Accuracy of Information Flows Within the Superior/Subordinate Relationship

Abstract

This paper examines distortion of information by subordinates and several variables related to distortion. Methodology and results are presented for distortion of upward information leadership roles and accuracy in downward communication. The evidence strongly suggests that certain activities of the superior have an important bearing upon subordinate distortion of information.THE SIGNIFICANCE OF COMMUNICATION to the management of organizations is reflected in both the literature and the common sense of managers. Social organization without communication is impossible. One of the more widely-known writers in organization theory, Herbert A. Simon, reflects on the importance of communication to social organization in the following:Communication may be formally defined as any process whereby decisional premises are transmitted from one member of an organization to another. It is obvious that without communication there can be no organization, for there is no possibility then of the group influencing the behavior of the individual. 1 In a broad sense, Simon is arguing that the principal activity of organization is communication. Communication pervades the organizational activity of man; or as C. I. Barnard suggests, &dquo;the first executive function is to develop and maintain a system of communication. &dquo;2 The achievement of favorable conditions through which communication may take place would seem critical to the professional manager and his organizational activities.To aid the manager in the organizational environment, the study and investigation of communication has taken perhaps as many different approaches as there are authors. One of the more common of various approaches to the study of organization interactions is through the directional flow of communication. Many studies have dealt with communication problems based on the direction of movement, i.e., upward, downward, or horizontal.' While the importance of upward communication is

Superior–subordinate communication: The state of the art.

“…Extrapolating on Athanassiades's research, Level and Johnson (1978) have recently found that upward distortion is most likely to be associated with messages in which in-formation about the following personality factors is communicated: ascendency, responsibility, emotional stability, cautiousness, and original thinking. Their data also suggest that in certain areas subordinate tendencies to distort upward communication can be reduced by increasing the superior's "consideration" leadership style, or increasing the accuracy with which the superior transmits downward information.…”

Being Polite and Keeping MUM: How Bad News is Communicated in Organizational Hierarchies1

“…Many studies on information distortion have focused on factors that increase or decrease the level of information distortion within the organizational hierarchy. These factors can be roughly divided into three groups (Dansereau & Markham, 1987): (a) contextual factors, such as organizational climate and structure (Athanassiades, 1973;Bacharach & Aiken, 1977;Curtis, 1989;Jablin, 1982); (b) relationship or social factors, such as trust and interdependence (Larson, 1986;Read, 1962;; and (c) individual difference factors, such as the communicator's upward mobility aspirations (Athanassiades, 1973;Cohen, 1958;Glauser, 1984;Read, 1962;Synder & Zorn, 1986) or the supervisor's leadership and communication style (Level &Johnson, 1978;Luthans & Larsen, 1986). P. Brown and Levinson's (1987) politeness theory also considers how individual, social, and contextual factors affect communication.…”