The Effect of Organizational Communication Media on Organizational Culture and Performance: An Agent-Based Simulation Model

  • Authors:

  • Enrique Canessa;Rick L. Riolo

  • Affiliations:

  • Universidad “Adolfo Ibañez”, Faculty of Science and Technology, Balmaceda 1620, Viña del Mar, Chile. ecanessa@uai.cl ecanessa@umich.edu;University of Michigan, Center for the Study of Complex Systems, 4477 Randall Lab., Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1120, USA. rlriolo@umich.edu

  • Venue:
  • Computational & Mathematical Organization Theory
  • Year:
  • 2003

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Abstract

This paper examines the mutual relationship between the communication richness of media used for conducting organizational communication and organizational culture. The richness of the media influences how well the organization might maintain its culture. On the other hand, a strong organizational culture allows a more effective use of the media by providing members with some of the necessary common ground to better understand the information exchanged. These relationships are investigated using an agent-based simulation model (ABM). Our ABM incorporates many partial theories into a coherent and fully defined model, which helps formalize and integrate those theories. Our model allows us to analyze non-linearities and interaction effects, which are difficult to investigate using other techniques. Additionally, the ABM allows us to investigate the dynamics of the phenomenon and generate hypotheses that could then be tested using empirical studies. Given the substantial resources necessary to conduct empirical studies, we think that the present ABM is valuable in helping guide data collection efforts. In this paper, we present results that show that organizational culture can influence the effectiveness of the media used for organizational communication and that a high media richness can help maintain and stabilize a culture. The effect of media richness on organizational culture depends on the initial strength of the culture. In general, for a given richness of the media, an initially strong culture stabilizes faster and becomes stronger through time than an initially weak culture. Additionally, the model suggests that a stable network of contacts among agents fosters a high achievement of organizational tasks. Conversely, when agents are forced to establish contacts with agents outside the usual network for doing their work, the accomplishment of tasks decreases.