Communicating Content Through Configurable Media

We studied how project groups in a pharmaceutical organization configure a new Web-based communication medium to communicate project content. The project groups are geographically dispersed and operate in different time zones. In such environments, synchronous or geographically bounded modes of communication (e.g., face to face meetings, telephone) are not always viable options. As such, computer-based communication media become surrogate conduits for day-to-day project communication and exchange of project-related content. In the study, content communicated via the Web-based medium varied between different projects groups in the organization. To explain these variations, we develop a theoretical framework based on genre theory and augment this with perspectives from media richness theory. We illustrate how the augmented framework can explain the variations in communication within two project groups. We find that substantive medium use is likely when there is a fit between an institutionalized communication genre, perceived nature of content, and medium configuration. When there is a poor fit between genre, content and medium, we find evidence that communicators seek to achieve a better fit by manipulating one of these three constructs. We also outline some practical implications for the configuration of Web-based media that support dispersed project groups

People on the other side are waiting: work obligations and shame in ICT-related Technostress

With the pervasiveness of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in organisations, employees continuously interact both online and offline. This continuous interaction leads to the construction of norms and obligations around the usage of technology, which can also result in negative impacts on employees’ health, for example, technostress. Previous Information Systems (IS) research on technostress has focused on psychological or neurophysiological quantitative research on the use of ICT and its effects. To our knowledge, there are no technostress studies that make use of the role of obligation, which in our view is a crucial lens, as it shifts the technostress debate to showing how the felt obligations constructed around the use of ICTs can lead to technostress. To further explore how technostress arises, we use the analytical concept of obligation from the discipline Sociology of Emotions. Our data comes from an exploratory case study in a Danish private company. We find that employees take on themselves the ideals of ICTs being seamless, and when ICTs do not live up to their expectations, they experience shame and guilt. To avoid such feelings, they construct obligations that lead to technostress. We contribute to IS research on technostress by showing how obligation contributes to technostress