This study, conducted in a medium-size federal government agency, assesses
whether readers evaluating reports written in a high-impact style make better
decisions than readers evaluating the same reports written in a bureaucratic
style that is the organization's norm. Results indicate that respondents reading
high-impact reports did not make statistically significant better decisions than
those reading bureaucratic reports. To explain these results, the study analyzes
the effect that organizationally-specific context factors - perceived work roles,
job design, organizational structure, report genre expectations, and organiza
tional language norms - have on respondents' reading and interpretation
processes and attitudes toward the high-impact reports. Qualitative data show
that these context factors caused readers to perceive the high-impact reports as
abnormal discourse, thus deflecting their attention from the interpretation and
analysis of report content.
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