Managing Uncertainty in Organizational Communication PDF
Preview Managing Uncertainty in Organizational Communication
Managing Uncertainty in Organizational Communication Michael W. Kramer * MANAGING UNCERTAINTY IN ORGANIZATIONAL COMMUNICATION LEA’s Communication Series Jennings Bryant/Dolf Zillmann, General Editors Selected titles in Organizational Communication (Linda Putnam, Advisory Editor) include: Geist/Hardesty • Negotiating the Crisis: DRGs and the Transformation of Hospitals Haslett • Communicating and Organizing: An Integrated Framework Taylor/Van Every ♦ The Emergent Organization: Communication as Its Site and Surface Nicotera/Clinkscales/with Walker • Understanding Organization Through Culture and Structure: Relational and Other Lessons From the African American Organization For a complete list of titles in LEA’s Communication Series, please contact Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers at www.erlbaum.com MANAGING UNCERTAINTY IN ORGANIZATIONAL COMMUNICATION Michael W. Kramer University of Missouri-Columbia O Routledge Taytor S. Francis Group LONDON AND NEW YORK First published 2004 by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc., Publishers 10 Industrial Avenue Mahwah, NJ 07430 This edition published 2013 by Routledge Routledge Routledge Taylor & Francis Group Taylor & Francis Group 711 Third Avenue 2 Park Square, Milton Park New York, NY 10017 Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business First issued in paperback 2013 ISBN 13: 978-0-805-84920-2 (hbk) ISBN 13: 978-0-415-64989-6 (pbk) Cover design by Sean Sciarrone Library of Congress Catalog!ng-in-Publication Data Kramer, Michael W. Managing uncertainty in organizational communication / Michael W. Kramer. p. cm. — (LEA’s communication series) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-8058-4920-3 (alk. Paper) 1. Communication in organizations. 2. Uncertainty (Information the ory) I. Title. II. Series. HD30.3.K7 2004 658.4’5—dc21 2003061663 CIP To students This page intentionally left blank Contents Preface ix 1 Introduction and Rationale 1 2 Uncertainty Reduction Theory in Interpersonal Contexts 8 3 Uncertainty in Group and Organizational Contexts 33 4 A Theory of Managing Uncertainty: A New Model 64 5 Cognitive and Behavioral Processes for Managing Uncertainty: 114 A Qualitative Study of Car Salespeople 6 The Influence of Competing Motives on Managing Uncertainty: 150 Responses to Organizational Scenarios 7 A Textual Analysis of Managing Uncertainty: A Reanalysis 171 of the Lucille Burger Story 8 Implications and Conclusions 189 References 219 Appendix 231 Author Index 233 Subject Index 239 This page intentionally left blank Preface My sense of prefaces and acknowledgments in books is that we respond to them like we do to many of the Academy Award acceptance speeches. We usually consider them too long and frequently ignore them as a result. Therefore, I will be brief. I began the process of developing this model of managing uncertainty by scrib bling some notes on the back of a conference paper (notes that I still have) while being inattentive to another presenter. I am not sure what inspired me; it was not the other presenter. Some credit for my initial thoughts should go to Petty and Cacioppo (1981) for their elaboration likelihood model of persuasion. In the same way that they argue that there is more than one path to persuasion, I felt that there is also more than one way that people manage uncertainty. Bob McPhee’s an nouncement of the Arizona State University Organizational Communication Prize Lecture Conference motivated me to turn those brief notes into a manu script. This eventually led to the development of a tentative model of motivation to reduce uncertainty that I presented and that was later published (Kramer, 1999). Positive response to it led me to pursue writing this volume. The model that is presented in chapter 4 represents some of the many ways that people respond to uncertainty in their lives. It attempts to demonstrate some of the complexity of issues involved in organizational communication. The model should be viewed as a model in progress that will need to be changed as new research and insights build on it. The studies I conducted as part of this vol ume have already modified the model. It is my hope that it will assist readers in un derstanding and researching this important topic more thoroughly so that additional changes can be suggested. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I will not attempt to thank all of the people who encouraged me to write this or in fluenced my thinking about the topic. Instead I will focus on a few key individuals. Certainly my department chair, Pam Benoit, provided me with a great deal of support to begin the project and also to complete it, including reading drafts of early chapters of the manuscript. Fredjablin, my PhD advisor, not only helped me ix
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