Joshua B. Barbour

Avoiding Health Information

This study investigated why and how individuals avoid health information to support the development of models of uncertainty and information management and offer insights for those dealing with the information and uncertainty inherent to health and illness. Participants from student (n = 507) and community (n = 418) samples reported that they avoided health information to (a) maintain hope or deniability, (b) resist overexposure, (c) accept limits of action, (d) manage flawed information, (e) maintain boundaries, and (f) continue with life/activities. They also reported strategies for avoiding information, including removing or ignoring stimuli (e.g., avoiding people who might provide health advice) and controlling conversations (e.g., withholding information, changing the subject). Results suggest a link between previous experience with serious illness and health information avoidance. Building on uncertainty management theory, this study demonstrated that health information avoidance is situational, relatively common, not necessarily unhealthy, and may be used to accomplish multiple communication goals.

Designing Communication for the Day-to-Day Safety Oversight of Nuclear Power Plants

Inspectors of nuclear power plants manage information to make plants safer and to monitor and evaluate adherence to regulatory requirements. Integrating grounded practical theory and communication as design (CAD), we investigated the collective design of and practice of status meetings—a pair of daily meetings meant to manage information about the day-to-day safety oversight of nuclear power plants. Our analysis focused on (1) the problems these status meetings were meant to address, (2) the techniques participants used or proposed to address them, and (3) the situated ideals reflected in the designs for and practice of these meetings. Clustering the techniques illuminated designable features of status meetings (e.g., what, how much, and how to communicate, turn-taking, timing, pacing, and audience). We extend work on CAD by conceptualizing and investigating collective design work, focusing on the fit, function, and fragmentation of approaches to status meetings. We also contribute to the theory and practice of organizing for safety and reliability by making recommendations for coping when communication processes informed by best practices nonetheless produce persistent, irresolvable tensions that complicate the enactment of safety.

Shadowing in/as Work: Ten Recommendations for Shadowing Fieldwork Practice

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to provide practical recommendations for shadowing as a method of organizational study with a focus on the situated processes and practices of shadowing fieldwork. Design/methodology/approach – This paper reflects on the shadowing experiences of three researchers – in a hospital emergency department, nuclear power plants, and entrepreneur workspaces – to generate recommendations by identifying and synthesizing solutions that emerged during the encounters with the challenges and opportunities in shadowing. Findings – Considering shadowing as an ongoing and emergent research process can be helpful to prepare for particular aspects of shadowing fieldwork. Shadowing presents research challenges that may emerge in the practice of fieldwork, including how to negotiate awkward conversations with participants, what to bring and wear, and how to take notes. Practical implications – Though the recommendations for shadowing are based on particular experiences and may not genera...

Why do group members provide information to digital knowledge repositories? a multilevel application of transactive memory theory

The proliferation of digital knowledge repositories (DKRs) used for distributed and collocated work raises important questions about how to manage these technologies. This study investigates why individuals contribute information to DKRs by applying and extending transactive memory theory. Data from knowledge workers (N = 208) nested in work groups (J = 17) located in Europe and the United States revealed, consistent with transactive memory theory, that perceptions of experts retrieval of information were positively related to the likelihood of information provision to DKRs. The relationship between experts perceptions of retrieval and information provision varied from group to group, and cross‐level interactions indicated that trust in how the information would be used and the interdependence of tasks within groups could explain that variation. Furthermore, information provision to DKRs was related to communication networks in ways consistent with theorizing regarding the formation of transactive memory systems. Implications for theory and practice are discussed, emphasizing the utility of multilevel approaches for conceptualizing and modeling why individuals provide information to DKRs.

On the Institutional Moorings of Talk in Health Care Organizations

By examining the conversations that make up day-to-day organizational life, we can understand and improve organizational processes and outcomes. The value of this communication-constitutive view of organizing is especially apparent in health care. Conversations among managers and providers influence the administration of health care organizations (Iedema, Degeling, Braithwaite, & White, 2003). Conversations among providers within multidisciplinary teams are related to the productivity, cohesiveness, and effectiveness of the teams (Poole & Real, 2003). Conversations among managed care organizations and providers shape how they see the practice of medicine (Barbour & Lammers, 2007). Moreover, conversations among providers and patients can affect even healing itself (Street, Makoul, Arora, & Epstein, 2009). Given the recent struggles of policy makers in the United States to reform the U.S. health care system to balance issues of quality, access, and cost (see a discussion of this trilemma in Conrad & McIntush, 2003), understanding and managing these conversations well has ever-increasing practical relevance. This relevance is especially clear given that any restructuring of health care will certainly have unanticipated consequences for the day-to-day provision and management of care. Understanding and accounting for the institutional moorings of such conversations will help address important and persistent challenges in health care, and communication and management scholars should attend to how individuals use institutional logics to communicate and to adjudicate the effectiveness of communication strategies. It is not surprising how often researchers investigate professional, technical, and knowledge work processes in health care contexts. The prevalence of

The Message Design Logics of Organizational Change

This study investigated the influence of context in the production of messages by stakeholders about organizational change. We analyzed messages produced in response to hypothetical organizational change scenarios. The message production task was implemented within a 2×2 experimental design (N = 1,205) fielded at three different organizations. We included multiple replications for each manipulation, and multilevel structural equation modeling allowed for analysis across scenario replications. Results indicated that perceptions of change and context do influence message design mediated by intensity of beliefs about a change. The study extends message design logics theory and contributes to a conceptualization of stakeholder interaction during organizational change as a problem of communication design.

Consider Clicking In: Using Audience Response Systems to Spark Discussion

Courses: Any large-lecture format, communication course. Objectives: Students will apply and evaluate course concepts through daily discussion activities and class dialogues supported by audience response systems (i.e., clickers).