Rumours

One significant form of communication, which rests upon (supposed) information asymmetry and has substantial influence on relationship patterns in teams and decisions in organisations, is the rumour. Like other types of communication, it can be functional or dysfunctional.

Rumours play with several insecurities, i.e. they utilise inscrutable complexity, in this case, a lack of transparency or information deficits. They present, as a communicative offer, the statement “I know something (that you don’t know but ought to know)!” as information, or a message! As a lack of transparency triggers insecurity in people who suspect that they may be affected by hidden processes or decisions, and, therefore, represent a high incentive for occupying themselves with this, rumours gain much significance in social systems. They promise information and, at the same time, make the communicator important!

As a rule, interests are pursued with the help of rumours, in which trust in mistrust is produced. This process cannot be easily undone. Hardly anything is more suited to exercising influence on decisions about personal, functional or temporal questions. In order to design, change or, in this respect, even advise the guiding process goal processing, one must be able to understand and utilise the rumour as a communication form. Otherwise the situation easily arises, in which those who are ‘right’, are seldom given the ‘right’, because others have torpedoed the solutions by means of rumours.