Perceived information value and the probability of communication

The setting for the study was a southeastern city's Utilities Board's Bureau of Power. A total of 130 subjects were questioned from this bureau. The major data collection instrument was a fourteen item questionnaire. This instrument was designed from information gathered in a series of interviews with the management of the Bureau.

Twelve hypotheses were generated for this study in an attempt to explore the relationship between perceived information value and communication. Organizational level, type of information, type of message, and source of information are the four other variables that were considered in this research. The research hypotheses related these four additional variables to the two major variables of the study.

Chi-square analysis, correlation analysis, and regression analysis were employed to test the hypotheses. Eight of the twelve hypotheses were confirmed by the results. The operational definition of information type was found to be unsound. This caused two of the hypotheses not to be supported.

The eight hypotheses that were supported showed that a relationship between perceived information value and communication does exist. This finding opens a new area of organizational communication for research and practical application. The regression analysis procedure used in the study indicated that a significant amount of the variance in communication could be predicted from the perceived information value. This finding demonstrates that the concept of perceived information value is a useful new aspect of communication that demands more research.