Wiberg M. - The Interaction Society[c] Practice, Theories and Supportive Technologies (2005)(en)

42 Day

individual groups fluctuated on both a permanent and short-term basis. People resign or transfer to other departments; while in the short-term staff take leave from work. Mike was concerned about what he saw as the system becoming unruly and even generating a life of its own unless this invisible decisionmaker implemented proper administrative controls.

Clearly, Mike was aware the interactions facilitated through email distribution lists could become unruly. He highlighted the importance of list creators consciously deciding who needs the information and then ensuring that the message was only sent to those people. But there did not appear to be any formalised procedure or process to ensure this happened at Station 99.

It is through experiences of email such as these (encompassing users’ attitudes and expectations), that we define what Ducheneaut & Bellotti (2001) have termed the “habitat where we now all live.” And, clearly, there are significant implications for managers that I discuss in more detail towards the end of this chapter.Vincealsomentionedtheissueofdistributionlistmaintenancewithhim providing an example that illustrated an opposing view to Marcus’s concerns.

*VINCE. There have been occasions when I’ve asked to be taken off the list of regular stuff which I don’t want to get ... there are some items which I get regularly which just appear and I delete them before I even read them. Not very many but there are some stuff that I will do that. Occasionally I will ask to be taken off a list because it’s a waste of time.

Vince’sproblemisrelativelysimpletosolveasheknowswheretheinformation comes from — the decision-maker is not invisible — and all he had to do was ask to be taken off the list. While both Vince and Marcus experienced problems related to the receipt of messages, the actual difficulties themselves were different. Marcus did not receive some messages but felt he should have the opportunity to make his own choices. On the other hand, Vince as one of the management group, made his own choices but he was still restricted by the efficiency or otherwise of the list management process, echoing Mike’s point about the need for proper administrative controls.

Intermsofeffectiveorganisationalcommunication,particularlyasorganisations movefromtraditionalhierarchieswithbureaucraticstructurestodecentralising the decision-making process and working in more virtual ways, the invisibility of information access decisions is significant. Both Edith and Marcus drew

Copyright © 2005, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.

Email 43

attention to it with Marcus actually commenting about taking such things for granted, “that’s something that I’ve not really looked at.”

However, Marcus had discovered his own way of addressing the problem of not being on specific distribution lists. He explained that their small section shared a common printer with another group. Following up on the idea that he and possibly others were missing information, he said, “I think there may be things that we, which will interest us but we don’t see.” Then, in quite a mischievous way, he explained that sometimes he sees a message on the printer that interests him but as he was not included on the list, he did not get a copy himself.“SometimesIseeemailprintedthereandthink,ohhhthat’sinteresting. In fact, I read it, sometime pin it … on the wall [the noticeboard].” Marcus provided a telling example of the imaginative ways that people find to sidestep communication barriers in organisations and the ways that information is valued.

Inpracticalterms,decisionsarecontinuallybeingmadeconcerningwhoshould have access to what information. One way these decisions are then enacted is by the creation and use of email distribution lists to deliver electronic information internally throughout the organisation’s message web. And it was the decisions being made about distribution lists which appeared to be of considerable interest and concern because the decision-maker was invisible to many. Lack of awareness like this opens up dramatic possibilities of mismanagement and abuse, for instance Schwartz’s (2003) study found that 396 work-hours were wasted as a consequence of a cross-posting error. Again, important implications for managers are discussed later in the chapter.

Cc-ing as a Strategic Act

We now move to a discussion of the findings associated with the second major thread weaving through the research — Carey’s (1989) notion of communication as being essentially fundamental acts of ritual which form the essential lifebloodofhumanrelationships.Thisstudyrevealedthatemailhasapervasive and transforming influence on the social interactions of people at work.

The act of copying email messages through the Cc-ing function moved into prominenceduringthestudy.Initially,theCc-ingthemeappearedtohavemore in common with Carey’s idea of communication as transmission. Martin

Copyright © 2005, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.

44 Day

explained that email at Station 99 meant he communicated with more people. “Because of all these copies, well, in a sense, at least somebody, I mean, say you send a copy to six people, that’s communication. At least, they know you’re there, that you’re interested in such and such and it’s a sort of communication.”

Kraut & Attewell (1997) claimed that this spillover effect of electronically copying and forwarding documents could enhance organizational knowledge. “In using electronic mail, it is easy to add additional readers” (p. 335). And so it was at Station 99.

However, on reflection, it became clearer that the ways the Station 99 participants spoke of their behaviour with Cc-ing could be encapsulated more successfullywithinCarey’sideaofcommunicationasritual.Theywerelinking multiple social interaction layers as a form of ritual communication into their processes of Cc-ing email to others. However, as seen from Martin’s quote above, both of Carey’s ideas of transmission and ritual were clearly evident in manyinstances.

Emerging Practices

Martin’s acknowledgment that email improved message transmission and delivery could be seen as a first level effect. But, consistent with Sproull & Kiesler’s (1991) classification of first and second level technological effects, and also with Muller & Gruen’s (2002) more recent ideas about users reinventing new purposes, there were indications that at least some of the study participants were finding different and sometimes unexpected uses for email.

Staff were Cc-ing email messages to each other as part of their normal operational activities. However, there were also other, less overt, uses being made of the Cc-ing function to further both personal and organisational aims. Emailmessageswerebeingcopiedanddistributedtostrategicallyinfluencethe perceptions and behaviours of others within the organisation. One strategy concerned rather blatant attempts by individuals to manage how they were perceived by others (i.e., impression management), while subtler forms of pressure and even in some cases, manipulation techniques were being applied through the Cc-ing process.

Martin innovatively used the Cc-ing function as an attempt to create a positive picture of himself in his colleagues’ eyes. He said, “At least, they know you’re there, that you’re interested in such and such.” He was using email as an

Copyright © 2005, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.

Email 45

impressionmanagementtoolinthathewasconsciouslyattemptingtoinfluence the receiver of his message. Such an attempt can also be discerned in Edith’s comments. She said, “you can send to somebody but you want other people to know that you’ve done that and you can take, you can send them all.”

Staff using email in such ways to reinforce or generate positive impressions diverges somewhat from O’Sullivan’s (2000) findings that mediated communication channels tend to be used if a positive impression may be under threat. Martin and Edith were not reacting to a threat but rather were proactively attempting to create and/or confirm a positive impression. However, workrelated relationships at Station 99 are not the same as the intimate relationships that O’Sullivan studied.

The discovery of these “multiple layers” or second level effects at Station 99 provide support for Phillips & Eisenberg (1993) finding that employees use the features of email strategically to realise their goals.

Operative/Manager Relationships

Some of the study participants spoke specifically about the use of Cc-ing email messages in the context of the operative/manager relationship with three different perspectives (involving both senders and receivers in numerous configurations) becoming evident. These perspectives are firstly summarised and then explored in more depth.

The first perspective concerns an operative staff member sending an email to a colleague. The sender also forwards a copy of the message upward to either the receiver’s manager or their own with the aim of exerting more pressure on the original recipient of the message. The management response provides a second perspective when a Station 99 Manager discussed his response to this practice while also mentioning how he used the Cc-ing facility in managing his staff. Another participant offered a third perspective on this practice when she explained how she improved the likelihood of a positive outcome to her requests by directly emailing the relevant Manager but also Cc-ing a copy to their Personal Assistant as well.

Moving now into more detail in regard to the first perspective, Martin, as a member of the operative staff at Station 99, saw advantages in being able to exert pressure over colleagues via email. He said that sometimes he had to rely on an interstate colleague to provide specific information. As well as sending his request by email, he also forwarded a copy of the email upward to his

Copyright © 2005, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.

46 Day

(Martin’s) manager. Martin explained his reasoning behind this strategy as being to let his colleague know that his manager had also been informed. This would then subsequently put “more pressure on the person to answer your query.”

ItbecameapparentwhenAmandaexplainedhowsheusedemailincomparison to the telephone — that she also believed email could be used in a strategic sense to put pressure on others. However, Amanda seemed a little less confident in talking about the process.

*AMANDA. But [tone of voice drops] somehow, in my mind [chuckles] emails have more urgency. I don’t know whether it’s because they’re in writing. Whether there’s that extra pressure because copies are sent to other people, whether there’s that behind it, that psychology behind it as well. Perhaps it’s to do with, I know that my boss, y’know, knows that this is an issue and what am I doing about it. Orrrrr, it, it maybe because of that as well, maybe because of the fact that other people receive copies of this [pause] so I’d better respond to it straight away.

Vince, in his role of Manager at Station 99, indicated he was aware of these strategies. He provided an example of how he responded to the practice when he saidthat a staffmember’srequest might beafforded a higherpriorityif it was evident that he (Vince) had received a copy of the request as well. “They probablyfeelthattheremightbesomeactionthatotherwisetheymightnotget.” Very pragmatically he went on, “course the downside is that we may see something in that which we don’t like. And be immediately aware of it and say so.” He summarised his view when he said, “Well, it’s something [sending him copies] that I guess, some people use advisedly depending on the situation.”

Clearly, Vince also understood that email could also be used to exert an indirect form of pressure downward to his staff. In the following extract, he spoke of a specific situation where he was kept informed about the progress of maintenance/repair work via an emailed copy of the fault report.

It was apparent that Vince believed his monitoring and surveillance via the emailed copy increased the pressure on his staff to expend greater effort to clear the fault more quickly. Evidence that managers know about these manipulation tactics and that they also use them themselves.

Copyright © 2005, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.

Email 47

*VINCE. But I need to know and if, for example, the faults are serious, I can see just by looking at them, how long they’re off air. And I can follow those up, in a sort of special situation or I’ll leave it if it’s not such a serious situation to the officer who is responsible for dealing with it. But that officer also knows and every other officer knows, involved in the process, that I’m getting a copy of it. So, it’s also, it’s an alerting mechanism, and it’salsoamanagementtoolinthesensethatothersdownthelineknowthat a senior management person is able to look at those things. Now, if you had to organise that, some other way, other than electronically, it would be very cumbersome.

Email also opens up the possibility of operative staff responding in kind when seeking to apply similar pressure upwards to Managers. Owen provided a third person view on this although, like Amanda, he appeared a little hesitant in talking about it.

*OWEN. My guess is that a manager may respond differently via email if that response is going out to 50 people on the distribution list rather than just the individual person. Y’know, he may take a more diplomatic line, if you like or whatever. I mean, that’s only a guess. I mean, I don’t know. But, I mean I would imagine if I was replying to an email from someone and there were 50 other names, and it was something, I might choose my words probably a bit more carefully than if I was talking to them directly.

Vince provided a glimpse of his perspective on the control aspect of managing when he explained that with Cc-ing “you can send them off to the people that are concerned, you can copy them to the people who don’t need to respond and y’know, you’ve got a format which suggests to people how you are seeing a message and who should respond and who shouldn’t.” What appeared to be happening in this instance was that Vince believed the format of his message communicated additional information about his perspective regarding the specific situation. Whether the recipients of Vince’s messages actually interpreted such meanings from the format of his messages was not explored in this current study but it remains a pointer towards further research possibilities.

Copyright © 2005, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.

48 Day

Shifting now to a third perspective of Cc-ing and the operative/manager relationship, Amanda took a different tack as she explained that she used Ccing to generate support to bring about a desired outcome in her relationships with Senior Managers. However, she targeted the Manager’s support staff as well as the actual Manager involved. “If I want to doubly make sure that something’s going to happen, I’ll even lobby their [Section Manager’s Personal] Assistants [by Cc-ing them a copy of her request].”

Again, this raises interesting questions about the potential gap between the sender’s intentions and expectations compared with what the receiver actually does in response to the communication. Berghel discussed this double-blind process back in 1997. “The sender doesn’t know how a message is being handled and the receiver doesn’t know the circumstances under which the message was sent” (p. 12).

Amanda also provided details of another way that she used the email copy function in terms of her relationship with her Manager. When it was appropriate, she included her boss as a Cc on her email messages. “And, for me, the emails are actually a record, in one way, of what I’ve been up to, what my activities are.” She went on, “I’ll just send a copy so that they’re up with it because it’ll be really hard for me to catch them sometime and have a chat.” Amanda was using the Cc-ing function as an upward reporting tool, perhaps withtheaimofpositivelyenhancingherworkprofileasaneffectiveandefficient staff member.

Station 99 staff were discovering and creating opportunities to use email, particularlytheCc-ingfunction,toshapetheirinteractionswithothersinsubtle as well as in more obvious ways. Further research will provide additional insights about how individuals are Cc-ing email messages in strategic ways, which in turn could have major implications for management practice.

Discoveries and Managerial Implications

of the Study

This research is practice-oriented and the aim has been to seek deeper understandings about CMC technologies (specifically email) in intraorganisational communication. The message web concept emerged as a useful organising framework to describe the communicative fabric of Station

Copyright © 2005, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.

Email 49

99’s operations. In the study, the distribution and copying aspects of email were constructed as being influential threads within their message web. The pertinentfindingsarenowsummarisedalongsidetheimplicationsthatfollowfor managers seeking to ensure that email supports organisational objectives.

•Information distribution within the message web. The issue of access tospecificinformationbeingcirculatedviadistributionlistsaswellasmore general access to email itself was significant. It appeared as though they were now being taken for granted, thus supporting the view that email is becoming part of our living space: Ducheneaut & Bellotti’s (2001) work habitat, Muller & Gruen’s work on IBM Watson Research Centre’s ReinventingEmailproject(2002).Choicesmadeconcerningemaildistribution lists can severely impact on intraorganisational communication effectiveness, particularly in terms of getting the message to the appropriate people. There is also huge potential for holes in the message web resulting from the double-blind process of email interactions (that is, the sender’s intentions and the receiver’s subsequent actions may be unknown to each other). This can contribute to multiple, and possibly contradictory,meaningsresultinginmisunderstandings,lostproductivity andeveninterpersonalconflict.Andfinally,latentopportunitiesexistatall levels of the organisation for questionable ethical behaviour within message webs, a challenge for management.

•Strategic copying amid the message web. Second level uses of email based on tactical manoeuvrings (such as copying email messages strategically) were in use within Station 99’s message web. New opportunities were opening up for those skilful in the art of organisational politics as individualssoughttoinfluenceothersinsatisfyingtheirgoals:goalswhich could be the organisation’s but were not necessarily so. To consider such practices as “weaknesses” in the way that Ruggeri Stevens & McElhill (2000) classifies them on the People Influences dimension of their positioning model appears to ignore the inherent complexities of the politicalfactorsoforganisationallife.Inaddition,suchactivitiesgenerally arise from innovative and creative thinking and understanding both the originsandtheexpressionofresourcefulthinkingevidentinsuchpolitical uses of email can be valuable as organisations move away from the more traditional, bureaucratic and hierarchical structures of the past.

Copyright © 2005, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.

50 Day

Looking to the Future

Being both explanatory and exploratory in nature, this research generated intriguing hints of research questions that were beyond the scope of this current work.

•Further consideration of the message web concept to investigate whether itcontinuestobeausefulframeworkuponwhichexplanationsaboutwhat is going on in organisations with CMC technologies can be constructed.

•A more intense exploration of the email strategies that staff (at all levels) use in seeking to influence (and manipulate) others and the subsequent behavioursthatthesestrategiesevoke(forinstance,Vince’sbeliefthatthe format of his message suggested the method to be used in responding to a specific situation).

•Ongoing investigation into ways to manage better the distribution of information electronically through an organisation’s message web.

Asnewtechnologiesenterhumansociety,webuildupcommonresponsesover time regarding the place such technologies occupy in our lives. In a collective sense, we construct this habitat and this is what I believe was happening at Station 99. However, our ability (as a society) to enter into this debate regarding email’s place in our lives progressively diminishes over time until it disappears entirely, At which point email will have moved away from being a new technology and its role or place will have become taken for granted. This taken for grantedness will evolve from, and be shaped by, the more dominant viewofwhatemailactuallyis.Anditisprobablethatthiswillshapeandtosome extent fix, the standard or common view of what is accepted and what is acceptable about email in the future.

My discovery of the current state of flux and fluidity at Station 99 in regard to theirthinkingaboutemail’splaceanditsacceptabilityorotherwisewasamajor finding of this research. Accordingly, further exploration of the ways that people construct criteria or standards of acceptability versus non-acceptability in regard to email would appear to be a valuable exercise to both the academic population and the more widespread general public community including managers and others in organisations. Such a reflection on what is currently happening will ensure that, although specific ways of thinking about email will

Copyright © 2005, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.

Email 51

be endorsed as the dominant frame at some point in the future, alternatives will not disappear without extensive discussion now. As message webs within organisationsgrowinimportance,effectivemanagementwillrequirestrategies to be in place to respond to the dynamic demands of the Interaction Age.

In finishing this chapter, you may now be interested in reading the final two journal extracts about the completion of the initial draft, my interaction with the book editor and my response to the comments I received from the two anonymous peer reviewers.3, 4

References

Berghel, H. (1997). Email: The good, the bad, and the ugly. Communications of the ACM, 40 (4), 11-15.

Bochner, A. P. (2000). Criteria against ourselves. Qualitative Inquiry, 6 (2), 266-272.

Carey, J. W. (1989). Communication as culture: Essays on media and society. Boston, MA: Unwin Hyman.

Day, E. (2002). Me, My*self and I: Personal and professional re-constructions in ethnographic research. Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung / Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 3 (3). Retrieved September 9, 2003, from the World Wide Web: http://www.qualitative-research.net/fqs-texte/3- 02/3-02day-e.htm.

Ducheneaut, N., & Bellotti, V. (2001, September-October). E-mail as habitat. An exploration of embedded personal information management.Interactions, pp. 30-38.

Fulk, J., Schmitz, J., & Ryu, D. (1995). Cognitive elements in the social construction of communication technology. Management Communication Quarterly, 8 (3), 259-288.

Gómez, R. (1998). The nostalgia of virtual community: A study of computer- mediatedcommunicationsuseinColombiannon-governmentalorganiza- tions. Information Technology and People, 11 (3), 217-234.

Kersten, L., & Phillips, S. R. (1992, February 21-25). Electronic identities: The strategic use of email for impression management. Paper presented

Copyright © 2005, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.