A poem, by its need to distill complex thoughts to pithy brevity, will of necessity tend toward equivocality.
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Three critical principles, or relationship, guide the process of equivocality reduction. They are: the relationship among equivocality, the rules and the cycles must be carefully analyzed; the relationship between the number of rules and amount of cycles; the relationship between the number of cycles and the amount of equivocality. To be specific, Weick posits that the amount of perceived equivocality influence the number of rules. Generally speaking, there is a negative correlation between the level of equivocality and the amount of rules.
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Weick's model of organizing can be applied to reduce equivocality in the large-lecture classroom and to increase students' engagement. Large-lecture classroom can be recognized as an information environment with various degrees of equivocality. Students enact assembly rules to make sense of messages in class with low equivocality. Behavior cycles which focus on act, response and adjustment can be utilized by students to clarify messages with high equivocality.
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An inverse relationship exists between the number of rules established by the organization to reduce equivocality and the number of cycles necessary to reduce equivocality. Similarly, the more cycles used, the less equivocality remains. Enactment Weick emphasizes the role of action, or enactment in change within an organization. Through a combination of individuals with existing data and external knowledge, and through iterative process of trial and error, ideas are refined until they become actualized.
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The notion of equivocality is closely related to topic or theme of communication and is another key factor, which may help to determine the success of multicommunicating. Equivocality refers to the possibility for misinterpretation and studies suggest that the higher the potential for equivocality in a conversation, the more likely an individual is to pick a medium of communication that is rich in contextual cues, or that has high media-richness. The possibility for equivocality extends to episodes of multicommunicating, too, and could potentially be compounded if one has to switch their attention between media—or does not engage in rich-media conversations when necessary.
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Several factors may help to determine the outcomes of an episode of multicommunicating, including intensity, topic of conversation, equivocality, and the presence allocator themselves.
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An organization may be having competing frameworks for interpreting a job. Equivocality refers to multiple interpretations of the field. Each interpretation is unambiguous but differ from each other and they may be mutually exclusive or in conflict. Equivocality result not only because everyone's experiences and values are unique but also from unreliable or conflicting preferences and goals, different interests or vague roles and responsibilities.
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Human organizations engage in information processing to reduce equivocality of information Based upon the first two assumption, OIT proposes that information processing within organizations is a social activity. Sharing is the key feature of organizational information processing. In that particular context, members jointly make sense the reality by reducing equivocality. It other words, the sensemaking is a joint responsibility which includes numerous interdependent people to accomplish.
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For example, a simple message intended to arrange a meeting time and place could be communicated in a short email, but a more detailed message about a person's work performance and expectations would be better communicated through face-to-face interaction. The theory includes a framework with axes going from low to high equivocality and low to high uncertainty. Low equivocality and low uncertainty represents a clear, well- defined situation; high equivocality and high uncertainty indicates ambiguous events that need clarification by managers. Daft and Lengel also stress that message clarity may be compromised when multiple departments are communicating with each other, as departments may be trained in different skill sets or have conflicting communication norms.
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Due to OIT's situational perspective, the meanings of messages consist of the messages, the interpretations of receivers, and the interactional context. However, ambiguity and uncertainty can mean that a standard answer - the only one true objective interpretation - exists. Also, Weick emphasizes that "the equivocality is the engine that motivates people to organize". Maitlis and Christianson states that the equivocality trigger sensemaking for three reasons: environment jolts and organizational crises, threats to identity, and planned change interventions. 3\.
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"Students assess how the applied rules and cycles affected their ability to interpret the original input's equivocality and decide if additional rules and cycles are needed to develop an effective response to the input". Some students feel intimidated when they raise questions in the large-lecture classroom. Thus, the synchronicity and anonymous nature of microblog make itself a second channel to facilitate students' question asking as well as decreases their equivocality. Faculty enables to retain organizational intelligence through microblog format.
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To be specific, the more equivocal the message is, the few rules are available to process that information. Meanwhile, an inverse relationship also exists between rules and cycles. In other words, fewer rules lead to more use of cycles. Then, the increasing number of cycles used can reduce the equivocality.
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Also, sensory cues are nearly absent in this process, while textual communication is commonly used. In other words, communication modes are limited. Secondly, the levels of equivocality and the difficulties of sensemaking increase. The problems of understanding computer or new technical terms emerge as a new obstacle to be overcome for achieving sensemaking in organizations.
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From a physiological and cognitive perspective, multicommunication is possible because humans, or presence allocators,Turner, Jeanine Warisse, and N. Lamar Reinsch. 2007. "The Business Communicator as Presence Allocator: Multicommunicating, Equivocality, and Status at Work." The Journal of Business Communication (1973) 44(1):36–58. . are typically able to think faster than they are able to speak or type.
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Overall, research advocates that presence allocators have the most successful experiences with multicommunicating episodes when engaged in multiple conversations with contextually appropriate media around similar topics. Likewise, the frequent reports of unsuccessful multicommunicating episodes include a sense of high intensity, equivocality and theme confusion. In those cases, information overload can occur to the point where a conversation slows down, becomes confounded or altogether stops.
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Importantly, degrees of messaging equivocality have a direct impact on how many cycles are required to alleviate its effects. Within this realm, three distinct steps emerge that are each focused on providing messaging clarity: act, response and adjustment. Each is designed to facilitate the retention and selection process. Examples of behavior cycles include staff meetings, coffee-break rumoring, e-mail conversations, internal reports, etc.. 3\.
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Enactment also plays a key role in the idea of sensemaking, the process by which people give meaning to experience. Essentially, the action helps to define the meaning, making those within the organization's environment responsible for the environment itself. Selection Upon analyzing the information the organization possesses, the selection stage includes evaluation of outstanding information necessary to further reduce equivocality. The organization must decide the best method for obtaining the remaining information.
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Media that can efficiently overcome different frames of reference and clarify ambiguous issues are considered to be richer whereas communications media that require more time to convey understanding are deemed less rich. A primary driver in selecting a communication medium for a particular message is to reduce the equivocality, or possible misinterpretations, of a message. If a message is equivocal, it is unclear and thus more difficult for the receiver to decode. The more equivocal a message, the more cues and data needed to interpret it correctly.
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Based on the number of rapidly moving parts within any organization (i.e., information flows, individuals, etc....) the foundation upon which messaging is received constantly shifts, thus leaving room for unintended consequences relative to true intent and meaning. Equivocality arises when communication outreach "can be given different interpretations because their substance is ambiguous, conflicted, obscure, or introduces uncertainty into a situation". Organizational Information Theory provides a knowledge base and framework which can help mitigate these risks through by decreasing the level of ambiguity present during relevant communication activities.
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This theory focuses on the process of communication instead of the role of individual actors. It examines the complexities of information processing in lieu of trying to understand people within a group or organization. Additionally, this theory closely examines the act of organizing, rather than organizations themselves. Weick defines organizing as, "the resolving of equivocality in an enacted environment by means of interlocked behaviors embedded in conditionally related process" and that, "human beings organize primarily to help them reduce the information uncertainty in their lives".
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Organizational Information Theory (OIT) is a communication theory, developed by Karl Weick, offering systemic insight into the processing and exchange of information within organizations and among its members. Unlike the past structure-centered theory, OIT focuses on the process of organizing in dynamic, information-rich environments. Given that, it contents that the main activity of organizations is the process of making sense of equivocal information. Organizational members are instrumental to reduce equivocality and achieve sensemaking through some strategies — enactment, selection, and retention of information.
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Media richness theory predicts that managers will choose the mode of communication based on aligning the equivocality of the message to the richness of the medium. In other words, communication channels will be selected based on how communicative they are. However, often other factors, such as the resources available to the communicator, come into play. Daft and Lengel's prediction assumes that managers are most concentrated on task efficiency (that is, achieving the communicative goal as efficiently as possible) and does not take into consideration other factors, such as relationship growth and maintenance.
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Channel expansion theory was proposed by Carlson and Zmud (1999) to explain the inconsistencies found in several empirical studies. In these studies, the results showed that managers would employ "leaner" media for tasks of high equivocality. Channel expansion theory suggested that individual's media choice has a lot to do with individual's experience with the medium itself, with the communicator and also with the topic. Thus it is possible that an individual's experience with using a certain lean medium, will prompt that individual to use it for equivocal tasks.
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It could organize alumni panels or academic affairs to attract prospective students and collect concrete questions they are interested in. It may also conduct the survey or host focus group to get the information. After that, the stuff of the university have to decide how to deal with these information, based on which, it has to set and accomplish its goals for current and prospective students. 2\. The information an organization receives differs in terms of equivocality Weick's posits that numerous feasible interpretations of reality exist when organizations process information.
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Additionally, the organization must both interpret the information and coordinate that information to "make it meaningful for the members of the organization and its goals." In order to construct meaning from these messages in their environment, the organization must reduce equivocality, while committing to an interpretation of the message which matches its culture and overall mission. Accordingly, the "flashlight analogy" is used to explain the inseparability of action and knowledge present in this theory. One should imagine he is in a dark field at night with only a flashlight.
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The sentiment of the message may also have an influence on the medium chosen. Managers may want to communicate negative messages in person or via a richer media, even if the equivocality of the message is not high, in order to facilitate better relationships with subordinates. On the other hand, sending a negative message over a leaner medium would weaken the immediate blame on the message sender and prevent them from observing the reaction of the receiver. As current business models change, allowing more employees to work outside the office, organizations must rethink the reliance on face-to-face communication.
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Additionally, Dennis, Kinney, and Hung found that in terms of the actual performance of equivocal tasks, the richness of a medium has the most notable effect on teams composed entirely of females. On the other hand, "matching richness to task equivocality did not improve decision quality, time, consensus, or communication satisfaction for all-male or mixed-gender teams." Individually speaking, Barkhi demonstrated that communication mode and cognitive style can play a role in media preference and selection, suggesting that even in situations with identical messages and intentions, the "best" media selection can vary from person to person.
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The OIT enables consumers and providers to reduce equivocality when they face complex health care and health promotion situations. "In health care and health promotion, enactment processes are used to make sense of different health-related challenges, selection processes are used to choose different courses of action in response to these challenges, and retention processes are used to preserve what was learned from enactment and selection processes for guiding future health care/promotion activities". For instance, the theory can evaluate the problems of excessive nurse turnover in public hospital and develop interventions to address the problems. Hospital administrators used to deal with the problem by making efforts in recruiting nurses.
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This ambiguity made it unfair to the appellants to decide the case against them purely on their own affidavits. In dealing with the equivocality of the contentions in the respondent's affidavits, it was not permissible to base factual findings regarding such contentions on a mere weighing up of the probabilities. The court went on to hold that, inasmuch as there was also nothing in the respondents' affidavits worthy of investigation by viva voce evidence, justice required that the application to refer the matter to viva voce evidence had to be refused. The appeal was thus allowed and the decision of the Witwatersrand Local Division, in Theletsane and Others v Administrator, Transvaal, and Others reversed.
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The decision set off a flurry of discussion among academics on whether "the uniform rule in the United states [that] a mistake as to the age of a female is not a defense to the crime of statutory rape," is now dead letter. Underpinning the decision is the notion that the "conclusive presumption of the lack [of consent by the minor] because she is presumed too innocent and naive to understand the implications and nature of her act," is outmoded in modern society. In the years since People v. Hernandez was decided, one commentator has posited that the mistake of fact defense to rape has been eroded by the Rule of Equivocality.
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