Electronic communication is becoming an integral part of the communication structure within organisations, but the costs and benefits are not being assessed. Communication by email is usually assumed to be an efficient and effective means of sending messages. However, on analysis the process is seen to be much more complex and much less efficient than is normally assumed. Communication is carried out in many different forms, but the common underlying motive of communication is to improve working practices and to increase productivity. As communication pervades nearly everything we do, even small improvements in the effectiveness and cost of our communication processes can have significant benefits. The aim of this research was to analyse the cost effectiveness of using email and to suggest ways in which the cost effectiveness can be improved. A number of studies have been conducted into the cost effectiveness of email within organisations. The studies were carried out mainly at the Danwood Group, the company sponsoring the author's PhD research. The Danwood Group has just over 500 employees at 19 sites around the UK and its head office is based in Lincoln, where all of the email case studies in this thesis where undertaken. The Danwood Group retails office equipment, predominately photocopiers. Email behaviour was monitored by the use of software at the Danwood Group. This raised a number of questions on the ethical issues of electronic monitoring. This thesis explores these issues and proposes a set of guidelines to allow electronic monitoring within strict professional and ethical guidelines. The Danwood Group studies examined how and when email was used. It was found that, when the company first started using email, over two thirds of messages were non-business-related, though this dropped to less than half in a few months. It was also found that many messages could be delivered in one line of text. A one-line message service was introduced and this was found to save employee time for both senders and receivers of the messages. A costing formula was developed measuring the human cost of operating email messaging. The final study was to determine how long it took employees to recover and return to normal work after an email interruption and this was compared with published data for telephone interrupts. From these results a set of guidelines were developed to enable companies to make the most efficient use of email. The thesis concludes by identifying further areas of research into email usage that would help give a better understanding of methods to enable email to become even more cost effective.

The use of technology, such as electronic mail and the Internet, is becoming the norm in many workplaces. This is especially true in academic workplaces. The present study examined several issues related to electronic mail use and job satisfaction for employees within a higher education workplace. Results of the study found that administrative level employees both sent and received more email than non-administrative level staff. Job satisfaction was not found to be related to the amount of email sent or received. No difference in job satisfaction was found between employees at the main campus versus regional locations, nor was there a difference in job satisfaction between those employees who were supervised primarily via email and those who had in-person supervision. Results of this study help to clarify the role electronic mail plays in the workplace behavior and attitudes of higher education employees. This study also updates older research that found lower levels of job satisfaction in employees receiving e-supervision. The present study found no such differences, perhaps indicating a change in how employees experience e-supervision. Future researchers are urged to continue study examining how electronic technologies influence workplace attitudes and behaviors. While this study focused on email usage, other studies could examine Internet usage or focus on the integration of new technologies into the academic workplace.

This study investigated the use and management of electronic mail (email) in Zimbabwe’s central government. Employing a mixed method research approach, the study used a pluralist ontological paradigm and a pragmatic epistemological paradigm within the convergent mixed methods research design. Quantitative responses from questionnaires were corroborated by qualitative findings from semi-structured interviews, personal observation and document reviews. The study was restricted to Zimbabwe’s central government, focusing on head offices of 22 government ministries situated in Zimbabwe’s capital city of Harare. The population of the study was 670. The Corona Virus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) lockdown imposed in Zimbabwe as from 30 March 2020 negatively affected data collection as some targeted respondents could not be accessed as the researcher had initially planned, leading to an overall response rate of 37.3%. Nonetheless, 12 out of 22 government ministries participated in the study. Quantitative data were analysed using Microsoft Excel 2010® and descriptive statistics while qualitative data were analysed thematically using Atlas.ti®. The study conformed to ethical standards of research as espoused in the University of South Africa’s ethical review guidelines. The study revealed that due to the adoption of electronic government and the inherent relative advantages of email, among other factors, there was increase in use of email as an official record in Zimbabwe’s central government. Nonetheless, management of email was still in its nascent stages and was largely poorly articulated. Poor email classification, filing, appraisal, security, preservation and disposal were largely traceable to deficiencies in legal, policy and procedural frameworks as well as skills and information and communication technology infrastructural challenges. These in turn triggered email retrieval, access, preservation and authenticity challenges. This study was a first local research to address both the use and management of email in a single study and one which proposed a framework for the effective use and management of email where a call was made to match increase in use of email with increase in professional management of the same. The proposed framework may go a long way in influencing proper and professional use and management of email in Zimbabwe’s central government and similar organisations. / Information Science / D. Phil. (Information Science)