Date of Award

12-2011

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Specialization

Communication and Leadership

School or Department

School of Leadership Studies

First Advisor

Dr. Heather Crandall

Second Advisor

Dr. Carolyn Cunningham

Abstract

Productivity, although seemingly simple of a concept actually have deep organizational communication ties which influence the way a company's culture is formed and altered. As virtual working arrangements become ever popular, this thesis aims at discovering how productive managers of employees both in a traditional Face to Face interaction compare to virtual employees who spend at least 50% of their communication reliant upon Computer Mediated Communication methods in order to achieve organizational results. A 10 question survey was given to 70 managers in a Fortune 50 company resulting in 30 total useable data surveys to compare with each other. It was concluded that communication differences between F2F and virtual work arrangements contribute to the varying perception of managers. The result supports the communication theory as presented by Pacanowsky because changes in the way people work such as virtual work, changes the company culture. Even though the results were not conclusive on the subjectivity of productivity, it was discovered that managers hold a key piece in molding organizational culture to fit the needs of virtual workers in order to be successful.

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