Organizational Information Requirements, Media richness and Structural Design

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Organizational Information Requirements, Media richness and Structural Design

Daft Richard
Robert Lengel

Abstract

This paper answers the question, “Why do organizations process information?” Uncertainty and equivocality are defined as two forces that influence information processing in organizations. Organization structure and internal systems determine both the amount and richness of information provided to managers. Models are proposed that show how organizations can be designed to meet the information needs of technology, interdepartmental relations, and the environment. One implication for managers is that a major problem is lack of clarity, not lack of data. The models indicate how organizations can be designed to provide information mechanisms to both reduce uncertainty and resolve equivocality.

Keywords

Information in organizations, Structural design, Organization structure

Annotation

In this article, Daft and Lengel (1986) examine why and how organizations process information by integrating the equivocality and uncertainty frameworks of information processing. Drawing on early psychologists’ definition, uncertainty can be defined as absence of information. As information increases, uncertainty decreases. Equivocality is ambiguity that allows multiple interpretations. Thus, Daft and Lengel argue that uncertainty measures “the organization’s ignorance of a value for a variable in the space” (p. 557) whereas equivocality indicates “whether a variable exists in the space” (p. 557). The concept of equivocality is what distinguishes human social systems from lower level biological system, and thus, more studies should incorporated the both concepts for richer assessment of organizational behavior.

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