As promised, I am sitting here on the shark boat in the middle of the Great Southern Ocean, out near the Neptune Islands (feels like half way to Antarctica – it’s pretty bloody cold), writing a post to be loaded upon my return. After day 1, I am happily sharked, fed, dry and listening to the chatter around me.
When I thought about what I could write while on my little technology free week (haha), I reflected upon a paper I wrote last year for my Masters study at Uni, which I thought might hold some interest for you. The task was to take 2 topics covered in our Organisational Behaviour unit, and write a paper looking at issues, solutions and so forth. I chose to write about 1) conflict issues rising out of the use of emails [in my team in HR, we are highly aware of the issues this can create] and 2) information overload. This work below is fully referenced [as one would expect], and as an interesting aside, my organisation has started implementing the strategies as recommended in the solutions section of this paper – which for me, is a nice sense of closure, and I am lucky enough to be involved in the implementation of these solutions. Note: this is not a 5 minute read!
Electronic Communications at Work
?A Case Study at a Western Australian University?
Computer mediated communication (CMC) is pervasive through multiple facets of today?s life ? work, home and anywhere and everywhere in-between. CMC may take forms like electronic mail (e-mail), Instant Messaging, Virtual Classrooms and a multitude of other forms. Whilst technologies such as e-mail add efficiencies to a workplace, they also cause problems such as poorly coded/decoded communications that can create inter-personal conflict (Dawley & Anthony 2003; Friedman & Currall; Landry 2000; Sproull & Kiesler 1986; Vrooman 2000; Walther 1997; Yell 2003) and information overload (Dawley & Anthony 2003; DeSanctis & Monge 1999; Landry 2000; Leong & Basso 2005; Raskino 2005; Rowley 1999; Yell 2003). The following paper will review the current literature, use a Western Australian university as a case study of these two issues in a large organisational context. It will also explore a number of recommended solutions and a series of strategies for managing any resistance to the change.
Overview of current literature
Electronic Communication
Messages that are high in equivocality should be transmitted by rich channels e.g. face-to-face (f2f), while messages that are more unequivocal in nature are able to be clearly transferred via lean channels (low in richness). Richness ranges from high (f2f), decreasing down to formal written documents and numeric documents, at the leaner end of the richness scale (Daft & Lengel 1986).
Dogma suggests that conflict arising from CMC is largely due to the absence of non-verbal communication (NVC) (Landry 2000; Sproull & Kiesler 1986; Yell 2003). The aforementioned authors infer that use of e-mail as a communication channel creates a loss of richness in the communication being transferred. Sproull and Kiesler (1986) suggest that if social context cues are weak (or in the case of email, perhaps lacking altogether) then the receiver of that communication is more likely to exhibit behaviours that are more self-centred and unregulated. Extrapolating this, misunderstandings have an increased chance of occurring with e-mail since it has low NVC compared to a f2f situation where potential problems may be diffused by participants.
Walther (1997) suggests a contrary point of view to that of previously discussed authors ? that of Hyperpersonal CMC. CMC can in convey high levels of richness, as great or greater than that of f2f. Individuals will strategically elicit information from their online correspondents through a process of communication and cognitive consideration to reduce uncertainty (Ramirez Jr. et al. 2002). This is supported by empirical studies conducted by Fulk (1992) and Dawley and Anthony (2003), Channel Expansion Theory (Carlson & Zmud 1999) suggests that the organisational context and experience with other CMC participant?s will develop the participant?s ability to enhance encoding and decoding of messages within a given channel. E.g. the use of ?emoticons? J = 
as channel ?metalanguage? will show nuances in the text not necessarily available with the written word (ibid). The literature suggests that Generation X/Y and Millennials are more able to cope with the use of emoticons as a NVC and that baby boomers should not receive emoticons as they struggle to process the implied cues (Krohn 2004) and hence age is a factor in the ability to derive richness from this form of communication.
Users of CMC?s have been classified as either as digital natives (fluent in the use and speaking of digital technologies) and digital immigrants (those that still edit in hard copy, print e-mails etc) (Prensky 2001ab). Digital natives implicitly understand the nuances of CMC?s having been bought up in a digital world ? home, school and work whereas at times, digital immigrants struggle to cope with the veritable onslaught of shifting technologies. It would be interesting to empirically analyse human resource issues such as conflict arising from CMC?s correlating to frequency of these events in digital natives and immigrants. Is there a higher frequency of conflict (?flaming?, (Landry 2000) ) amongst digital immigrants? Is there a relationship between digital natives and immigrants and information overload with electronic media?
Information Overload
Information overload, particularly through the use of e-mail is anecdotally referred to throughout the literature (Dawley & Anthony 2003; DeSanctis & Monge 1999; Yell 2003). Empirical research by Dawley and Anthony (2003), suggests that e-mail overload is a real phenomena, and the magnitude of overload will vary by the level of educational qualification (p<.001) and experience in the use of e-mail (p<.001), both of which were highly significant. Those holding a Masters qualification had significantly higher information overload than participants with a high school as the highest educational qualification received. Participants who had used e-mail for shorter periods of time reported significantly higher information overload than those who had been using e-mail for longer durations (measured in years).
Work done by Leong and Basso (2005) for Gartner, suggests that CMC and other information being received by individuals in today?s workplace is coming from multiple sources that are increasing in number and workers are increasingly struggling to process the volume of information (see Figure 1).
Figure 1 ? potential information channels in today?s workplace.
Source: (Leong & Basso 2005)
The information overload syndrome experienced by use of e-mail and other traditional and emerging media may not only overwhelm the user, but also create an environment of alienation (DeSanctis & Monge 1999). As the CMC load (usually e-mail) increases, efficiency of the individual tends to decrease (ibid & (Raskino 2005). The pressure to respond to the e-mail in a ?timely? (or immediate) manner, the lack of clarity of information in CMC?s ? triggering requests for further information – and the fact that e-mail is a form of social interaction in the workplace (Thomas & King 2006) are three factors that appear to contribute to information overload.
In a survey conducted in the U.K. with a sample size of n=875, 16 per cent of respondents said that 16 per cent of e-mails received, they were copied (cc) unnecessarily, 13 per cent of e-mails received were irrelevant and 56 percent of respondents agreed that e-mail is used too frequently, replacing f2f meetings or telephone calls (Jackson, Burgess & Edwards 2006).
Extensive empirical, peer-reviewed research does not appear to be readily available for a comparative review of the literature. A significant majority of references to the concepts of information overload appear to be anecdotal in nature in the literature or from organisations that have a vested interest in reporting such statistics (such as Gartner).
For the purposes of this case study Carlson and Zmud?s (1999) channel expansion theory will be used in the identification of problems at the organisation of choice and recommended change strategies. This theory accounts for the wide ranging of perceptions in large organisation with regards to the use of e-mail as information lean/rich channel and lends itself towards a number of change strategies.
Individual Analysis
The Workplace
Edith Cowan University (ECU) is Western Australia?s second largest university with approximately 25 000 students and 2 500 staff. ECU has three metropolitan campuses, one major regional campus (Bunbury) and a number of regional satellite locations for delivery (Broome, Geraldton, Margaret River).
ECU experiences issues such as conflict arising from CMC?s, particularly e-mail generated communication problems as well as information overload concerns from staff and management. The Human Resources (HR) Service Centre reports a number of formal complaints annually (L Roza 2006, pers. comm., 20 October) and the Professional Development (PD@ECU) arm of HR (along with the Employee Relations [ER] Team) have experienced an increased number of calls from staff expressing concerns about the organisational norm of cc?ing, creating e-mail overload. These occurrences imply that information overload and interpersonal conflict via e-mail as a CMC as discussed in the literature are indeed occurring at ECU. It is interesting to note that the majority of calls regarding the e-mail overload and cc?ing issue are hierarchically senior staff. This supports the empirical evidence collected by Dawley and Anthony (2003), suggesting that the more qualified the staff member, the higher volume of e-mail received and implicit in qualification, a higher hierarchical position in the organisation.
The incidence of e-mail escalated conflicts are of a concern to ECU, HR, and PD@ECU. They can result in reduced performance by the individual, along with the rest of the team and the business unit. These types of issues can result in formal grievances being lodged and mediation. Frequently, PD@ECU are requested ttto enter toxic situations and build development programs to repair relationships and trust within teams.
Recommendations for Change
Governance
Large organisations attempt to regulate staff behaviour through the development and implementation of policy.
?Organisational policies can be viewed as a response to a new technology which opened up a space for communication which at first was unregulated by standard genres and protocols of corporate communication.? ((Yell 2003).
E-mail related policies may encompass content such as volume of e-mail traffic; spam and viruses; personal usage; illegal content; sexual harassment; privacy and confidentiality and monitoring and surveillance (ibid).
Yell (2003) found a number of organisations are setting policies that attempt to inhibit the occurrences of flaming within the organisation (i.e. behavioural regulation). Standards outlined in such policies state that users must not use e-mail to send antagonistic, offensive, humiliating or intimidating emails.
The specific policy at ECU that relates to e-mail and other forms of CMC such as Internet Relay Chat (IRC), list servers and bulletin boards is largely regulatory in structure, with no reference to expectations regarding interpersonal communications. The e-mail usage policy primarily discusses use in terms of global emails, confidentiality and compliance with state and federal laws (Johnston 2006). Exploration of the organisational code of conduct also shows no reference to basic behavioural expectations with regards to CMC?s.
Implicit then, in this vacuum would be the development of a policy, or the modification of both the existing e-mail and code of conduct policies content regarding the behavioural expectations/usage of e-mail and other CMC?s available at ECU.
Training
Carlson and Zmud?s (1999) channel expansion theory is the most applicable theory to the organisational context of ECU in providing a robust training strategy to counter information overload and CMC escalated conflict. Training is the most commonly cited solution in the literature to the both of the aforementioned problems (Dawley & Anthony 2003; Jackson, Burgess & Edwards 2006). The theory?s training solution prescribes that 1) experience is required in the use of the CMC architecture (eg Outlook, Entourage and so forth) ? perceptions of channel richness are initially limited by the knowledge of media use; 2) training must include topics relevant to the participants, to assist in developing channel richness; 3) any program must have an organisational context for learning; and 4) training with potential co-communicators would be desirable, as it takes time to develop a rich communication dialogue with a fellow communicator in CMC?s (ibid).
The first solution is around the basic use of the e-mail architecture existing at ECU with problems arising from low Information Communications Technology (ICT) literacy existing within the organisation. ECU currently offers MS Outlook 2003 training over five modules. This evolved from the traditionally delivered Beginners, Intermediate, Advanced user model. Facilitators had difficulty with participants over- or under-estimating their own abilities. The more recently introduced five module approach outlines clearly outcomes from each session, and staff can select a module depending upon their immediate learning needs. Currently the most popular module is the module geared around time management and the use of Outlook to assist this process. The concept of using rules and other functionality in the calendar and task area is applied to participant?s own content, to allow them to manage the sheer volume of content they receive in a more orderly and efficient manner. This currently implemented solution is based in technical skills and knowledge as opposed to behavioural modification of organisational norms.
The second training solution concerns the perceived appropriateness of messages for the organisational context. For example, the length of an e-mail, white space usage, cc?ing. This particular solution addresses raising the awareness of users of what they are sending and to whom, in an effort to lower e-mail volume (Vernon, 1998 as cited in Dawley & Anthony, 2003). (Jackson, Burgess & Edwards 2006) suggests that other content could include having participants question whether the e-mail is actually necessary, the use of effective subject lines to assist the receivers of the message, getting the message across in a succinct fashion and the use of attachments. An empirical analysis by (Jackson, Burgess & Edwards 2006) showed that a well designed training solution generated an organisational saving of 8 percent p.a., which equated to ?737 K a year (approximately AUD $1.82 M). This session could incorporate amended/new policy to align with the behavioural content of this training module.
Resistance to Change
There are eight stages in implementing large-scale change successfully. These stages are 1) create a sense of urgency; 2) the creation of a guiding team; 3) have a clear vision; 4) articulate communication strategy; 5) empower the citizens of the organisation; 6) get runs on the board 7) persist; and 
create a new culture and have that change stick (Kotter & Cohen 2002).
ECU has been through a number of extremely large scale change management initiatives in the past three years. These include: implementation of a student management system (Callista) -2003/4; the Higher Education Support Act (HESA) reforms ? 2004; 2005 Oracle 11i Implementation (core financial system) and; 2006 a year long process of change management, with redundancies, duty changes, merging of schools/faculties and an air of uncertainty about the future. These projects total over $20 million dollars worth of change management.
Environments that exhibit continual uncertainty, stress and upheaval, will result in staff becoming ?saturated? with change (Marks 2004) lower thresholds and the ability to cope and accept further change. Whilst the suggested recommendations for change are not of the magnitude of those listed above, there is a risk that staff at ECU may experience a form of change fatigue, given recent history.
There are rising incidences of CMC generated conflicts coming to the attention of HR and the Equity & Diversity Officer (EDO). There are increasing complaints from staff about information overload (increased workloads) and requests for associated training. The increasing number of requests for a training and/or development solution may indicate that a radical change management solution may not be necessary. The cynicism in this scenario, generally associated with change as seen in large scale operations may not eventuate (Stanley, Meyer & Topolnytsky 2005).
Given the concerns of HR with regard to these issues, the Director of HR has a critical role in creating the sense of ?urgency? as outlined by Kotter and Cohen (2002). It is anticipated that organisational resistance will be minimal and that any resistance encountered would be at an individual level. It would be expected that key senior staff would support the development of more robust and relevant policy regarding the use of CMC?s at ECU. These policies would then need to be including in complementary training and development solutions. Key staff in implementing these initiatives would be the EDO, PD@ECU staff and key IT related staff members.
A clear vision of reducing the number of formal complaints/grievances (stemming from e-mail or other CMC flaming events) would be a highly desirable outcome for ECU. This is measurable with a level 3/4 Kirkpatrick evaluation (Kirkpatrick 1998).
Given organisational experience with implementing change strategies, one of the key elements is communication. PD@ECU is a critical link in the chain with numerous communication channels to communicate with all facets of the organisation. Given the linkage to policy, an extension of traditional methodologies would need to include site visits to discuss the need for these training solutions and begin generating positive expectations and empowering staff to become involved in the solutions.
Essentially culture change is required. The organisational norm is to cc multiple recipients; send e-mails with non-relevant information; jokes to recipients that may not appreciate the clutter in the inbox; lack of knowledge about technicalities such as TYPING IN CAPITALS which is considered shouting and offensive to many readers and that the first hint of conflict is best resolved in a f2f situation or over the telephone.
In conclusion, the use of electronic communication at ECU needs to shift towards a cultural norm of considered thought about the content, context and audience of CMC and when, where and what channel is most appropriate. This is an evolution that may take a number of years, however it must be taken into consideration with increasing numbers of digital immigrants in the workforce that change management strategies may need to be frequently revisited to ensure they fit with the needs and issues of the staff demographic.
References
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