Integrating Two Organizational Systems through Communication Genres

This paper describes the integration of two different types of support to the coordination of organizational activities. On the one hand, we have network-based Electronic Meeting Systems (EMS) supporting a cooperative coordination effort. On the other hand, we find Personal Digital Assistants (PDA), supporting the individual effort to coordinate. Considering that organizational efficiency and effectiveness requires a high level of fluidity between individual and cooperative coordination efforts, the problem then is how to bring together EMS and PDA. In this paper, we propose a conceptual framework to tackle this problem based on the concept of communication genre and genre system. We also describe a software system we developed to link EMS and PDA. This system was experimented in an organizational environment. The paper concludes with an evaluation of the methodology and proposed solution.