Organisational change mediated by e‐mail and Intranet

Reports preliminary results from an ethnographic study of a consultative process in an Australian university during 1997. By providing a “virtual discussion forum” an organisational support system (OSS), based on e‐mail and Intranet, was expected to enable equal participation in the consultative process, freedom of expression (“everybody will have their say and will be heard”) and to contribute to more participative and consensus‐based decision making. The analysis of data collected (messages, documents, interviews, notes) suggests that the OSS was not used uniformly across the institution by departments, groups and individuals. Different modes of use of the OSS identified related to contextual features, such as democratic versus authoritarian management traditions, the sharing of power versus authority of power, the culture of consultation versus obedience to superiors. It was found that these contextual features conditioned the modes of use and consequently the role OSS played in the process. On the other hand, it was observed how, in the course of the process, the OSS affected these contextual factors themselves.