The effects of hierarchical relationships and physical arrangements on face-to-face communication in an office environment were investigated. Mutual exposure, physical distance between offices, chain-of-command distance, and status distance were compared as predictors of communication time. A path model was developed using exposure as a mediating variable between the distance measures and communication time. Exposure was a sufficient predictor of communication. Chain of command, status, and office distance all related to exposure, with chain-of-command distance having the strongest association with exposure. Distance between offices was primarily associated with chain-of-command distance, with status distance having a smaller but significant effect. Results suggest ways in which organizations might manage exposure in order to influence face-to-face communication.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Allen, T. J.
(1977). Managing the flow of technology: Technology transfer and the dissemination of technological information within the R&D organization. Cambridge: MIT Press.
2.
Allen, T. J.
, & Cohen, D. I. (1969). Information flow in research and development laboratories. Administrative Science Quarterly, 14, 12-20.
3.
Burt, R. S.
(1982). Toward a structural theory of action. New York: Academic Press.
4.
Caplow, T.
(1976). How to run any organization. Hinsdale, IL: Dryden.
5.
Cohen, M. D.
, March, J. G., & Olsen, J. P. (1972). A garbage can model of organizational choice. Administrative Science Quarterly, 17, 1-25.
6.
Conrath, D. W.
(1973). Communication environment and its relationship to organizational structure. Management Science, 20, 586-603.
7.
Daft, R. L.
, & Huber, G. P. (1987). How organizations learn: A communication framework. In S. B. Bacharach & N. DiTomasso (Eds.), Research in the sociology of organizations, (Vol. 5, pp. 1-36). London: JAI.
8.
Daft, R. L.
, & Lengel, R. H. (1986). Organizational information requirements, media richness and structural design. Management Science, 32, 554-571.
9.
Eisenberg, E. M.
, Monge, P. R., & Miller, K. I. (1983). Involvement in communication networks as a predictor of organizational commitment. Human Communication Research, 10, 179-201.
10.
Festinger, L.
, Schacter, S., & Back, K. (1950). Social pressures in informal groups. New York: Harper.
11.
Form, W. H.
(1972). Technology and social behavior of workers in four countries: A sociotechnical perspective. American Sociological Review, 37, 727-738.
12.
Galbraith, J. R.
(1974). Organization design: An information processing view. Interfaces, 4, 23-36.
13.
Gullahorn, J. T.
(1952). Distance and friendship as factors in the cross interaction matrix. Sociometry, 15, 123-134.
14.
Hall, E. T.
(1959). The silent language. Garden City, NY: Doubleday.
15.
Hall, R. H.
(1991). Organizations: Structures, processes, and outcomes (5th ed.). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
16.
Heider, F.
(1958). The psychology of interpersonal relations. New York: Wiley.
17.
Huber, G. P.
, & McDaniel, R. R. (1986). The decision-making paradigm of organizational design. Management Science, 32, 572-589.
18.
Johnson, B. M.
(1977). Communication: The process of organizing. Boston: Allyn & Bacon.
19.
Kanter, R. M.
(1977). Men and women of the corporation. New York: Basic Books.
20.
Katz, D.
, & Kahn, R. L. (1978). The social psychology of organizations (2nd ed.). New York: Wiley.
21.
Krackhardt, D.
(1987). QAP partialling as a test of spuriousness. Social Networks, 9, 171-186.
22.
Krackhardt, D.
(1988). Predicting with networks: Nonparametric multiple regression analysis of dyadic data. Social Networks, 10, 359-381.
23.
Krackhardt, D. (1991). Multiple regression QAP: Analytic vs. permutation methods. Unpublished manuscript.
24.
Lincoln, J. R.
(1984). Analyzing relations in dyads: Problems, models, and an application to interorganizational research. Sociological Methods & Research, 13, 45-76.
25.
March, J. G.
(1983). The technology of foolishness. In B. Staw (Ed.), Psychological foundations of organizational behavior (2nd ed, pp. 339-345.). Glenview, IL: Scott, Foresman. (Original work published 1971)
26.
March, J. G.
, & Simon, H. (1958). Organizations. New York: Wiley.
27.
Mintzberg, H.
(1973). The nature of managerial work. New York: Harper & Row.
28.
Monge, P. R.
, & Eisenberg, E. M. (1987). Emergent communication networks. In F. M. Jablin, L. T. Putnam, K. H. Roberts, & L. W. Porter (Eds.), Handbook of organizational communication: An interdisciplinary perspective. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
29.
Monge, P. R.
, & Kirste, K. K. (1980). Measuring proximity in human organization. Social Psychology Quarterly, 43, 110-115.
30.
Monge, P. R.
, Rothman, L. W., Eisenberg, E. M., Miller, K. I., & Kirste, K. K. (1985). The dynamics of organizational proximity. Management Science, 31, 1129-1141.
31.
Oldham, G. R.
(1988). Effects of changes in workspace partitions and spatial density on employee reactions: A quasi-experiment. Journal of Applied Psychology, 73, 253-258.
32.
Oldham, G. R.
, & Rotchford, N. L. (1983). Relationships between office characteristics and employee reactions: A study of the physical environment. Administrative Science Quarterly, 28, 542-556.
33.
Peters, T. J.
, & Waterman, R. H. (1982). In search of excellence. New York: Harper & Row.
34.
Russ, G. S.
, Daft, R. L., & Lengel, R. H. (1990). Media selection and managerial characteristics in organizational communications. Management Communication Quarterly, 4, 151-175.
35.
Sproul, L.
, & Kiesler, S. (1986). Reducing social context cues: Electronic mail in organizational communication. Management Science, 11, 1491-1512.
36.
Sundstrom, E.
, Burt, R. E., & Kamp, D. (1980). Privacy at work: Architectural correlates of job satisfaction and job performance. Academy of Management Journal, 23, 101-117.
37.
Sundstrom, E.
, Town, J. P., Brown, D. W., Forman, A., & McGee, C. (1982). Physical enclosure, type of job, and privacy in the office. Environment and Behavior, 14, 543-559.
38.
Trevino, L. K.
, Lengel, R. H., Bodensteiner, W., Gerloff, E. A., & Muir, N. K. (1990). The richness imperative and cognitive style: The role of individual differences in media choice behavior. Management Communication Quarterly, 4, 176-197.
39.
Weick, K. E.
(1979). The social psychology of organizing. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
40.
Zahn, G. L.
(1979). Probability measures of distance in organizations. Paper presented at the Institute of Management Sciences, 14th International Meeting, Honolulu, HI.
41.
Zalesny, M. D.
, & Farace, R. V. (1987). Traditional versus open offices: A comparison of sociotechnical, social relations, and symbolic meaning perspectives. Academy of Management Journal, 30, 240-259.
