Abstract
While globally, computer-mediated communication (CMC) has emerged as a powerful and a more satisfying medium to facilitate organizational communication, its increased use, particularly in emerging economies, raises concerns relating to its efficacy particularly when compared to the more ‘natural’ face-to-face communication.
This paper examines the impact of CMC on the quality of organizational communication at the workplace. Analysing economic and relational dimensions of task performance, the paper investigates whether CMC enhances or debases the quality of interaction (exchange quality). Measured in terms of perceived satisfaction on economic and relational dimensions of task performance, the quality of exchange is examined with respect to three type of tasks — information generation, information sharing, and decision-making.
The five independent variables under study are: frequency of media use, media familiarity, media choice (to facilitate task/social interaction), quality of information sharing, and the strength of relational tie among the team members. These five variables are examined with respect to two configurations —e-mail and instant messaging (IM). The dependent variable is the quality of the interaction (exchange quality).
The results show that:
the frequency of e-mail communication is a significant factor in facilitating effective communication. Frequent e-mail communication leads to media familiarity. Familiarity with CMC positively impacts satisfaction on task dimensions and results in improved communication. Satisfaction scores vary on the basis of the mode of communication. Users used e-mail as a rich medium to exchange task-related information, for analytical and judgmental tasks and as a lean medium for building relationships (especially at the brainstorming or information generation stage).
In comparison to e-mail, IM is not as effective both on economic as well as relational dimensions of task performance. Though a synchronous medium with a higher perceived social presence than the e-mail, it rated low on familiarity and information sharing aspects. The strength of the relational ties shared by the group had a positive impact on the quality of social interaction.
A large majority of the respondents opted for the FtF mode for information gathering task and the CMC mode for information exchange and decision-making tasks.