Successfully introducing new technologies to employees remains a critical and challenging task for managers. Practitioner and academic research points to the crucial role of formal communication in the success of technology implementation. We developed a scale for measuring formal communication quality and assessed its influence using three samples of working professionals who were anticipating new technologies at work. Informed by the coping model of user adaptation, we examined the direct and indirect effects of formal communication quality during the anticipation stage of a technology implementation project on employees’ cognitions, emotions and intention to connect with colleagues in order to prepare themselves for the new technologies. The results validate our conceptualization of formal communication as a second-order formative construct with information quality in four content areas (i.e., what, how, why and when) as the first-order dimensions. Our findings affirm the role of formal communication as a managerial influence mechanism that positively affects an employee’s preliminary evaluation of a new IT during the anticipation stage. The evaluation of the new IT triggered emotions, and the emotions in turn motivated employees to seek opinions and camaraderie from others as a means of adapting to the new IT. Our post hoc analyses illustrate the dynamic nature of the relationship among formal communication quality, beliefs, emotions and coping intentions as the implementation unfolds. Our work contributes to the literature by improving the operationalization of formal communication quality, expanding the current understanding of seeking social support and revealing new insight about the temporal dynamics of the relationships in the nomological network during the anticipation stage. The validated scale of formal communication can be a useful tool for managers who wish to evaluate the effectiveness of their communication and to assess its impact on employees’ adaptation.

对于员工而言，成功地向员工介绍新技术仍然是一项至关重要且充满挑战的任务。从业者和学术研究指出了正式交流在技术实施成功中的关键作用。我们开发了一种用于测量正式通信质量的量表，并使用了三个正在工作的新技术专业人员来评估其影响。根据用户适应的应对模型，我们研究了技术实施项目预期阶段正式沟通质量对员工的认知，情感和与同事联系的意愿的直接和间接影响，以便为新技术做准备。什么，如何，为什么和何时）作为一阶尺寸。我们的研究结果肯定了正式沟通作为管理影响机制的作用，该机制在预期阶段会积极影响员工对新IT的初步评估。对新IT的评估引发了情绪，而这些情绪又促使员工寻求他人的意见和友善，以适应新IT。我们的事后分析表明，随着实施的开展，正式沟通质量，信念，情感和应对意图之间关系的动态性质。我们的工作通过提高正式沟通质量的可操作性为文献做出了贡献，扩展了当前寻求社会支持的理解，并揭示了在预期阶段名词组网络中关系的时间动态的新见解。对于希望评估其沟通效果并评估其对员工适应能力影响的管理人员，经验证的正式沟通规模可以成为有用的工具。