The Effects Of Negativeness To The Sender’s Communication Pattern During Negative Information Communication

Delivering the negative information, such as pay cut or demotion, is a tough taskfor the sender, especially in the organization. Considering the difference of theexpression, the communication model and the sender s position, this research separatethe negative information communication from the general communication. After theliterature review of media choice, negative information communication and leadershipstyle, we found that the sender, usually the leader in the organization, plays a criticalrole in the process of the negative information communication, and there are rare relatedliterature that study negative information communication as an independent concept.Thus, basing the classification and the negativeness of negative information, this paperwill study the effect of different style of leaders to negative information communicationpattern, and discuss how the negativeness of information influences this process.Basing the facts that the related research is at its early stage and the negativeinformation communication is a complex process, the multiple cases study is used as thestudy approach. Two round of depth interview were conducted in two firms crossing thenorth and south of China, involved4managers and14subordinates. During and afterthe interview, we choose seven typical cases, covering the main negative information inthe organization except the interpersonal relationship.First, classifying the negative information, we put forward a series standard ofclassification in order to clarify the boundary of the concept. According to the datacollected, we develop a concept named negativeness to measure the negative effect ofthe negative information. Then, we abstract several factors which are important for themanager, and then select three patterns as the main research objective from the cases.Research on the three factors shows that the leadership style can influence theimportance of the factors to the managers, and lower negativeness can reduce thisdiversity. At the end of the dissertation, we discuss the implication and limitation of thestudy, then point out the future direction of the following research.