Job-Refusal Letters: Readers' Affective
ResponsestoDirect and indirect
Organizationai Pians
Cwendolyn N. Smith
Rebecca F. Nolan
Yong Dai
Louisiana State University, Shreveport
The affective responses of readers to job-refiisal letters using direct and
indirect approaches were investigated. Subjects were requested to rate
organizational plan on lg dependent measures. Results indicated that the
directjob-refiised letter was preferred. It was viewed as more efficient, valuable
and straightforward than the indirect approach. Thesefindings are in
conflict with current literature favoring the indirect approach for conveying
negative information.
V V R I T I N G EFFECTIVE LETTERS has long been emphasized
in the education of business students, especially since communication
outside an organization is largely in the form of letters. Executives,
managers, and supervisors, as well as regular employees, are routinely
expected to exchange written information with customers, organizations, applicants, and others.
One important type of written communication is the rejection letter, for the reader forms a perception of the entire organization based
on the tone conveyed (David & Baker, 1994). A business strives to create goodwill, which is often difficult to achieve when the reader has
suffered a disappointment. This type of written communication has
received some attention fVom researchers. Discussion on how best to
convey this rejection has been addressed in the literature. Opinions
differ as to implementation.
By far the most common method recommended by many
researchers and textbook writers is the indirect approach (GufFey,
1995; Himstreet & Baty, 1987; Huseman & Lahiff, 1985; Lord & Dawe,
1983; Sigband & Bell, 1986). This organization plan consists of a
buffer, reasons, refusal, and a positive close (Bovee & Thill, 1995).
67
Business Commuriication Quarterly, Volume 59. Number 1, March 1996. pages 67-75
01996 by the Association for Business Communication
68
Business Communication Quarteriy 59:1 March 1996
A buffer is a neutral statement on which the reader and writer can
both agree. It is intended to keep the recipient reading to learn the reasons for the refusal. This approach is based on the assumption that a
fair-minded person would not arbitrarily refuse anything but would
have good reasons for doing so. Furthermore, beginning with the
refusal would disappoint or maybe even make the reader angry, and
"an angry person is not a logical one" (Wilkinson, Clarke, & Wilkinson, 1980, p. 79). Although commonly taught in the business communication curriculum, the indirect approach has seldom been
investigated empirically (Jablin & Krone, 1984).
The direct method is the second approach. It presents the main
idea in the first sentence or paragraph. This organization plan is primarily utilized in conveying good news or neutral messages. Some
opinions have been expressed (Auchan & Dulek, 1988; Brent, 1985;
Limaye, 1988) and preliminary research has been conducted using the
direct method for conveying negative information. Using his own
rejection letters, Salerno (1988) concluded that the indirect opening
may worsen the ill feelings the writer is trying to avoid. He stated that
acceptance tends to be in the form of a telephone call, while rejection
is received in a letter. Since the reader is expecting bad news, an indirect approach is perceived as "beating around the bush" (p. 49). Brown
(1993) studied 500 academic job-rejection letters. He concluded that
many letters could have been ambiguous and confusing to the recipients. A recommendation was made that information be conveyed
clearly and directly.
This study compares the affective responses of readers to a jobrefusal letter using both organizational plans—direct and indirect.
Method
Ninety students enrolled in four business communication classes at a
small southeastern university volunteered to participate in the study.
Two job-refusal letters were distributed to the subjects. One letter utilized the indirect approach; the refusal was presented in the second
paragraph. The other letter was written in the direct plan with the
refusal in the first paragraph. Both letters were identical except for the
organization of the first two paragraphs.
Forty-four of the students received the "indirect" refusal letter and
45 received the "direct" refusal letter. One subject was omitted from
69
Job-Refusal Letters / Smith, Noian, Dai
the analysis because of missing data. A semantic differential scale
with a series of 19 bipolar adjectives was presented to the subjects to
determine their responses to the letters. This instrument was developed, tested, and administered in a previous research project (Krajewski, 1979) and is presented in Table 1.
I^blel
Semantic Differential Scales Used in the Project
For each of the scales below, please mark an "X" on the line which best describes
yourfeelings about the content of the letter you have read.
Efficient
Insincere
Concise
Valuable
Straightforward
Selfish
Persuasive
Timid
Good
Subtle
Discourteous
Organized
Pleasant
Uninformative
Blunt
Logical
Considerate
Unappealing
Friendly
Inefficient
Sincere
Wordy
Worthless
Devious
Unselfish
Unconvincing
Bold
Bad
Obvious
Courteous
Disorganized
Unpleasant
Informative
Tactful
Illogical
Thoughtless
Appealing
Unfriendly
Resuits
Each of the 19 pairs of bipolar adjectives was rated on a 7-point scale
with the positive adjective receiving a score of 7 and the negative one
a score of 1. A multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was performed on the data using those bipolar adjectives as dependent variables. Two factors investigated in this analysis were gender and the
approach used in the letter writing (that is, direct vs. indirect). This
anjilysis yielded a main effect for writing approach which may estab-
70
Business Communication Quarterly 59:1 March 1996
lish a clear trend: F(ig, 63) = 1.704,;? < .057 Subsequent univariate
analyses performed for each pair of adjectives separately revealed that
the main effect of writing approach was significant for three of nineteen dependent measures: efficient vs. inefficient, f (1,8i) = 5.71,/' <
.019; valuable vs. worthless, F(i, 81) = 5.60,p < .020; and straightforward vs. devious, F(i, 81) = 5.94, p < .017. The M ratings indicating the
main effect of writing approach are presented in Table 2. Inspection of
the appropriate means indicated that subjects tended to respond to the
direct approach in a more positive way. They viewed this approach as
being more efficient, more valuable, and more straightforward than the
indirect method.
Table 2
Mean Itatings of Subjects' Responses Indicating Main EfFect of Writing
Approach
Direct
N = 45
M
SO
Straightforward/Devious
Efficient/Inefficient
Valuable/WortWess
Bold/Timid
Informative/Uninformative
Good/Bad
Unselfish/Selfish
Tactful/Blunt
Concise/Wordy
Considerate/Thoughtless
Sincere/Insincere
Appealing/Unappealing
Pleasant/ Unpleasant
Persuasive/Unconvincing
Courteous/Discourteous
Logical/Illogical
Organized/Disorganized
Friendly/Unfriendly
Obvious/Subtle
*p < .05.
Indirect
N -= 44
M
SD
6.04
5.84
1.19
1.38
5.25
5.14
5.62
4.97
6.02
5.47
4.73
5.28
4.78
5.71
5.67
4.93
5.38
5.00
5.71
5.33
5.24
5.67
4.76
1.30
1.17
1.14
1.63
1.81
1.91
1.82
1.53
1.54
1.71
1.45
1.39
1.53
1.68
1.87
1.54
1.57
4.86
4.36
5.57
4.91
5.18
4.73
4.36
5.38
5.32
4.54
5.09
4.73
5.52
5.14
5.05
5.50
4.70
1.46
1.37
1.48
1.36
L23
1.51
1.32
1.74
1.91
1.38
1.44
1.44
1.39
1.35
1.30
1.44
1.67
1.27
1.47
F(l,81)
5.94*
5.71*
5.60*
3.11
3.02
2.25
2.13
1.88
0.73
0.61
0.61
0.60
0.49
0.35
0.21
0.12
0.10
0.06
.01
Job-Refusal Letters / Smith, Nolan, Dai
Results from the data analyses revealed no overall significant gender difference in subjects' responses, except that females tended to be
different from males on one dependent measure: bold vs. timid, F(i,
81) = 7.05,;? < .01. With a Af of 5.07 and a SD of 1.18 for females,
against a Mof 4.25 and a SD of 1.31 for males, female subjects tended
to view the direct refusal letters as being bolder than did the male subjects. Apart from this, there was a genereil absence of gender
differences. As indicated by Tiible 3, male and female subjects
appeared to share similar feelings regarding the impact of the refusal
letters. In other words, females were similar to males in that they all
viewed the direct approach as being more efficient, valuable, and
straightforward than the indirect approach, and they also expressed
similar feelings concerning the other dependent measures.
Discussion
The results of the study indicate that the direct approach is viewed
more positively by most readers. It is possible that when important
news, such as whether employment is being offered, is contained in a
letter, the person does not wish to search for it. After receiving the
information, the letter can be read to ascertain the reason(s) for the
decision. When gender was considered, perception of both these
styles differed only in that women viewed the direct approach as
bolder than males.
A limitation of this study is that it was conducted in a classroom
setting. Subjects were not receiving real job-refusal letters but were
giving their perception of sample correspondence. Future research
may focus on surveying actual recipients of refusal letters and their
perceptions of the organization plans by which the information was
presented.
Since the majority of the participants in this study were 22 years of
age and older, it is likely that most have had some form of work experience. This information was not specifically requested, however. Any
future studies of refusal letter approaches may investigate the relationship between the perceptions of individuals with work experience
and those who have not yet been employed.
This study, even though limited in scope, concludes that the direct
approach is favored for refusal letters. These findings are in opposition to the majority of the data presented in textbooks and classrooms
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59:1
March 1996
concerning organization of these types of letters. Further research of
wider, more generalizablefindingsshould investigate this premise.
Table 3
Af Ratings of Subjects' Responses Indicating Interaction Between Gender
and Writing Approach
F/Direct
n = 28
M
SD
F/Indirect
n = 18
M
SD
M/Direct
5.79
5.93
4.89
5.71
6.14
1.38
1.41
1.69
5.94
5.24
4.79
5.25
5.14
5.50
4.93
5.79
5.32
5.43
Informative/Uninformative 6.03
Tactful/Blunt
5.32
Logical/Illogical
5.46
Considerate/Thoughtless
5.89
Appealing/Unappealing
5.29
Friendly/Unfriendly
5.82
1.85
1.35
0.89
1.62
1.49
1.64
1.72
1.64
1.14
2.11
5.17
5.39
4.56
4.89
5.67
5.44
4.83
4.94
5.11
4.89
5.67
5.39
5.44
5.56
4.72
5.39
5.50
4.61
5.78
Efficient/ Inefficient
Sincere/Insincere
Concise/Wordy
Valuable/Worthless
Straightforward/Devious
Unselfish/Selfish
Persuasive/Unconvincing
Bold/Timid
Good/Bad
Obvious/Subtle
Courteous/Discourteous
Organized/Disorganized
Pleasant/Unpleasant
1.36
1.11
1.60
1.64
1.65
1.56
1.75
1.61
2.02
1.60
1.41
1.38
1.62
1.55
1.64
1.60
1.19
1.54
1.25
1.38
2.11
1.54
1.34
1.79
.11
J
« = rSD
M
4.59
5.47
5.88
4.65
4.59
4.71
5.41
4.47
5.59
1.43
1.67
.1.06
.23
.32
.80
.41
.53
.69
5.12
5.29
6.00
5.24
.70
.37
2.15
1 .10
1 .17
I .60
5.12
5.41
4.35
5.41
1 .83
1 .33
I .69
1 .50
M/Indirect
n = 26
M
SD
5.12
5.27
4.23
4.85
4.96
5.00
4.65
3.96
4.77
4.57
.42
4.81
4.85
5.58
4.73
4.96
5.31
4.50
5.31
1.07
1.34
1.70
1.43
1.46
1.26
1.16
1.08
1.42
1.36
1.39
1.74
1.46
.14
1.48
1.37
1.44
1.17
1.35
Higher M indicates more positive inclination on all dependent measures.
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Job-Refusal Letters / Smith, Nolan, Dai
73
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