Communication · Executive Insight Brief · 463
More cues can expose more weakness
The Communication Orientation Model explains why sight, voice, and synchronicity can help, do little, or damage outcomes depending on cooperative orientation
Premise
More cues do not guarantee better communication. Video, voice, and real-time exchange can support trust and rapid adjustment, yet the same properties can expose hesitation, urgency, emotion, and weak alternatives to exploitation. The Communication Orientation Model (COM) explains why channel research produced positive, null, and negative results rather than one stable richness hierarchy.
Channel design therefore begins with a social condition: what are participants oriented to do with the information the medium makes available? A richer channel can repair a coordination problem when motives are neutral, add little when cooperation is already established, or worsen outcomes when unilateral advantage dominates.
What the model is: Communication Orientation Model in Knowledge →
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- FamilyModel
- CategoryTheories & Explanatory Models
- DomainConflict & Negotiation
What these mean
Editorial orientation · Family
Model
In this series, Model names the editorial family primarily used to understand and explain communication: theories, frameworks, effects, traditions, principles and other conceptual resources. It is an umbrella for a route into the field, not a claim that every included object is a predictive model.
Editorial orientation · Category
Theories & Explanatory Models
Explains how or why a communication process works by relating mechanisms, conditions or variables. Its value is an account that can guide inquiry into what produces an outcome, rather than a name for the outcome alone.
- KnowledgeCommunication Orientation Model
- Key conceptCommunication orientation