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Towards E-mail Prevalence in Media Repertoires: Evidence and Explanations for Knowledge Workers of a Public Organization

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Knowledge and Technologies in Innovative Information Systems (MCIS 2012)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing ((LNBIP,volume 129))

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Abstract

E-mail is and remains widely used by knowledge workers in organizations. The objective of this paper is twofold. On the one hand, it aims at verifying e-mail is the most used medium by knowledge workers within their communication media repertoires. On the other hand, we try to understand which factors influence e-mail use. A public organization was selected to realize an in-depth case study with both quantitative and qualitative data. Quantitative analysis shows that e-mail is the preferred medium of knowledge workers to exchange documents and information. Moreover, individual characteristics poorly explain media use, and in particular e-mail use. Qualitative analysis of interviews with senior executives proposes organizational explanations of e-mail prevalence in this organization. Indeed in a moving, fuzzy and political organization, e-mail is preferred for several reasons that are advanced in this paper.

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© 2012 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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de Corbière, F., Wolff, FC., Bretesché, S., Geffroy, B. (2012). Towards E-mail Prevalence in Media Repertoires: Evidence and Explanations for Knowledge Workers of a Public Organization. In: Rahman, H., Mesquita, A., Ramos, I., Pernici, B. (eds) Knowledge and Technologies in Innovative Information Systems. MCIS 2012. Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing, vol 129. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-33244-9_11

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-33244-9_11

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-33243-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-33244-9

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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