Pre-Web Internet-Email

For class I read Writing to work: How using e-mail can reflect technological and organizational change by Oren Ziv. This chapter focuses on a study done by Ziv where he looks at how e-mail affects technological and organizational behaviors in a place of employment. The three people that he uses in his study are part of the Technology Planning Services (TPS) team in a Telecommunications department in a major university. Prior to the study, the department where Michael, Brad and Thomas work in had just gone through a massive organizational restructuring. During the restructuring the department became a part of the Academic Information Systems (AIS). ( Ziv, 245) According to Ziv the TPS department is just one of the four groups within the Telecommunications department. They are responsible for assessing and evaluating current and future voice communications technologies for the campus. They are also in charge of the local computer and information systems within the telecommunications department and marketing telecommunication services to the campus community. (Ziv, 246)


In the study Ziv collected data for a month and a half in 1993 during team meetings, one on one meetings, six open ended interviews and all the e-mails sent between Michael, Brad and Thomas. In the chapter he shows examples of e-mails that were sent between the three men. Mainly the reasons for the e-mails were for requesting actions, e-mails providing opinions, suggesting meetings, and lastly a response to a previous request. (Ziv, 247)

The men were using this e-mail as a social action. Their communication was a representative of the AIS culture and using e-mail in this way affirmed the value of the technology that AIS had always been using. Although many e-mails were sent, it seemed to be that most of the e-mails as previously stated were short emails just meant to set up phone calls or meetings. The TPS team was still happier with meetings in person rather than through email as that is what they were used to. Even after all of the e-mails the men did not notice any difference in the organizational hierarchies, as they continued to interact with the same hierarchical structures as before. Electronic e-mail doesn’t completely change human relationships as it takes a lot in order to alter them. (Ziv 259, 262)



Personally I didn't think that this study was done in the right way. I thought it was rather confusing, and if he really wanted to find out how e-mail affected organizational and technological behaviors he should have done two studies, both involving the entire department. The first should have examined the departments organizational and technological behaviors without e-mail, and then they second with e-mail. This would have been beneficial including everyone, rather than taking a "random" sample of three men.



Ziv, Oren. (1996). Writing to work:How using e-mail can reflect technological and organizational change. In Susan C. Herring (Ed.), Computer- mediated communication: Linguistic, social and cross-cultural perspectives (pp. 243-263).
Philadelphia: John Benjamins.