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In a new paper, two University of Kansas scholars propose a novel theory of communication analysis that takes into better account how people interact with ubiquitous technology in the 21st-century workplace.
McNair Scholar at KU currently pursuing a graduate degree in couple and family therapy at Kansas State University, polled nearly two dozen people from all walks of life about how they relate to the “complex technology” they use to do their work.
Based on the responses they got, the scholars propose “Socio-Technical Exchange” as an improvement upon the well-worn Social Exchange Theory (SET) when it comes to contemporary workplace communication.
“Social exchange theory was formed in the 1960s,” Piercy said. “Probably half a million papers cite some form of it … because it’s a logical argument about how people engage with others: They engage with people who are rewarding, and they avoid people who are costly. Your co-worker might know a lot about a certain subject, but they talk your ear off. And with technologies, it’s the same.”
The authors say that people tend to form “machine heuristics,” which are basically beliefs about the relative worth of various forms of tech.
