Celia T. Romm

Electronic mail as a coalition-building information technology

One of the most intriguing lines of research within the literature on diffusion of information technologies (IT) is the study of the power and politics of this process. The major objective of this article is to build on the work of Kling and Markus on power and IT, by extending their perspective to email. To demonstrate how email can be used for political purposes within an organizational context, a case study is presented. The case study describes a series of events which took place in a university. In the case, email was used by a group of employees to stage a rebellion against the university president. The discussion demonstrates that email features make it amenable to a range of political uses. The article is concluded with a discussion of the implications from this case to email research and practice.

E‐mail as a Weapon in an Industrial Dispute

The case study on which this article is based describes a two-and-a-half month long strike of Israeli academic staff members. During the strike, e-mail was used as the major means of communication between the strikers. Analysis of the e-mail messages demonstrates that e-mail served as a secret weapon, enabling the strikers to succeed in what was presumed to be a hopeless battle.

The office tyrant ‐ social control through e‐mail

The changing role of technology in the virtual workplace has been accompanied by a proliferation of research activity focusing initially on the technical aspects and, more recently, on the social and political aspects of the diffusion process, including power and politics. This paper builds on the work of Kling and Markus on power and politics in IT, extending it to e‐mail and more specifically, to the use of e‐mail for petty tyranny. Reviews the literature on petty tyranny and its implications to IT and e‐mail. Presents a case study in which e‐mail was used by a department chair to manipulate, control, and coerce employees. The discussion links the events in the case with the literature on petty tyranny. In conclusion, demonstrates that e‐mail features make it amenable to political abuse and elaborates on the more general, theoretical, practical and ethical implications from this research.

The role of charismatic leadership in diffusion and implementation of e‐mail

Past research on electronic mail (e‐mail) has established this information technology as an effective means for achieving intra‐ and inter‐organizational co‐ordination. Current research on e‐mail has gone beyond the technical aspects of implementation to the non‐technical, namely, the social aspects. This paper follows the current trend by considering the role of leadership in diffusion and implementation of e‐mail. A case study which describes the introduction of e‐mail to a university community, is presented. The diffusion of e‐mail was strongly supported by the charismatic president of the university and was a technical success. It was, however, followed by a series of political events that undermined the leadership of the president. The discussion focuses on how leadership theories, paritcularly current theories on charismatic leadership, can explain the technical success of the project and its turbulent political side‐effects. The conclusions outline implications for managers and information systems practitioners.

Toward a virtual politicking model

Virtual politicking is the use of email to support organizational politics. Surprisingly, despite the proliferation of email, its role in enabling political maneuvering is just starting to be acknowledged by managers and information systems practitioners. The Virtual Politicking Model detailed in this article synthesizes data from a series of real-life incidents in which email was used for political manipulation within and between organizations. The discussion illustrates the impact that email can have on life at work, alerting managers and practitioners to both its promise and its dangers.

Playing politics with E-mail: a longitudinal conflict-based analysis

Few studies have attempted to link e-mail use to power and politics. The purpose of this paper is to integrate issues of power and conflict into the research on e-mail. To frame the discussion, the paper starts from a review of the relevant writings on power and e-mail. The literature review is concluded with the assertion that contextual, temporal, and conflict management aspects should be incorporated into research on power in organizations. Following this assertion, one of the leading models on conflict management is introduced and used to analyze a case study. The case is presented as a play in three “acts.” Each of the acts outlines a different set of conflict management strategies that were utilized by management and employees. The discussion synthesizes the analysis by demonstrating that a combined power and conflict management perspective can explain the playing of politics with e-mail.

Gift-Giving Family Styles: A Cross-Cultural Study with Consumer Socialisation Implications

The present study combines Belks (1979) conceptualisation of gift-giving functions with the McLeod and Chaffee (1972) model of family communication systems to explore gift-giving family styles in individualistic and collectivistic cultures. The major objective of the research was to identify gift-giving family styles across cultures, using the McLeod and Chaffee model as a framework for the inquiry. Data for this research was collected through a series of in-depth interviews with sixty-eight individuals (sixteen families) of Australian Anglo-Celtic and Sino-Vietnamese backgrounds. The major findings from this research were that: (1) the four family styles outlined by the McLeod and Chaffee model are indeed reflected in four distinct gift-giving family styles; (2) the styles are distributed differently in the two cultures, with the Anglo-Celtic higher on the socio-oriented dimension and the Sino-Vietnamese higher on the concept-oriented dimension; and (3) even within the most prevalent family gift-giving style, i.e. the consensual, there are distinct cultural differences between the two groups that reflect the collectivism-individualism continuum.

Information Systems for Electronic Banking

The literature reveals that the term ‘electronic banking’ is still not well defined. This term is often used interchangeably with ‘electronic payment system’ to refer to a subset of electronic commerce. It covers the electronic ways of transmitting payment data, and the settlement of payment from the payer to the payee.

The Dynamics of Establishing Organizational Web Sites

Recent publications herald Web technology as a revolutionary or transformational technology, i.e. one with the potential to dramatically change the way that organizations conduct their business (Bickel, 1996; Kalakota and Whinston, 1996; Rayport and Sviokla, 1995). Some of the areas that are seen as most likely to undergo radical change as a result of the introduction of Web technologies to business organizations are: (i) informational structures; (ii) management strategies; (iii) distribution channels; and (iv) product mix.

The Group Dynamics of Telecooperation: The Use of E-mail During the Israeli Academics Strike

The major objective of this paper is to study the group dynamics of telecooperation, with particular emphasis on the group development aspects of telecooperation activities. After a review of the relevant literature on group processes and e-mail (in section 1), the paper proceeds to discuss an extensive case study, the story of the 1994 strike of Israeli academics (in section 3). Data for the case was derived from in-depth content analysis of e-mail messages which appeared on ACADEMIA, the network established by the strikers to support their struggle. The analysis of the e-mail messages demonstrates that during the strike this virtual community has gone through a series of phases that marked its evolution from a large, disorganised group of individuals, into a united, close-knit, community. The discussion (in section 4) relates the group dynamics in the case to existing models of face to face, small group interaction, suggesting that e-mail created an “illusion of smallness”, enabling a large group to experience the developmental patterns typical of small groups. The paper is concluded (in section 5) with a discussion of implications from this research to theory and practice.