o a great extent on a review of literature relevant to organizational communications, the use of power in organizations, and the development of organizational commitment. Each of these topics will be addressed in a separate chapter in the thesis reporting the results of the proposed research study (refer to Sections 3 and 4 of this proposal). In this section of the research proposal, a preliminary review of the literature relevant to each of the three research areas indicated above is presented. Extensive literature reviews in each of these areas will be included in the final thesis.
Effective superior subordinate communications have been shown to have positive impacts on: the introduction of organizational change; the control of organizational conflict; the level of trust between superiors and subordinates; and the overall efficiency of an organization (Schermerhor, Hunt, and Osborn, 1990, p. 110). An important study dealing with superior subordinate communications in the 1970s focused on interpersonal trust (Mellinger, 1976, pp. 304 309). This study found that an individual will likely distort information received from another who is not trusted. In this study, distrust was defined as feeling that the motives and intentions of another individual are not as purported.
A study conducted in the early 1980s addressed motivational and attitudinal factors which can affect the accuracy of upward communications within an organization (Schermerhor, Hunt, and Osborn, 1990, p. 171). This study found that pleasant matters were more likely to be the subject of upward communications than were unpleasant matters, and that achievements were more likely to be the subject of upward communications than were problems and difficulties.
Another study sought to identify the source of most major communications failures between superiors and subordinates (Maier, Hoffman, and...