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Weekly UpdatesCommunication Content
Supervisor use of indirect communication content is negatively related to all five facets of salesperson ambiguity and Hypotheses 3a-e cannot be rejected for this sample. This outcome suggests that supervisors should emphasize non-coercive influence strategies centered upon sharing information and decision making with salespeople. Because of its negative association with all sources of salesperson ambiguity, indirect content appears to offer the strongest means to decrease salesperson ambiguity. However, supervisor use of indirect communication content is negatively related only to customer service employee ambiguity regarding the supervisor. Therefore, for the customer service sample, Hypotheses 3b cannot be rejected while Hypotheses 3a, c-e are rejected.
It is likely that these different results reflect the distinct work environment of each group. Because externally situated salespeople operate with little direct supervision there is a premium placed upon their ability to independently make task-related decisions. By sharing information and decision-making responsibility, the supervisor facilitates and develops the salesperson's decision-making experience, skill, and confidence. Conversely, because internally situated customer service employees operate under greater direct supervision, they have less opportunity to make independent task-related decisions and their confidence and ability to cope with the vagaries of the work environment are lower.
Bidirectional Communication
Bidirectional communication is negatively related to salesperson ambiguity regarding customers and the supervisor and Hypotheses 4a-b for the salesperson sample cannot be rejected. Increased supervisor/salesperson bidirectional communication is not related to salesperson ambiguity regarding other managers, promotion, or ethical situations and Hypotheses 4c-e are rejected. For customer service employees, increased bidirectional communication flows are negatively related to all five sources of employee ambiguity and Hypotheses 4a-e cannot be rejected.
By providing information and feedback to their employees as well as by valuing and acting upon the information and feedback that employees provide, supervisors can establish a work environment where boundary spanners, especially those internally situated, experience less uncertainty. One of the primary characteristics of all boundary spanning employees is that they operate across the margin separating the firm from its environment. For this reason, these employees are uniquely situated to gather external information and bring it inside the firm. Boundary spanning employees may feel that by having two-way lines of communication with their supervisor they are able to both receive important information and to "have their say" regarding work-related issues. As a result, managers are better able to clarify work-related issues and this is associated with reduced employee uncertainty.
MANAGERIAL IMPLICATIONS AND CONCLUSIONS
The aim of this research was to extend our understanding of supervisor-employee communication by utilizing a more complete description of communication and role ambiguity. The results confirm that supervisor communication practices are associated with decreased employee ambiguity. Supervisors communicate with their employees in order to guide their actions and this research suggests that supervisors should expand their communication goals to include shared information about customers, themselves, other managers, promotional opportunities, and the proper ways to handle ethical situations. Employees who primarily operate outside the firm's boundary and away from the supervisor (e.g., salespeople) report that increased amounts of non-coercive, two-way communication are related to reduced uncertainty. Accordingly, supervisors should integrate these three practices into their communication repertoire to develop better-informed, less uncertain employees. Employees who operate primarily within the firm and close to the supervisor (e.g., customer service employees) report that two-way communication is strongly associated with reduced ambiguity regarding customers, the supervisor, other managers, promotion, and ethical situations. Therefore, managers of this type of employee may wish to emphasize continuous flows of information both to and from their employees.
LIMITATIONS
While the findings of this research support many of the hypotheses proposed, several of its limitations must be noted. First, the data used to test the hypotheses is cross-sectional in nature and causal inferences are not appropriate. Therefore, it is possible only to conclude that various supervisor communication practices are negatively associated with facets of boundary spanner ambiguity. Future research should utilize a longitudinal design in order to infer causal linkages among these variables. The second limitation involves the treatment of communication content. As was noted previously, content has been conceptualized in a variety of ways besides the direct/indirect distinction used here. The results of this study may have differed had they been used and future researchers may wish to utilize additional aspects of content to better understand the role of this important communication characteristic. A third limitation concerns the generalizability of the results. While two types of boundary spanning em ployees were used, the number of firms that participated in the study is limited. Had a variety of firms and employees been used the results may have been different and future research should include a greater variety of boundary spanning employees to improve the generalizability of the results. Finally, future researchers should control for other potentially confounding variables than solely years of experience. The role of factors such as corporate culture, training, and employee gender, that may account for the observed differences, should also be considered.
(1.) Each letter refers to the corresponding portion of the hypothesis.
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