| dc.description.abstract | As a case study of a CoPS (Complex Products and Systems) organisation in a global industrial environment, this thesis aims to enlighten "How does choice of media affect communication in CoPS oriented organisations?" and "What affects the choice of media itself ?" Project and engineering managers in a CoPS project oriented organisation will be interviewed to uncover in-depth experience and viewpoints that might help enlighten the research question. The quantitative data collected through this method will be thematically analyzed in order to be able to present findings in a understandable way. The findings will be compared to theories and framework proposed by the Media Richness Theory by Daft and Lengel, 1986, and the additional complexity framework by McGrath, 1984. The results show that Media Richness Theory is partly right in the claim that one should seek the most effective media based on the richness the media provides. However it also shows that project and engineering managers greatly value the trait of active efficiency in the media they choose. The theories also proposes identifiers the complexity of a task, but this i purely based on the richness needed to achieve consensus amongst the entities. It is therefore clear that neither the Media Richness Theory, nor McGrath’s complexity frameworks identifies the value of urgency and efficiency of the media as an important trait. It is therefore discovered that the project manager, when choosing what media to use, must constantly evaluate weather the most important
attribute in the current setting is the richness that the media provides, or the efficiency that it provides. These results are used to propose new iterations of the Band of effective media graph proposed by Meissner, 2005, and a supporting complexity frameworks that includes the urgency of a task. | |