Information Media and Source Patterns across Management Levels: A Pilot Study

:This paper reports a pilot study designed to investigate media and source patterns for managerial information systems across three hierarchical levels of management. Our basic hypothesis is that media and source patterns will differ by management level. Eight executives in a large energy company were used to investigate the hypothesis: three senior executives, three middle-level executives, and two lower-level executives.Portions of an earlier version of this paper were presented at the 1986 annual meeting of the Decision Sciences Institute.Findings from this pilot study indicate that information media and source patterns do vary across management level. Specifically, it is reported that (1) lower-level managers favor the use of such information-rich media as observation tours, meals, and social activities and depend on external sources more than originally suspected, (2) mid-level managers depend on such media as the telephone and written, addressed documents to discharge their responsibilities, and (3) a large volume of written, non-verbal information is processed by senior executives.This research was designed and executed as a pilot study and as such has certain methodological limitations. But, in spite of these considerations, this study is a first step in expanding our understanding of how information media and source selection patterns vary across levels of management, and it should serve to stimulate the design of hypotheses for future research.