Fon Sundaravej
Organizational Information Requirements, Media Richness and Structural Design
By Richard L. Daft and Robert H. Lengel
This article presents that an organization needs to process information in order to reduce uncertainty and
equivocality. At the beginning of the article, Daft and Lengel propose an integrated framework to demonstrate uncertainty
and equivocality on information requirements. The framework shows that uncertainty leads to the acquisition of objective
information to answer specific questions, while equivocality leads to the exchange of existing views among managers to
define problems and resolve conflicts. The model indicating how an organization can be designed to provide sufficient
data to decrease uncertainty and information of suitable richness to resolve equivocality is represented. Seven structural
mechanisms to solve these two problems are group meetings, integrator, direct contact, planning, special reports, formal
information systems, and rules and regulations. At the end of the article, Daft and Lengel develop frameworks suggesting
specific themes about organizational information processing according to three different sources of organizational
uncertainty and equivocality, which are technology, interdepartmental relations, and environment.
The article could reflect that the issue of IS and organizations in 1980s is shaping a better scope than earlier but
still lacks supporting evidence to the proposal presented in the article. Compared to the article “Management
Misinformation Systems” by Russell L. Ackoff (1967) which simply describes his suggestions on the IS design affecting
to better decision making by management in organizations based on his own work experience, this article builds
frameworks based on prior and their studies, resulting in more solid research. However, Daft and Lengel do not establish
their models from theories in other disciplines like the subsequent articles of “The Duality of Technology: Rethinking the
Concept of Technology in Organizations” by Orlikowski (1992) which borrows Theory of Structuration by Giddens
(1979, 1984) or “The Impact of Information Systems on Organizations and Markets” by Gurbaxanl and Whang (1991)
which refers to two economics theories. They neither conduct a case study to support his proposal like the article
“Transforming Work through Information Technology: A Comprehensive Case Study of Geographic Information
Systems in County Government” by Robey and Sahay (1996) which demonstrates a case study to assess transforming
work through information technology.
Uncertainty of organizational tasks is mentioned in the earlier article “A Program for Research on Management
Information Systems” by Mason and Mitroff (1973). On that article, Mason and Mitroff (1973) classify problems in
organizations into two types: structured and unstructured problem. Managerial decisions under certainty and uncertainty
circumstances are parts of structured problems. The idea about certainty and uncertainty problems in Mason and Mitroff
(1973)’s article and the present article is presented in a similar fashion. Mason and Mitroff (1973) state in their article that
a decision problem under certainty is one for which the sets of solutions are all known. According to Daft and Lengel, as
a result, there is no need for further information to solve problems with certainty. Contrarily, Mason and Mitroff (1973)
assert if the probabilities are not known but the possible states of the world are known, this situation is perceived as a
problem under uncertainty. As such, Daft and Lengel mention in their article that a need of more information is required
to solve this type of problem.
Environment which, according to Daft and Lengel, is a source of uncertainty and equivocality in organizations has
been classified into several categories in another prior article “A Framework for Research in Computer-Based
Management Information Systems” by Ives, Hamilton, and Davis (1980). That article states an importance on why
environment could be a reason to create problems in organizational uncertainty and equivocality. All types of
environment, which are external, organizational, user, IS development, and IS operations environment, include various
variables and can define the resources and constraints which dictate the scope and form of each information system. This
can be one of the reasons why Daft and Lengel conclude that organizations should actively search more information about
environment to reduce organizational uncertainty and frequently make external contacts to resolve organizational
equivocality.
After all, the article generates some significant insights on the impact of IS to organizations. Daft and Lengel
argue that technology that creates high variety of tasks, the department that frequently contact to other departments, and
the organization that actively searches information to define the organizational environment, needs large amount of
information such as special report or study to solve uncertain problems. In contrast, technology that creates unanalyzable
tasks, the department that is completely different from others, and the organization that assumes organizational
environment as highly unanalyzable cause-effect relationships, needs rich media such as face-to-face group meeting to
resolve equivocal problems.
IS 7890: IS Research Seminar
Spring 2006