Knowledge Workers’ Choices of Communication Technology

Abstract

Although Mintzberg (1973) showed that managers spend the majority of their time communicating, he did not provide a detailed analysis of the type of media that were used to send and receive information. Since Mintzberg’s publication, communication technologies have entered organizational life, offering new media choices to knowledge workers. In today’s corporate environment, knowledge workers (defined as workers who have to make substantial use of information within their work context (Davis et al., 1993)) use electronic mail (e-mail), voice mail and teleconferencing, in addition to the traditional communication media such as telephone or face-to-face communication, to send and receive information. Given the increasing availability of new communication media and the resulting complexity associated with media choice, there is a need for effective communication technology choice within organizations. It is proposed that improved understanding of the determinants of media choice enables more informed decisions about the choice of communication technology within organizations. For this purpose, both old and new communication media are investigated within this chapter.