ORGANIZATIONAL COMMUNICATION AND GROUP PERFORMANCE: AN ANALYSIS OF COMMUNICATION PROPERTIES OF INFORMATION ITEMS

A number of recent communication studies (Frank, 1981; Ottati, 1981; Donner, 1982; Evangelista, 1982; Rosen, 1982) have attempted to demonstrate and explain the nature, processes, and utility of communication as related to organizational structure. It is suggested here that semantic and syntactic properties of information are related to communication efficiency.;Factor analysis of five syntactic measures of each information item indicated two underlying factors which were consistent with reading grade levels and readability scores. Analysis of three item communication measures derived from past studies indicated the presence of one factor.;Factor scores computed from semantic and syntactic measures were entered into separate regressions using communication factor scores as the dependent measure. Results indicated that in the in-context condition, the semantic Utility factor alone explained a significant amount of variance in communication. No significant relationship was found for the out-of-context condition or between the syntactic variables and communication.;A predictive model for information item communication was developed based on the regression of in-context semantic factors. An R('2) of .29 was indicated using a logarithmic function of the Utility factor. The prediction model was validated against communication factor scores used in a similar simulation study (Lost at Sea) and semantic factor scores from a second survey (n = 22). The correlation between actual and predicted communication scores was .32 but not statistically significant.;The communication efficiencies of fifteen individual information items were identified based on the re-analysis of data collected in prior studies. A survey (n = 84) was utilized to measure the semantic properties of each information item. Semantic differential scores were analyzed using Factor analysis. Four underlying dimensions were derived and identified as Utility, Novelty, Projectivity, and Clarity factors. In-context and out-of-context conditions yielded different semantic factor compositions as tested by Wrigley and Neuhaus's salient factor loading index.;Lack of significance of variables in the regressions may have been related to the limited number of observations (information items) available in this study. Implications for further research are discussed.