Vicenc Fernandez*, Pep Simo, Mihaela Enache and Jose Maria Sallan

Department of Management, Universitat Polite`cnica de Catalunya, 11 Colom Street, Terrassa, 08222 Spain (Received 19 February 2009; final version received 27 September 2010)

One of the most important determinants of managerial effectiveness in achieving organisational objectives is the success in influencing subordinates, lateral peers and supervisors through influence tactics. However, little attention has been paid to the use of a communication medium in the context of influence tactics. Our objective is to study the frequency of these dyadic influence tactics on diverse communication media. The study involves a questionnaire based survey conducted on Spanish post-graduate students who had been working in medium-sized or large companies during the last 2 years or more. The results suggest that the richness of the medium explains most similarities and differences in the frequency of influence tactics for different communication media. Furthermore, in the study of hard influence tactics in communication media with similar richness, it is necessary to introduce social aspects and the level of surveillance in order to explain it fully. This study helps managers to understand the relationships between influence tactics and the use of communication media in order to improve their communication effectiveness.

Keywords: communication media; dyadic influence tactics; media richness theory; organisational communication

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/0144929X.2010.549510