Bridging formal barriers in digital work environments – investigating technology-enabled interactions across organizational hierarchies

Abstract Formal hierarchies are vital for organizations. However, in the workplace they can also act as invisible barriers for the interaction between individuals from different hierarchical levels, thus impeding the exchange of information and knowledge. This effect is particularly assumed to be true for country cultures with high power distance characteristics. Based on a Skype for Business dataset with over 22,000 users and over 8 million conversations from six countries, we test the potential impact of country culture for cross-hierarchical communication. Finally, we aggregate the data of all countries and provide insights into specific communication patterns for each hierarchical level across the organization. In this context, we also compare the effect of formal attributes (e.g. hierarchy level) and informal attributes (activity level) on response behavior. In this article, insightful findings are outlined, such as the insignificance of country cultural factors, the essential focus on the middle levels of hierarchy and the influence of staff responsibility on the vertical access to information and knowledge. Finally, we contribute a set of lessons learned that highlight the role of communication technology to bridge formal barriers in digital work environments.