Assessing the role of power distance on effective organisational communication

Abstract

As the world moves toward a globally integrated society, the strategic management process is now more than ever in the spotlight. Organisations are required to have agility in responding to social, economic, and technological challenges. This was evident between the years 2020 and 2021, when organisations had to contend with and regroup to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic, which exposed structural flaws in how organisations rally their resources to respond to change. This research study sought to study the nature of the relationship between such strategic parameters that have been deemed to contribute to how organisational resources interact to respond to change. These were power distance dimension of organisational culture and the role it plays in organisational communication. The objectives of this research were to assess the relationship between power distance and organisational communication within the strategy execution context. To achieve its objectives, quantitative methodology was applied which enabled determination of the relationship between the two constructs through confirmatory factor analysis. Data was collected using a survey that was dispersed among a sample size of 223 respondents, operating at different managerial and operational levels within Southern African private and public sector organisations. The findings of this research study confirmed the direct and inverse proportional relationship between power distance and organisational communication. The findings have significant implications for both business and literature as the research study closed a glaring gap by confirming that power distance will either strengthen or attenuate the effectiveness of organisational communication. This confirmation was comprehensively done at both a construct and dimension level.