The impact of email overload on the productivity of knowledge workers

: the case of AdvanceCare

Abstract

The effectiveness of communications within modern organizations seems to be the basis for their success, and its increasing complexity has always been a major concern for managers. Technological developments have imposed changes in the way internal and external communications are approached, and the prioritization in the use of email has been a consequence of that evolution. Therefore, issues about the real efficiency of email have been creating divergences between researchers and practitioners. They have been raising the question whether it remains to be the perfect tool that once revolutionized the world of communications, or if it is actually outdated and needing urgent optimization. At the same time, the evolution of business towards a more integrated and technological reality have developed the notion of knowledge workers, attributing to them a great value as core assets of almost any organization nowadays. That comes with the importance of productive knowledge work, which causes and consequences have to be perfectly understood. Managers and scholars should then be interested in the ways corporate communications, mainly conducted via email, are affecting productivity in the workplace. And that is exactly what this study attempts to answer. Both email overload and the productivity of knowledge workers have been topics of interest for scholars over the past decades, and the purpose of this dissertation is to specifically cover the existing relations between them. With that in mind, collaborating with AdvanceCare, a health insurance management company, was crucial to assess a real-life context where communications could be evaluated as a whole, and also with a specific focus on email overload. Primary and secondary data were collected using different methods like academic research, benchmarking, meetings with managers of the company, workshops, and a survey shared with all the employees. In addition to the recommendations drawn and the support in decision-making delivered to those responsible for managing communications in AdvanceCare, this study came to prove that email communications actually have an impact on the sense of productivity of knowledge workers and to create conditions for researchers to further deepen this topic. It was also possible to observe that the level of responsibilities of each employee within the company has a major influence on the extent of that impact. This study brought the conclusion that the greater is the responsibility of employees, more likely they feel that their productivity will suffer negatively with the use of email.

Date of Award	16 Jul 2014
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Rute Xavier (Supervisor)