maintaining social ties with knowledge providers to actualize knowledge sharing. Building on previous theories and empirical research on transactive memory theory, public goods theory, and social capital theories, as well as recent research on enterprise social media, we argue that the affordances of enterprise social networking systems can better address these knowledge sharing challenges than those of conventional knowledge management systems in that social networking applications can blend connective and communal sharing of knowledge.

Dimensionality of leader—subordinate interactions: A path—goal investigation

Abstract Predictions from path—goal theory were developed for four underresearched leader behaviors and tested via canonical analysis. A primary composite pattern of leader upward influencing, achievement orientation, and contingent approval, combined with a nonpunitive orientation, appeared acceptable to subordinates (high satisfaction, in particular, but also combined with lower anxiety, role conflict, and willingness to leave organization) and conducive to role clarity, but not to motivation or performance. A secondary leadership profile of achievement orientation in combination with arbitrary and punitive behavior appeared unacceptable to subordinates (reflected as a combination of anxiety, role conflict, and dissatisfaction), but nevertheless conducive to role clarity. There were no significant motivation and performance components. The paper concludes that (1) the findings support the underlying premises of path—goal theory, as well as its robustness in regard to the scope of leadership; (2) satisfaction is the primary subordinate outcome for these four leader behaviors, and unless its effects are isolated (via a technique such as canonical analysis), the effects for other subordinate outcomes may not be accurately described; (3) the four leader behaviors have complex and sometimes contrasting effects depending upon their particular combination; and (4) “dysfunctional” leader behaviors may be considerably more salient for many subordinates than traditional leadership dimensions and thus should be incorporated within future research.