E-mail, Best Medium for Delivering Bad News

E-mail has proved a valuable tool for everything from business communication to staying in touch with friends and relatives around the world. Now a study co-authored by Stephanie Watts Sussman, assistant professor of information systems at Case Western Reserve University's Weatherhead School of Management, has found that people are more comfortable using e-mail to communicate bad news than they are with other common methods.

The study, "Straight Talk: Delivering Bad News through Electronic Communication," found that people usually are more honest, and distort bad news less, when delivering bad news via "computer-mediated communication" (e-mail) than through other methods, such as by telephone or in person.

Sussman's co-author is Lee Sproull, the Leonard N. Stern Professor of Business at New York University's Leonard N. Stern School of Business. Their paper appeared in the June issue of "Information Systems Research," a journal of the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences.

The authors believe their findings could have important implications for companies and organizations. If people are to learn and improve in their jobs they need to hear constructive criticism and negative feedback delivered accurately and quickly -- a task often as hard on the person delivering the news as the person hearing it.

The authors emphasize, however, that the purpose of their study is not to endorse using e-mail for delivering news such as notice of a layoff. Rather, they are looking at the role electronic communication can play in organizational learning and feedback processes.

In addition, the study suggests e-mail could become an important way for subordinates to deliver bad news to higher-ups in their organization. They are often reluctant to do so face-to-face due to fear of blaming the messenger. But for the good of the organization, say the authors, management needs to hear the news so the problem can be corrected.

To test their hypothesis that people will deliver bad news more accurately via e-mail, the authors asked 117 volunteer undergraduate students to deliver predetermined positive or negative information to surrogate students (who were actually hired to participate in the study) in one of three ways -- in person, by telephone, or by e-mail.

The information concerned the student's resume, which the student had, for purposes of the experiment, submitted to the campus career counseling center for recommendations and comments.

Then the surrogate student measured the amount of distortion that occurred in the message, and volunteers filled out questionnaires describing how they delivered the information and how they felt about it.

The researchers found that having to point out errors or other shortcomings in the resumes caused discomfort for the volunteers using the telephone or delivering the "bad news" in person. Those using e-mail were significantly more comfortable, and less likely to distort the information or use what the authors call "politeness strategies" -- either negative or positive -- when delivering it in person or by telephone rather than electronically.

Positive politeness strategies usually consist of trying to create feelings of empathy and support between the deliverer and recipient of bad news. Negative politeness strategies are defined as minimizing the importance or relevance of the bad news being delivered.

People's reluctance to straightforwardly communicate bad news -- the "mum effect" -- has been documented in a wide variety of cultures, settings, and relationships. Previous researchers have attributed it to the unpleasantness for the person delivering bad news as well as the person receiving it.

The deliverer thinks the recipient will react with defensiveness, disbelief, or distress, so the deliverer has to work harder to make sure the message is correctly understood. If the deliverer likes the recipient, she or he may be afraid of damaging the personal relationship.

The authors think their research may also help explain the phenomenon of "flaming" -- sending what are perceived to be hostile messages by e-mail. People are less likely to cushion the blow when delivering bad news via e-mail but, say the authors, the recipient "may find the lack of such niceties unexpected or discomfiting," prompting him or her to respond defensively, and the ensuing correspondence escalates to hostility.

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