Wireless Organizational Communication: A Framework for Communicative Informatics

As mobile communication becomes more pervasive, there is an increasing need to study the potential uses of wireless organizational communication. The difficulty in analyzing information and communication technology (ICT) in organizational communication is the unintentional split between information processes perspectives and human communication perspectives in the discussions of workplace techno logy. By merging two constructs, organizational informatics and organizational sensemaking, this paper develops a communicative organizational informatics (COI) framework, which provides a robust perspective on how people communicate through the uses of techno logy in organizational settings. This communicative informatics framework offers a powerful lens to study the meanings, understandings, uses and gratifications, and potentials of technology in organizations and how it can facilitate workplace communication. A COI analysis of a personal digital assistant (PDA), a Palm VII, with a live wireless connection to a company sales database is examined by applying a usability testing methodology.