Work Characteristics and Subunit Communication Structure: A Contingency Analysis

March l 979,volume 24 This paper contributes to the research on the relationship of subunit work characteristics to subunit structure and performance. Information-processing ideas are used to develop a set of hypotheses to test a contingency approach to subunit structure directly; whether highperforming subunits with different informationprocessing requirements have systematically different degrees of communication structure. Results indicate that task characteristics, environment, and interdependence each have an important impact on subunit communication structure, and that these effects are accentuated for high-performing subunits. This research supports the idea that there is no one best way of structuring subunit communication. Rather, for high-performing subunits, communication structure is contingent on the subunit's work..