Heavy Users of Electronic Mail

A field study was conducted using a questionnaire and interview:; concerning how electronic mail (E-mail) is used as a work tool for communication. The questionnaire, distributed electronically within a large organization, showed that employeessending and receiving large numbers of E-mail messages are not the same employees having problems handling E-mail. Managers seem to have problems to a larger extent than members of other workgroups. Interviews were then conducted with 10 employeesselected by strata from the questionnairestudy. Strata were based on thevariablesof job category, number of E-mail messages sent and received per day, an.3 E-mail handling problem. The interviews showed that, although employees continually entered the E-mail program, they did not see this action as disruptive of other work activities; instead, they saw it ashaving apositiveeffect. E-mail handlingproblemscorrelated with the number of messages stored in the inbox (.72). Employees felt a shortageof time for handling E-mail and gave examples of communication problems. Regardless of the number of messagesin theinbox and whether employees felt a time shortage, employees had difficulty organizing stored messages within folders and catalogues.