Abstract:
The purpose of this study was to provide a guideline for selection of communication channels during organisational change. The study was conducted across industries in South Africa, with inclusion criteria being the experience of a form organisational in the past three years. The questionnaire for data collection was based on rich media theory (six channels) while for communication satisfaction an instrument of Downs and Hazen (1977) was adapted and utilized. Data was collected online with social media platform such as LinkedIn and Whatsup used for snowball sample as population was unknown. A total of 162 response were obtained, of which ten were excluded as they did not meet the inclusion criteria of experience of organizational change.
There were four main findings of the study. First, Emails was the most dominant forms of communication the management which is media poor media. This communication channel by management were similar to employee preference of communication channels. Second, Of the six constructs, superior communication, communication climate, media quality personal feedback, co-worker communication and corporate information. Five of the six variable were found to have both convergent, discriminant validity and reliable using Partial Least Square Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM). Four of the five constructs were found to statistically different from the hypothesis value of Ô3Õindicating that there was high customer satisfaction except for communication climate where participants were undecided. Third, On the media rich, face to face meeting and video conferencing were positively correlated with communication satisfaction with weak to medium strength relationships, while on the media poor showing a weak relationship between emails and posters with some dimensions of communication satisfaction.
It can be concluded that the organisations do not use media rich communication channels, but rather a mixture media rich and media poor and there is a relationship between communication channels and communication satisfaction, with media rich channels having a stronger relationship. These findings should be considered with the context of inadequate generalisability due to the use of snowball sampling technique. It is recommended that practitioners, select communication channels with caution to ensure that key issues (uncertainty, successful transfer of information) are addressed adequately For academic community, more research is required as communication channels evolve with technology to ensure that the portfolio of channels used during organisational change.
