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Evidence in interviews 1, 3, 5, 7, 11, 12, 13

A strong theme emerging from the data was the lack of guidance regarding which digital tools should be used for a given task or context. Until fairly recently, the choice of tools – also sometimes referred to as ‘channels’ – for technology-mediated work in an organisation was limited. But the exponential increase in the capabilities of technology have resulted in a plethora of tools now being available to employees, including email, conference calls, video-conferencing, Yammer, Lync, Google Docs, OneDrive and Sharepoint. Interviewees 1, 7, 11, and 12 described how either they or colleagues in their organisations struggled with real-time interaction through channels such as video-conferencing or phone calls due to uncertainty regarding etiquette:

‘I’m in the boardroom at the moment and I’m doing circuits of it. So I mean, why you would want to see me walking around a room – you’d probably get sick. So I think that’s quite an interesting thing – with changing technology, specifically…looking at video technology, if you’re not used to it what is the etiquette? How do you approach it? What should you do?’ Interviewee 11

‘I’ve had five different people where I’ve had to say… and actually push that person, and then… ‘oh, you still haven’t made that call.’ Well let me try to understand why – because they’re just not comfortable. It’s so much easier for them to just ping off an email and just have this bounce back and forth. Yeah, it’s been surprising to me just how averse to having a phone conversation with a person they tend to be.’

Interviewee 13

This can be understood both as a lack of clarity as to the appropriateness of a particular channel for a given task or situation, and as an uncertainty around how to

conduct themselves during a technology-mediated interaction. For example, interviewees 1, 7, 11 and 12 highlighted how video-conferencing made either themselves or their colleagues feel uncomfortable, due to both a lack of confidence with the technology and from having to view themselves on screen while they talked. Interviewees 3, 5, and 13 described how colleagues were unsure when to choose one channel over another, and tended to default to the channel with which they were most comfortable. Uncertainty regarding the selection of appropriate channels can be interpreted as a lack of intention, and Finding 1b suggests that a reactive approach to digital tools may limit the potential for dynamic interactions and adversely influence emergent meaning. This lack of confidence is reflected in the literature on CMC competence (Spitzberg, 2006) and communication competence (Y. Hwang, 2011), which illustrates that employees require specific skills to reduce ambiguity in meaning-creation through computer-mediated work.

Although people and organisations may be becoming more networked through greater access to technology and information, the findings suggest that the ability of some CX professionals to contribute to organisational learning may be hindered through their potential lack of confidence with technology, unwillingness to learn new working practices, and uncertainty regarding the most appropriate tools to use for a given task. The lack of clarity regarding digital etiquette reflects Cham’s argument for the

growing need for clear intention in the design and deployment of interactive tools if complexity is to be harnessed as a positive force for change.

CLT proposes that leadership emerges from the interactions between agents in a system in order to produce an ‘adaptive response’ to a problem, such as an idea for

doing something differently or changing a process. (Uhl-Bien & Marion, 2011). To maximise the emergent potential of the interaction, CX professionals would benefit from understanding the affordances of a range of digital tools and being confident in using them so as to make a purposeful choice as to the best tool for the interaction. It is possible to argue that the more an agent is able to intentionally author a digital interaction, the more likely it will be that they will be able to produce an effective adaptive response. This again reflects the logic of Compensatory Adaptation Theory and its emphasis on the role of the sender to intentionally author a message. Providing guidance regarding digital etiquette to help employees select appropriate channels should therefore encourage more purposeful and dynamic interactions, and increase organisational learning through more effective exchanges of information.

Conversely, introducing new digital communication technologies without appropriate guidance and support is likely to increase disruption as employees struggle to

understand both how to use a tool and the benefits of changing their working

practices. The tacit expectation that CX professionals would know how, and why, to use new tools was clearly expressed by one interviewee, who noted that:

… we didn’t really get any information about how we should use [Yammer], or why we should use it. It was just, ‘are you on Yammer?’ And it was more of… again, policing is the wrong word because I don’t believe that policing is the right thing to do, it was more,’ what are the benefits of using it? How could you use it?’ And because the company was very culture-driven of email, conference calls, f-2-f meetings, that actually I should have used it more but I never did. Because were the people I was talking to using Yammer? I don’t know, and it fell flat on its face. Interviewee 5