People react to more than the message

Abstract

The behavior which is induced by a message is often related to factors apart from the message itself. These factors serve to establish the mental framework of the receiver, his ‘mental set’. The implications of these observations for management information systems are obvious: ‘wonderful’ MIS systems do not get properly implemented and used because people interpret and react to data with respect to the evoked mental sets. Some suggesions as how the perceptions of messages can be affected are included.