Over the course of the summer, I was an intern at Advion BioSciences working for the Marketing & Communications Director. It was the nature of my employ that I was required to complete a varied series of tasks, often overlapping, provided to me at any manner of time. What resulted was a need for consistent contact between myself and my boss, so I could ask questions about specifics, report completed work, and be assigned new work.
What resulted was a consistent pattern of channel choice based on how immediate a response was needed from her to continue my work. If I had completed a task, I would send her an email explaining what I had done, or if I had finished a draft of a report or newsletter, I would attach it and send it to her email asking for review at her convenience. But, if there was a concern over which letter to send in a mass mailing or a need for a longer discussion on a big project like reformmating the CRM, I would pop into her office and ask her.
According to the Media Richness Theory, the choice of communication medium generally will reflect the equivocality of the medium to the task at hand and the richness required. With regards to my work situation, it would appear that I was indeed chosing the channel to most actively reflect "availability of feedback" and "language variety." If I needed an answer right away, I would seek her out FtF. If there was not an immediate need, I would send her an email. If there was a need for an at length discussion of an upcoming project, we would meet face to face. But, if I had a minor question, a simple email sufficed.
What about situations which required immediate feedback, but no additional cues or richness? If I had a short question requiring immediate response but no drawn out explanation requiring a FtF meeting, why did I not use the phone to call her? Familiarity. If I want more feedback, I much prefer a FtF conversation than the dirth of additional cues yielded by telephone communications. In fact, I loathe phones. So, although I was acting according the the Media Richness Theory at times, there was a sweeping disregard of an unfamiliar and unwelcome channel despite the effeciency it would have provided.
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3 comments:
I had a similar internship in the past for an internet marketing company. Most of the work I had to do was online and I was also in frequent contact with my boss. I used email as well for the same purpose you did, but instead of going to ask him face to face if I had any questions about my task, I would use AIM. This seemed to be the fastest way for me to contact my boss. Did you ever use AIM? I do understand your point of familiarity though. It might be better to show your face to your boss and make your presence known.
Hi Mark. I found your post interesting, and I can definitely relate. When I interned over the summer, I would do the exact same thing. With my experience though, I factored in the dynamics of authority, which neither MRT or O'Sullivan's model put into consideration.
Although my boss did not make me feel like a lowly intern, I found myself choosing email over phone, because I thought he'd probably have more important calls he had to make or receive, to/from other execs. I would email or IM instead, so that I was sure I wasn't interrupting him.
Basically, I felt like I could walk into other interns' offices and talk to them any time I needed to, but I was more careful of choosing ways to communicate with my bosses. I realize now that this is silly, especially since my bosses treated me like an equal.
I agree that convenience of the communication medium is a major factor in media selection. I am surprised that neither MRT nor O'sullivan's theory emphasize enough the importance of other factors besides richness, valence, and to whom the message is directed (self vs. other). I would argue that O'sullivan has some relevance for your communication decisions, since your more complicated/urgent tasks may require a richer medium. I also had a similar experience at my internship, where the urgency of the task and the convenience of the medium influenced my media selection choices. Most communication was in between FTF and email (it was through AIM instant messaging). Now I realize that AIM has the best mix of convenience and near-synchronous communication that helps us to maximize productivity and get things done quicker when faced with several communication media to choose from.
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