Uncertainty, Social Location and Influence in Decision Making: A Sociometric Analysis
研究正式地位和非正式沟通角色对行政和技术决策影响力的相对影响，发现边界跨越者在不确定性高时影响力更大，而高层管理者在所有任务领域都有影响力。
This research investigates the relative impacts of formal status and informal communication roles on influence in administrative and technical decision making. While external information enters the organization via boundary spanning individuals, the exercise of influence at lower levels of the organization is dependent on mediating critical organizational contingencies. As the locus of task uncertainty shifts, so too does the relative influence of boundary spanning individuals and internal stars; the greater the task and environmental uncertainty, the greater the influence of boundary spanning individuals. Senior management are influential across task areas. The formal hierarchy and informal social processes complement each other in the exercise of influence. These results extend research which indicates that different information processing requirements require systematically different organizational processes to attend to that uncertainty.