Informal Sources of Information and Communication

During discussions with students participating on MBA programmes it became apparent that although they all acknowledged informal communication as valuable to them in the course of their jobs as managers, this was often not regarded as a valid information source. Informal communication whether by direct personal contact, telephone, correspondence or meetings should be considered as a valid way of collecting information complementary to formal published information sources. For example, when writing a review of the literature as part of a dissertation one can cite correspondence or discussions with a subject expert as a source of information pertinent to the topic or research design. The citation would then appear in the bibliography amongst citations to periodical articles and books.