Email stress: what are its causes? how is it measured? can it be solved? The literature review revealed that, despite the term being well used and recognised, discussions surrounding the root cause of email stress had reached little consensus and the concept was not well understood. By its very nature, email stress theory had fallen victim to the academic debate between psychological vs. physiological interpretations of stress which, as a result of either choice, limited more progressive research. Likewise an array of email management strategies had been identified however, whilst some generated quick successes, they appeared to suffer longevity issues and were not maintained a few months after implementation in the workplace. The purpose of this research was to determine whether email communication causes employees psychological and physiological stress and investigate the impact of email management strategies in the workplace. A pragmatic philosophy placed the research problem as central and valued the differences between paradigms to promote a mixed-method approach to research. The decision to pair both case studies and action research methods ensured a framework for presenting results and an actionable solution was achieved. In direct response to the research aims an original email stress measuring methodology was devised that combined various data collection tools to measure and investigate email stress. This research design was applied and evaluated 'email free time' and email filing. Results of the study showed an increased stress response to occur during email use, i.e. caused employees' increased blood pressure, heart rate, cortisol and perceived stress, and a number of adverse effects such as managing staff via email, social detachment, blame and cover-your-back culture were identified. Findings revealed 'email free time' was not a desirable strategy to manage email stress and related stressors, whereas email filing was found more beneficial to workers well-being. Consolidation of the data gathered from the literature review and research findings were used to develop an initial conceptualisation of email stress in the form of two models, i.e. explanatory and action. A focus group was conducted to validate the proposed models and a further investigation at the ? was carried out to critique the use of an email training intervention. The results showed some improvements to employees' behaviour after the training, e.g. improved writing style, email checked on fewer occasions each day and fewer sufferers of email addiction. The initial models devised, alongside the latter findings, were synthesised to create a single integrative multidimensional model of email stress and management strategies. The model made an original contribution to knowledge in terms of theory, i.e. to conceptualise email stress, and practice, i.e. to offer practical solutions to the email worker.

As a result of the rapid development of technology and the implementation of it in work environments, productivity and profit can increase for an organization. Email has led to much shorter ways of communication but there are also less positive aspects of technology. Technostress, information overload and email overload are all three effects of this new ubiquitous digital era. We ask how individual information workers manage and reply to incoming email, to extend our knowledge regarding the effects of email overload on information workers, and to identify their coping strategies in their work life context. This knowledge can be used by practitioners, designers and researchers to develop email as a service further. By conducting nine qualitative interviews with information workers employed in three different organization, we found that balance in email management is important to utilize the full potential of the service, and it would be useful for individuals, as well as organizations, to establish clear rules regarding email use both within work hours, as well as on leisure time.

E-post är det vanligaste kommunikationsverktyget för att skicka och ta emot information på arbetet. Trots dess fördelar att snabbt och enkelt kunna utbyta information visar forskning att mängden e-postmeddelanden har ökat till den grad att det bidrar till informationsöverbelastning. E-postkommunikation förväntas utsätta individer, och särskilt chefer, för allt högre nivåer av informationsöverbelastning. Forskning visar att problemet inte handlar om hur chefer ska undvika information, utan om hur chefer kan hantera e-postkommunikation. Detta leder fram till studiens frågeställning: Hur upplever chefer informationsöverbelastning vid e-postkommunikation och vilka copingstrategier använder de? För att få en ökad förståelse för hur chefer hanterar informationsöverbelastning vid e-postkommunikation har vi använt en kvalitativ forskningsansats. Med hjälp av en tematisk analys har vi kunnat identifiera, analysera och upptäcka återkommande mönster av chefers upplevelse. Vi valde därefter att skapa teman av hur upplevelser kan förstås för att kunna beskriva vilka upplevelser som copingstrategier baseras på. De teman som vi har identifierat under den tematiska analysen är: mängd, alltid ansluten, avbrott och organisationsstöd. Tillsammans skapar de fyra temana en förståelse för hur chefer kan uppleva informationsöverbelastning vid e-postkommunikation och vilka copingstrategier de använder. Studien indikerar att det finns kontraster i chefers upplevelser. En upplevelse som kan upplevas som överbelastande för en chef behöver inte vara det för en annan chef. Detta pekar på att det inte finns en enskild copingstrategi för att hantera informationsöverbelastning vid e-postkommunikation. / Email is the most common communication tool for sending and receiving information at work. Despite emails advantages of being able to exchange information quickly and easily, research shows that the volume of emails has increased to the extent that it contributes to information overload. Email communication is expected to expose individuals, and especially managers, for even higher levels of information overload. Research shows that the problem is not about how managers could avoid information, but about how managers can handle email communication. This leads to the question: How do managers experience information overload within email communication and what coping strategies do they use? In order to gain an increased understanding of how managers handle information overload within email communication, we have used a qualitative research approach. With the use of a thematic analysis, we have been able to identify, analyze and detect recurring patterns of managers’ experiences. We then chose to create themes of how experiences can be understood to describe what experiences coping strategies are based on. The themes that we identified under the thematic analysis are: amount, always connected, interruption and organizational support. Together, the four themes create an understanding of how managers can experience information overload within email communication and that coping strategies they use. The study indicates that there are contrasts in managers experiences. An experience that one manager can perceive as overloading does not have to be overloading for another manager. This demonstrates that there is no single coping strategy for managing information overload within email communication.