Electronic Mail and Organizational Communication: Does Saying “Hi” Really Matter?

Marjorie Sarbaugh-Thompson and Martha S. Feldman
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Marjorie Sarbaugh-Thompson: Wayne State University, Department of Political Science, Detroit, Michigan 48202
Martha S. Feldman: Institute of Public Policy Studies, University of Michigan, 454 Lorsch Hall, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109

Organization Science, 1998, vol. 9, issue 6, 685-698

Abstract: When people use electronic mail, they can communicate even when they are not physically or temporally proximate. Thus, it is not surprising that most studies report that the use of electronic mail increases organizational communication. In the study presented here, overall organizational communication declined as use of electronic mail increased. As we probed the nature of this decline, we discovered that much of the lost communication was greetings. This raises questions about the role that greetings, and other forms of casual conversation, play in an organization. To organize our insights about this topic we formulate a two-by-two communication matrix based on presence versus absence and availability versus unavailability. Prior research focuses on the ways being present and available and being absent but available through electronic mail affect the performance of specific communication tasks. Using our typology, we direct attention to the role of casual conversation in presence availability and to the parts that presence unavailability and absence unavailability can play in organizational communication.

Keywords: Organizational Communication; Electronic Mail; Availability; Greetings; Co-presence (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1998
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (15)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:inm:ororsc:v:9:y:1998:i:6:p:685-698

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