TRIBUNAL ORAL EN LO CRIMINAL FEDERAL - CORRIENTES

In contrast with Company NZ1, Company NZ2 was more heavily dependent on using emails as a medium of communication amongst staff members. Ninety-nine percent of the staff members interviewed said that email plays an important role in their job and the business as a whole. However, they said that email is strictly for business use and disciplinary actions would be taken against staff members who misused their work email. Approximately 50 percent of them reported that there had been an increase in email usage in the past year. Table 5.3 shows the amount of time spent on email

communication in the participants’ working day.

Table 5.3 Amount of time spent on email daily by participants in Company NZ2 Amount of time spent

on email daily

Respondents

No %

More than 2 hours 8 38

1 – 2 hours 9 43

30 minutes – 1 hour 3 14

0 – 30 minutes 1 5

Total 21 100

Almost half of the respondents reported that their main communication activities are dominated by email with 80 percent of them spending more than one hour on email exchanges. Table 5.3 shows that 95 percent of the respondents surveyed reported that they spend more than 30 minutes daily on email with 38 percent of those spending

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more than two hours daily on this technology. This result shows that staff members in this workplace spent a greater amount of time on email daily compared to the

participants in Company NZ1 (see Section 5.2.1) and also in Waldvogel’s (2005) research. The majority of the respondents said that they check their email inbox the moment they arrive at the office. As most them were out on field work, they were also able to access their emails via their mobile phones. They noted that it is important to clear their inboxes periodically due to the volume of emails received daily. This result mirrors that of Markus (1994b) who reports that her respondents who were managers remained logged on to email all the time and responded to email messages as soon they arrived into their inboxes.

My findings indicate that the staff members at Company NZ2 managed their emails differently from each other: some read their email the moment it arrived in the inbox; some glanced at the subject line when a new email alert popped on their screen to decide whether to check that email or not; and some allocated a certain time of the day to check their emails. However, all claimed that email is a distraction and can take up a lot of time if it is not managed efficiently. This view concurred with John’s, a participant from Company NZ1. Although many who were interviewed feel that email took up a lot of their time, none of them reported that it is a waste of time.

Participants were asked to indicate the frequency of using emails for various

communicative functions. Table 5.4 and Figure 5.2 show the frequency of reported use of email for the following seven communicative functions.

122 Table 5.4 Frequency of reported use of email in Company NZ2

Communicative Functions

Frequency of use Often and

Always

Sometimes Never and Seldom Total No % No % No % No % sending information 18 86 0 0 3 14 21 100 making requests 14 67 0 0 7 33 21 100 offering feedback 11 52 4 19 6 29 21 100 sending compliments 8 38 10 48 3 14 21 100

saying thank you 10 48 8 38 3 14 21 100

seeking advice 9 43 11 52 1 5 21 100

resolving a conflict 5 24 2 10 14 67 21 100

Figure 5.2 Frequency of reported use of email in Company NZ2

Participants reported that they ‘always’ or ‘often’ use email to do the following: send information (86%), make requests (67%) and offer feedback (52%). Email is ‘sometimes’ use for two purposes: sending compliments (48%) and seeking advice (52%). Less than half of the participants said that they ‘always’ or ‘often’ use email to say thank you (48%). In contrast with Company NZ1 where none chose the options ‘always’ and ‘often’ for

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 P e rc e n ta ge (% ) Communicative Functions

Frequency of reported use of email -

Company NZ2

often and always sometimes never and seldom

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resolving conflicts via email, 24 percent of the participants in Company NZ2 selected this option.

As in Company NZ1, email was reportedly used for various reasons. Ninety percent of the staff members interviewed said that email is used as an “ass covering”exercise which is very salient in their industry. Email is used to keep a record of conversations or

discussions that had taken place between colleagues from different departments. When emails are sent between staff members of the same department, these emails serve three purposes – as a reminder to get things done, as a record of instructions requested and as a way to keep each other informed. Another important usage of email is to record minor staffing issues related to HR procedures and disciplinary meetings. Other uses of emails include:

1. letting people know that things had been done. 2. communicating with clients

3. communicating with people who did not provide a phone number 4. sending meeting invitations

As in Company NZ1, the reasons for the staff members’ choice of modes of

communication in Company NZ2 depended largely on a range of factors such as distance between writer and recipient, the number of recipients that the message needed to reach and the recipient. Unlike Company NZ1, nearly everyone interviewed in Company NZ2 said that there are no business situations for which email is inappropriate. This view mirrors that of the managers who were interviewed in Markus’ (1994) research. The managers were of the opinion that “email was appropriate for all work-related communication” (Markus, 1994: 520). However, during the interviews, participants quoted a few situations where email is deemed unsuitable:

a. “When emails were going back and forth more than once”. b. “When an instant answer is required”.

c. “When it is an urgent matter”. d. “When I needed a big favour”.

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f. “When offering advice or opinions which need not be recorded”. g. “When I need to walk someone through a process”.

h. “When I am angry or annoyed with someone”.

In summary, staff members in Company NZ2 deemed that email is very important because of the nature of the industry: emails recorded the date of discussions and there is a trail of the historical development of discussions that had taken place. Therefore, email communication is viewed as critical in avoiding disputes or disagreements which may arise in the future and it is also one way of avoiding potential costly litigation procedures. In this workplace, contracts sent via email were deemed binding and any amendments to the contracts made via email were also given the same weight as any piece of evidence in the eyes of the law, a practice which concurs with the findings of two earlier studies. Mills and her colleagues comment that (2000, p. 69) “deletion of email records may be considered as destroying evidence and refusing to produce such evidence can result in the loss of a lawsuit”. Also, Gains (1999, p. 90; 97) finds that the commercial emails in his study could “have a permanent legal status” because “they provide a unified permanent record of internal communications within the company, and they become a dated legal record of such communications whether they refer directly to specific insurance policies or policy holders”.

The previous two sub-sections discussed how email usage was managed in two New Zealand companies (Company NZ1 and Company NZ2). In the next sub-section, I present a discussion of how email usage was managed in a Malaysian company (Company M).