The development of a construct for measuring an individual's perceptions of email as a medium for electronic communication in organizations

Several information systems' and computer-mediated communication studies in the literature measure user's perceptions of email. The user's perceptions of email were used to develop and validate the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM). While a user's perceptions of email play an important role in literature, very few studies have focused solely on developing a construct for measuring these perceptions. In this paper, we develop a construct to measure an individual's perceptions of email as a medium for electronic communication in organizations. Using a survey of management and nonmanagement employees in Northeastern US, we empirically test our theoretical construct. The results of our research indicate that an individual's perceptions of email are a multidimensional construct with two dimensions: the individual level dimension and the organizational level. At an individual level, a person's perceptions may be impacted by email's role in improving productivity, supporting team work, and providing global reach. At an organizational level a person's perceptions may be impacted by email's role in making an organization vulnerable to viruses, exposing proprietary information, and/or encouraging unprofessional and illegal behavior.