EXPLORATIONS IN MACRO COMMUNICATION BEHAVIOUR: THE EFFECTS OF ORGANIZATIONAL FEEDBACK ON ORGANIZATIONAL EFFECTIVENESS.

Organizational feedback is identified as an attribute of organizations and as a form of macroscopic communication behaviour. Previous organizational theory is used to generate propositions linking organizational feedback (horizontal and vertical) to organizational effectiveness in order to evaluate the construct validity of feedback. Reliable measures of feedback are devised and the posited relationships are empirically examined using federated nonprofit organizations. Horizontal feedback is observed to be positively related to three forms of organizational effectiveness (goal attainment, super-ordinate approval and lateral approval). Vertical feedback is found to be positively related only to goal attainment. Organizational feedback is concluded to be a viable concept worthy of further investigation and additional research on communication as a property of organizational collectivities is recommended. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]