Social and Nonsocial Uses of Electronic Messaging Systems in Organizations

This paper examines social and nonsocial uses of electronic messaging systems,their determinants, and their impacts on direction of communication, perceivedquality of work, and decision-making. A survey was conducted in 1992 in theheadquarters of a large, geographically dispersed telecommunications companyin Maryland which used an in-house electronic mail system. The findingsshowed that electronic messages were not widely used for socioemotionalpurposes but were certainly more common among certain groups. Messagespertaining to socioemotional content were generally avoided in downward anddiagonal communication. Younger employees who had worked for the organization for a shorter period of time and were holding lower level jobs were morelikely to communicate socioemotional content via electronic messages. Thesepeople were less often involved in the decision-making process and felt they didnot make effective decisions. However, socioemotional use was positively relatedto perceived quality of work. Consistent with previous studies, upper managerstended to use electronic messages for routine tasks. When time pressure wasinvolved, electronic messages would be used for complex tasks.