Electronic mail as a coalition-building information technology

Abstract

One of the most intriguing lines of research within the literature on diffusion of information technologies (IT) is the study of the power and politics of this process. The major objective of this article is to build on the work of Kling and Markus on power and IT, by extending their perspective to email. To demonstrate how email can be used for political purposes within an organizational context, a case study is presented. The case study describes a series of events which took place in a university. In the case, email was used by a group of employees to stage a rebellion against the university president. The discussion demonstrates that email features make it amenable to a range of political uses. The article is concluded with a discussion of the implications from this case to email research and practice.

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