Business e-mail: the killer impact.

Abstract

Workplace email is quickly evolving to keep up with those who use it---and perhaps to make way for the next killer application. Has email redefined human communication and interaction? How have organizations and employees incorporated email into their processes? This article aims to answer these questions and start a discussion around issues of email in the workplace. We report the results of a quantitative survey on the role of email in organizations. This survey, which involved administering an email questionnaire to 600 employees of 50 U.K.-based organizations, found email to be extremely pervasive within organizations. It is considered a valuable medium of communication that sits comfortably amidst verbal and written media. The survey also demonstrated that attitudes toward and patterns of email usage are differentiated by gender, as well as by psychological issues such as confidence levels. Also, despite the increase in factors that might hamper the effectiveness and efficiency of email, such as spam and viruses, the survey findings suggest organizations have implemented an infrastructure to manage these issues so they have a limited impact on end users.