Page 1 of 20 ANZAM 2010 Media effects on employee engagement with change communication: Can they be predicted Media Richness Theory? Janika Lawrence Department of Management, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand Email: [email protected] Dr Colleen Mills Email: [email protected] Department of Management, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand ANZAM 2010 Page 2 of 20 Media Effects on Employee Engagement with Change Communication: Can they be Predicted Using Media Richness Theory? ABSTRACT: Change managers are confronted with a wide range of media choices for communicating with employees during periods of organisational change. However, while there is an extensive literature to inform their media decisions, this literature pays scant attention to employees’ experience of and response to different media. This paper addresses this gap in the literature by presenting findings from a qualitative study of frontline healthcare workers’ perceptions of and responses to the change communication surrounding two change initiatives at a major healthcare provider. It shows how frontline employees’ responses to the media used directly impacted on their engagement with the changes in ways not always consistent with Media Richness Theory (Daft & Trevino, 1987; Russ, Daft and Lengel, 1990). Their engagement with the change communication was found to be a consequence of the interactional dynamics and communication environment in their workplace and not, in the first instance, the equivocality and complexity of the change message. Such a finding has significant implications for change agents seeking to optimise frontline staff’s engagement with change initiatives. Key words: Media Richness Theory, media choice, engagement, change communication, sensemaking ‘Organisations are built, maintained, and activated through the medium of communication. If that communication is misunderstood, the existence of the organisation itself becomes more tenuous’ (Weick, 2001, p. 136). The risks to stakeholders of ineffectual communication are particularly significant in high reliability organisations like hospitals, especially during periods of change. Effective change communication is vital to ensure the organisation continues to operate safely and efficiently. Typically in large, modern organisations a change manager is confronted with a wide range of media choices for communicating with internal stakeholders during periods of organisational change. The challenge is to make media choices that maximize the likelihood that communication is effective. However, while there is an extensive literature to inform change agents’ media decisions, this literature pays scant attention to employees’ experience of and response to the media used during organisational change. This paper addresses this gap in the literature by presenting findings from a qualitative study of frontline workers’ perceptions of and responses to the internal communication that was related to two change initiatives at a major healthcare provider. Page 1 of 19 ANZAM 2010 Page 3 of 20 ANZAM 2010 Following a brief review of relevant change management and communication media choice literatures it describes the change initiatives and the organisation in which they were occurring. It then briefly describes the research approach. The findings from an analysis of employees’ responses to the media used to communicate with them about two organisational change initiatives are then presented. The paper concludes with a short discussion of how well Media Richness Theory (Daft et al, 1987; Russ, Daft and Lengel, 1990) predicted the empirical findings. The paper’s contribution lies in the useful insights it provides for guiding media selection during change. INSIGHTS FROM THE LITERATURE Managing Change: The Importance of Engaging Communication In order to remain competitive and effectively achieve corporate goals organisations must continually embrace change (Kotter &Cohen, 2002), yet organisational change continues to be poorly managed, leading to up to two-thirds of change initiatives not achieving their expected goals (Beer & Nohria, 2000). Research suggests that this is due to inadequate understanding of change implementation techniques (Gilley, Gilley and McMillan, 2009, p. 75), which inevitably involve internal communication. High performing companies don’t leave communication to chance, particularly during times of change and uncertainty. Trahant (2008) found a strong correlation between high performing organisations and effective employee communication. Those organisations gaining high scores in effective employee communication were operationally different from organisations achieving lower scores. Among their distinguishing characteristics these high performing companies had communication programmes that effectively engaged employees by involving them and levering upon their strengths during change implementation. Employee engagement during change does not simply refer to informing employees about change. While a well designed informational strategy within a change management process will ensure employees understand the need for change (Fiol et al 1999; Kotter, 1995) and help to address resistance to change stemming from confusion and anxiety (Kanter, 1983), uncertainty (Olson & Tetrick, 1988) and emotional reactions (Nadler, 1982), change agents need to achieve a high level of employee engagement (Crozier & Kass, 2010). This is because it is Page 2 of 19 ANZAM 2010 ANZAM 2010 Page 4 of 20 engagement that drives acceptance of change (Bordia et al, 2004), empoyee performance and ultimately successful implementation. Strategy is not sufficient on its own. Change agents and those who directly communicate with staff during times of change need to be skilled and actively promoting engagement (Jones et al., 2008, p. 295). Poor line managers can negatively affect the achievement of affective communication engagement if they are unskilled in communicating or act as gatekeepers of information and choose not to communicate with staff (Boardman, 2009). Thus, it can be seen that communication that engages internal stakeholders is an important objective if organisational change is to be successful. It is surprising, then, that there is a scant literature on employees’ experience of change communication and the factors that ensure their engagement with this communication. Communication Media Choice Media Richness Theory (MRT) (Daft & Trevino, 1987; Russ, Daft and Lengel, 1990) or Information Richness Theory as it was originally proposed (Daft and Lengel, 1984, 1986) suggests that rich media communication (for example, face-to-face communication and teleconferencing), which provide instant feedback, the use of multiple cues and natural language and a personal focus, are best suited to situations where the information being communicated is complex or where equivocality exists (Carlson & George, 2004, p. 193). In contrast, lean media (for example, email and letters) are more suited to simple messages where equivocality is low. MRT proposes that effective media choices involve matching the characteristics of the media to the informational needs of the task (Daft et al. 1987). Shao-Kang and Ting (2008) suggest that trust as well as information richness is also a factor in media choice. Their experimental results suggest communicators, when communicating over long distances, will choose a communication medium that allows high information richness if the communication is characterised as highly equivocal and a low degree of trust for the other party. In contrast, if communicating over short distances their media choice is neither affected by task equivocality nor trust. A study on knowledge transfer within a hospital by Murray & Peyrefitte (2007) found that rich media were often used to communicate ‘know-how’ or tacit knowledge whereas lean media were Page 3 of 19 ANZAM 2010 Page 5 of 20 ANZAM 2010 frequently used to communicate information or explicit knowledge. In contrast, some media have been found to be used regardless of the type of knowledge being transferred because they were the favoured media choice of the communicator (Rice & Case, 1983; Murray & Peyrefitte, 2007). For example, upper management have been found to have preference for rich media such as face-to-face communication (Rice & Shook, 1990; El-Shinnawy & Markus, 1998; Carlson & Davis, 1998; Murray & Peyrefitte, 2007). Research has also suggested that employees encounter strong social and organisational encouragement to use particular media (for example, e-mail) and that this influences their decision to use this medium (Markus 1994). Rich media communication situations offer the opportunity for immediate feedback, which has many positive organizational effects. For instance, Kassing (2000) found that in workplaces where feedback was encouraged employees exhibited high organisational identification and openly articulated dissenting views, knowing that these would be welcome. In contrast, where feedback was not encouraged and dissent suppressed then employees exhibited less identification and more resentment and desire for revenge. Media choice has major implications for change management. This is because change inevitably is accompanied by some level of disruption, which has the potential to create equivocality and uncertainty (Mills, 2010) as well as a need to effectively share change-related information. Media choice becomes an important consideration, particularly in large technologically sophisticated