ANALYSING CULTURAL IMPACTS OF COMPUTER-MEDIATED
COMMUNICATION IN ORGANISATIONS
HEEJIN LEE AND RICHARD VAREY
BNFL Corporate Communications Unit
The University of Salford, UK
C. Ess and F. Sudweeks (eds). Proceedings Cultural Attitudes Towards
Communication and Technology (1998), University of Sydney, Australia, 321-326.
1. Introduction
As the use of computer-mediated communication (CMC) has grown markedly,
research on CMC is also increasing. Most research on CMC is concerned with
the issues of media choice and media effects. There are three theories in the
mainstream of the former: information richness (Daft and Langel, 1984), social
influence (Fulk et al., 1990) and symbolic meaning in messages and media
(Trevino et al., 1990). In the latter, we find reduced social cues (Sproull and
Kiesler, 1992), information overload and other effects such as democracy,
centralisation and decentralisation. Rudy (1996) sees two main faults in the
existing research on CMC. First, most of the work fails to consider the context
into which CMC is introduced. This criticism comes from contextualism whch
insists that the context affects its use and effects. Second, particularly for media
effects research, little has been done on the effects at an organisational level;
most of the work deals with individuals and groups.
From the viewpoint of Rudy’s contextualist criticism, the theme of the
conference is quite relevant and opportune: “how do diverse cultural attitudes
shape the implementation and use of CMC technologies?” In addition to the
lack of research at an organisational level, we will add another aspect which
needs to be addressed in CMC research. CMC not only concerns itself with
communication behaviour (media choice and effects directly related to
communication behaviour), but also affects our everyday life, in particular, in
work places. Although the study of these elementary changes is fundamental for
understanding and predicting our life in the ‘information age’, little research has
been done yet. This aspect of changes in everyday life is also closely related to
the theme of CMC use in national contexts in that our everyday life behaviour
and artefacts are culturally (nationally) constructed. The changes in everyday
life might look trivial, but it can provide a clue to understand, for example, why
some communication technologies are preferred in some cultures while they are
avoided in other cultures.
In our research in progress, we study how CMC affects culture in office life. By
culture we mean here our way of life in general and thus our way of working in
work places. We will investigate impacts of CMC on the way we work in
offices. In the next section we will explain the meaning of culture used in this
research in detail and present evaluation framing (Stamper, 1988) as a
conceptual framework.
2. Culture
Culture is a controversial term in organisational studies. There are three levels
of culture (Schein, 1990; Robey and Azevedo, 1994):
- The deepest level consists of patterns of assumptions that organisational
members hold without awareness.
- The intermediate level refers to the values and beliefs of organisational
members, which are readily articulated by members in their normative
statements.
- The surface level is concerned with the organisation’s symbols and artefacts,
its routines and practices (Robey and Azevedo, 1994, p. 27).
In this project, we address the surface level of culture, in particular the way we
work in organisations. We base our concept of culture on Hall’s idea of primary
message systems (1959) and this study of cultural impacts is built upon
Stamper’s evaluation framing (1988).
According to Hall, culture is not constituted as a simple whole. There are ten
areas of human activities that combine to produce culture (Table 1). These he
calls ‘primary message systems’. They are closely connected to each other. We
can not only investigate each separately, but also examine how they work
together to form a culture as a whole system.
Table 1.
Hall’s primary message systems.
Interaction Temporality
Association Learning
Subsistence Play
Bisexuality Defence
Territoriality Exploitation
All things that people do involve interaction with something else or somebody.
One of the most elaborated forms of interaction is speech. Association refers to
conventions that govern the groupings of people and the roles that people play;
rank and hierarchy, class and formal organisation, etc. Subsistence means the
processes by which a society satisfies the basic physical needs of daily life and
the attitudes towards such matters as food, drink and work. Bisexuality is
concerned with both the way the sexes are distinguished and the relationships
which are permitted between them. Territoriality refers to conventions which
govern the division of space between people and its allocation for different
purposes. Temporality is concerned with conventions which govern the way that
time is constructed and used. These conventions govern when to do things, in
what order to do them, and how much time is allowed for doing each of them.
Learning refers to the conventions that govern being taught and teaching. Play
is concerned with whatever a society regards as entertaining, for example,
painting, music, literature, sports, games, etc. Defence refers to protective
activities or techniques which the individual and the community need not only
against potentially hostile forces in nature but against such forces within human
society. Exploitation is concerned with how to develop and make use of
resources.
3. Evaluation Framing
When a new technology is introduced into an organisation, it is difficult to
analyse its impacts. These are not limited to technical and economic aspects but
reach out to social and cultural ones also. The technology does not exist
separate from other elements of an organisation. Once introduced, it interacts
with the rest of organisational components.
To recognise the effects which a new technology has upon people and
organisations, Stamper (1988) devised ‘evaluation framing’. It is based on
primary message systems and provides a systematic method of analysing
impacts of an innovation such as a new product, any change to an organisation,
or a new information and communication system. It suggests that the ten
primary message systems be examined in turn when we attempt to predict the
impacts of an innovation.
Suppose that a new communication system is put into use in an organisation.
A new communication medium, e.g. electronic mail, provides a possibility of a
new pattern of interaction, e.g. less dependent on face-to-face or telephone for
certain tasks. CMC can also affect interpersonal relationships. Electronic access
leads to the emergence of new communication networks. Rice and Case (1983)
found that within five months of the installation of an integrated office system,
43% of managers surveyed reported exchanging messages with people whom
they had not previously been in touch with. The network could develop into a
so-called ‘virtual community’, which is a new association. Within the
organisation, the use of the new system may require new skills which are rare
among the older (and higher status) members of the organisation. Consequently,
a new hierarchy may develop based on new skills and knowledge on new
communication media, conflicting with the existing one. For subsistence, work
practices will adjust as the job specifications for the new system change. The
new job specifications may generate a new division of labour by gender. A new
pattern of association by gender may also emerge based on the use of the new
technology; for example, males may be more likely to use the new
communication system readily than are females.
A new system may require a new arrangement of computers and therefore a
new layout of the office (territoriality), which in turn may cause a new pattern
of physical encounters and thereby a new interaction. Furthermore, space is not
just space in organisations. It implies much about social relations. For example,
executives have larger rooms than middle management, which in turn occupy
more space, private or working whatever, than their subordinates. There are
three principles relating the concept of territory to organisational status:
1. persons of higher status will have more and better territory
2. the territory of higher-status people is better protected than that of lowerstatus
people
3. the higher a person’s status, the easier it is for him or her to invade the
territory of lower-status people (Fisher, 1993, p. 221).
What then will happen in ‘virtual organisations’? What is the equivalent there of
territory? How can higher-status people in virtual organisations maintain control
of ‘their’ space, which is an integral part of their power? These questions lead to
another question of ‘how can we design a virtual organisation which maintains
such ownership of territory?’
A new communication technology can affect the organisation of working
hours (temporality). It may open a possibility of transforming events happening
in a polychronic way into events occurring in a monochronic order, or vice
versa (Lee, 1997).
While some new systems require more formal training, others function
better through informal learning from colleagues, as social influence theory
implies (Fulk et al., 1990). A communication medium often provides users with
new means of entertainment (play) such as ‘web surfing’. Some people will sit
longer in front of their computers surfing the Internet for amusement and
mediated interaction than in a public coffee area, which has again something to
do with territoriality. The new system also raises problems of data security, e.g.
access and privacy in information systems (defence). It can also extend the
organisation’s capacity for exploitation of resources.
In summary, evaluation framing based on primary message systems can
show the likely cultural consequences of a new technology. It aims to provide a
systematic method to analyse cultural impacts of organisational innovations
such as information and communication systems.
4. The Way Ahead
We are conducting a case study in which a newly implemented CMC system is
investigated in terms of its impacts on the primary message systems. The
research design is being developed and the appropriate methods for data
collection are being adopted (interview, observation and document analysis).
As for the scope of the project, we will not address all of the ten categories.
We will cover those aspects which we think are most relevant to the
development of CMC. For example, one would not expect any meaningful
change in diet and sleeping habits to be caused by a new communication
medium. We are initially focusing on interaction, association, gender,
territoriality and temporality. The latter two factors will be especially
emphasised because space and time are the essential dimensions of human
existence.
From this research, we expect two matrix tables as results; one from the
literature review and the other from the case study. In examining various studies
on the effects of CMC, the literature review will provide a matrix showing the
effects of each CMC technology on the five selected streams. The case study is
expected to produce a matrix which shows various impacts of a specific CMC
on working life in a real organisational context. Both will allow us to draw a
picture of possible and actual cultural changes in organisations caused by a new
CMC technology.
References
Daft, R. L., and Lengel, R. H.: 1984, Information richness: A new approach to managerial
behavior and organization design, in L. L. Cummings and B. M. Staw (eds), Research in
Organizational Behavior, Vol. 6, JAI Press, Greenwich, pp. 191-233.
Fisher, D.: 1993, Communication in Organizations, West Publishing Company, New York.
Fulk, J., Schmitz, J. and Steinfield, C.: 1990, A social influence model of technology use, in J.
Fulk and C. Steinfield (eds), Organizations and Communication Technology, Sage, London,
pp. 117-140.
Hall, E. T.: 1959, The Silent Language, Doubleday, Garden City.
Lee, H.: 1997, Temporal implications of electronically mediated business procedures on
organisational work: EDI applications in trade, Unpublished PhD, London School of
Economics, University of London.
Rice, R. E., and Case, D.: 1983, Electronic message systems in the university, Journal of
Communication, 33, 131-152.
Robey, D. and Azevedo, A.: 1994, Cultural analysis of the organizational consequences of
information technology, Accounting, Managemet & Information Technlogy, 4(1), 23-37.
Rudy, I. A.: 1996, A critical review of research on electronic mail, European Journal of
Information Systems, 4, 198-213.
Schein, E. H.: 1990, Organisational culture, American Psychologist, 45, 109-119.
326 HEEJIN LEE AND RICHARD VAREY
Sproull, L. and Kiesler, S.: 1992, Connections: New Ways of Working in the Networked
Organizaiton, MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Stamper, R.: 1988, Analyzing the cultural impact of a system, International Journal of
Information Management, 8, 107-122.
Trevino, L. K., Daft, R. L. and Lengel, R. H.: 1990, Understanding managers’ media choices: a
symbolic interactionist perspective, in J. Fulk and C. Steinfield (eds), Organizations and
Communication Technology, Sage, London, pp. 71-94.