Uncertainty, Social Location and Influence in Decision Making: A Sociometric Analysis

Michael L. Tushman and Elaine Romanelli
Additional contact information
Michael L. Tushman: Columbia University
Elaine Romanelli: Columbia University

Management Science, 1983, vol. 29, issue 1, 12-23

Abstract: This research investigates the relative impacts of formal status and informal communication roles on influence in administrative and technical decision making. While external information enters the organization via boundary spanning individuals, the exercise of influence at lower levels of the organization is dependent on mediating critical organizational contingencies. As the locus of task uncertainty shifts, so too does the relative influence of boundary spanning individuals and internal stars; the greater the task and environmental uncertainty, the greater the influence of boundary spanning individuals. Senior management are influential across task areas. The formal hierarchy and informal social processes complement each other in the exercise of influence. These results extend research which indicates that different information processing requirements require systematically different organizational processes to attend to that uncertainty.

Keywords: research and development; organizational studies (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1983
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (21)

Downloads: (external link)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.29.1.12 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:inm:ormnsc:v:29:y:1983:i:1:p:12-23

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Management Science from INFORMS Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Asher ().