Elsevier

Information & Management

Volume 13, Issue 3, October 1987, Pages 111-117
Information & Management

Research
What does information technology “do” to business communications?: Two empirical studies

https://doi.org/10.1016/0378-7206(87)90018-8Get rights and content

Abstract

According to recent surveys, communication skills are among the most important areas of managerial performance. With the widespread use of information technology, end users are producing large amounts of written communications. Yet suprisingly little empirical research has been conducted to determine the effects of information technology on business communications. Reported here are two studies, which focus on the effects of information technology on the structure of written communication, and the time required to read end-user generated versus traditionally generated compositions.

Two views of the writing process and the role of information technology in it are the mediationist perspective (technology permits the text to be polished until it is of the highest quality) and the extentionist perspective (technology encourages open, natural composition which is conversational in tone). Our findings supported the latter view.

Its effects on end-user composition include more composition time and document length. Thus, organizational efficiency (overall time savings) could decrease through the extensive use of end-user generated written communication.

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  • Cited by (0)

    1

    Douglas E. Durand is Professor of Management Information Systems in the College of Business Administration at the University of South Carolina. Dr. Durand received his B.A. degree from Westminster College; his M.B.A. and Ph.D. degrees were received from Washington University, St. Louis. He has authored numerous articles on human resource effectiveness and has served as department head and associate dean. His research interests include communication support systems, managerial productivity, and management of information systems.

    2

    Rex Bennett is a Professor of Marketing and Management Information Systems at Chapman College, Orange, California. He holds a Ph.D. in Business Administration from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and has completed post-doctorate work in information systems at the University of Minnesota and Indiana University.

    Prior to joining Chapman College, he was on the faculty at the University of Colorado, Denver. Dr. Bennett has published articles in marketing, financial, and health-care journals on marketing planning, services marketing, and marketing research.

    He has been a consultant with a number of financial, health-care, and service companies including the American Bankers Association, Bank Marketing Association, Citicorp, Kaiser-Permanente Healthcare, Trans World Airlines (TWA), and US West Information Technology. His current research interests and topics include: (1) the communication effectiveness and efficiency of Management Information Systems, (2) a framework for CSS (Communication Support Systems), (3) the evaluation of CSS, (4) communication and research effectiveness of systems analysts, and (5) strategic marketing (with particular emphasis on information systems as a strategic, competitive weapon).

    3

    Samuel A. Betty is an associate professor of communication at the University of Colorado at Denver. He has a Masters of Science in Library Science from the University of Illinois-Urbana and a Ph.D. in communication from Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan. He was formerly chairman of the department of communication at CU-Denver. He teaches courses on the social impact of communication technology. He has authored studies on technology transfer, technological gatekeepers, and the diffusion of innovations.

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