ACCA Applied Knowledge · Business and Technology · Communicating in business
An employee receives over 200 emails a day and misses an urgent request buried among them. Which barrier to effective communication is this?
This is information overload. The employee receives more messages than can be processed, so an urgent request is missed among the volume. It is not a cultural or status barrier, and the cause is quantity of messages rather than a missing feedback loop.
- AInformation overloadCorrect
- BCultural difference
- CStatus difference between sender and receiver
- DLack of a feedback loop
Explanation
Receiving more information than can be processed causes important messages to be missed or ignored, which is information overload. The scenario gives no cultural or status issue, and the problem is volume, not absence of feedback.
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