This paper proposes a theoretical approach to mediated communication in organizations. It is argued that the man-machine interface in mediated human communication is better dealt with when a comprehensive theoretical approach is used, than when separate communication devices are tested as they appear in the market, such as video-teleconferencing. Propinquity is considered to be the system's trait which is essential for the continuation of the human communication system in organizations. In a structural-functional analysis, six propositions, 15 derived corollaries, and two-limits propositions are presented. The variables included in the propositions are: (a) perceived propinquity; (b) perceived bandwidth; (c) perceived complexity of the information; (d) perceived degree of mutual directionality of the channel; (e) communication skills; (f) perceived communication rules; (g) perceived number of choices among channels; (h) perceived conflict; and (i) perceived turbulence in the environment. Evidence from past research is used to support the perspective presented.

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The present article reports an experiment conducted in order to test the recently formulated “Theory of Electronic Propinquity.” In the original study, the author proposed a structural-functional approach to mediated communication in which perceived propinquity was considered to be the essential system trait for the continuation of the human communication system in organizations. Psychological propinquity was considered to affect the degree to which members of an organization experience communication satisfaction. A 3 times 2 experiment was conducted where the treatments were three business conference situations (face-to-face, video. and audio only) with two different levels of complexity of information in a problem-solving task. The results of the equation for perceived propinquity indicated that only perceived feedback was a significant contributor. The results of the equation for communication satisfaction indicated that perceived feedback, perceived level of communication rules, and psychological propinquity were significant contributors. The major finding of the study, was the importance of perceived feedback in accounting for variance in communication satisfaction. Psychological propinquity, however, was found to mediate the impact of perceived feedback on the communication satisfaction of the participants. Finally, the shortcomings of the experiment were discussed as well as the implications of the study for future research and theory-building efforts.

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