Inf Syst Front (2010) 12:277–285 DOI 10.1007/s10796-009-9175-y
Successful and unsuccessful multicommunication episodes: Engaging in dialogue or juggling messages? Jeanine Warisse Turner & N. Lamar Reinsch Jr
Published online: 5 May 2009 # Springer Science + Business Media, LLC 2009
Abstract This paper describes instances of multicommunicating—or engaging in more than one conversation at a time. It uses a critical incident technique to explore successful and unsuccessful incidents of multicommunicating from the perspective of 201 MBA students. Additionally, we asked which media individuals pair together when multicommunicating. We found very frequent pairing of the telephone (which provides partial compartmentalization but no flexibility of tempo) with electroric text (which provides both compartmentalization and flexibility of tempo). We also found that respondents provide a variety of reasons for labeling a particular episode as “unsuccessful.” In many cases the person seemed to describe an episode as unsuccessful when the person or a communicating partner had exceeded his or her ability to juggle multiple conversations as demonstrated by communication errors. Keywords Multicommunicating . Communication technology . Critical incident . Media use . Self presentation . Instant message
“I can’t go into a meeting unless I have this (Blackberry). I am able to double and triple book myself because people know I can be reached by J. W. Turner (*) Communication, Culture, and Technology Program, Georgetown University, Washington, DC, USA e-mail:
[email protected] N. L. Reinsch Jr The McDonough School of Business, Georgetown University, Washington, DC, USA e-mail:
[email protected]
texting me. People just have to understand that is my situation. If I couldn’t do that in their meeting, I couldn’t attend their meeting”
1 Introduction Building on previous studies, this research presents data that enhance our understanding of multicommunicating, the practice of engaging in multiple conversations at the same time (Cameron and Webster 2005; Reinsch et al. 2008; Turner and Reinsch 2007; Turner and Tinsley 2002). Multicommunicating can involve various combinations of media and takes place when an individual participates in two or more overlapping conversations. Examples can include talking on the phone while answering an email, instant messaging with multiple individuals, or text messaging during a business meeting. The Pew Internet & American Life project’s report on “Networked Workers” (Madden and Jones 2008) found that among those American adults employed with full or parttime work that use the internet in their workplace, 93% own a cell phone, 85% own a desk top or a laptop (61%) computer, and 27% use some type of personal digital assistant. Each of these communication devices allows for continual personal communication throughout the day. These wired workers are facing increasing demands to merge work with family time and manage more work demands while at home (Griffiths and Light 2008; Venkatesh 2008). As a result, the push towards efficiency has increased, leading to the increased need to participate in more than one conversation at any one time. Additionally, features associated with the technology support the ability to juggle multiple conversations. Some
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environments may also encourage the management of multiple conversations at any one time as a strategy for accomplishing work (Reinsch et al. 2008; Turner and Reinsch 2007) Just as individuals make strategic decisions about how to present themselves in an individual communication situation, they must make strategic decisions about how to engage in multicommunicating. To better understand the way that individuals make decisions about presenting themselves, as well as media choices, we turn to Goffman’s theory of presentation of self and media richness theory.
2 Research questions and theoretical perspectives This research extends past research by addressing the following research questions: 1. What are the characteristics of successful and unsuccessful episodes of multicommunicating among young professionals in the United States? 2. What media (and in what combinations) do young professionals in the United States typically use to multicommunicate? Our assessment of the answers to these questions is shaped by theories of self presentation (Goffman 1959, 1967) and theories of media richness (e.g., Daft and Lengel 1986). 2.1 Goffman’s theory of the presentation of self Sociologist Erving Goffman (1959, 1967) described the social world as a multistage drama. As individuals encounter different social arenas, they play different roles. An individual will act differently in a professional environment than a more personal one. Each defined situation has specific rules and roles that give the participants cues as to how to interact in that situation (Goffman 1974). Therefore, social interaction is very much determined by place and space. However, as new forms of media blur the boundaries of space and time, individuals no longer have the luxury of time or visual cues of space to help orient them to the social situation (Meyrowitz 1985). Therefore, individuals identify and adjust roles and behavior based on cues in the interaction rather than cues that take place within a specific space. When an individual is on the phone with one person and responds to an email from another person, the communicator must envision the interaction for the telephone conversation and the email conversation nearly simultaneously without the benefit of physical cues to direct the interaction. In this way, multicommunicating becomes a very complicated activity.
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2.2 Media richness theory Most of the research on communication technology use has centered on how individuals within the workplace choose to use a specific technology (Daft and Lengel 1986; Fulk 1993; Orlikowski 1992; Rice and Gattiker 2001). Multicommunicating describes the use of multiple communication technologies to convey numerous conversational messages among more than one conversational partner. As a result, the focus of this research is on the practice of this behavior and exploring the reasons why individuals choose to engage in this behavior. While context is clearly important to the decision to multicommunicate (Reinsch et al. 2008; Turner et al. 2006), we believe that certain features of the technology provide unique communication situations that might promote this practice. The scholars that explored the choice of an individual medium for a specific communication message also considered specific features of the technology. Scholars exploring the media richness framework argued that individuals choose a specific medium for communication based on that technology’s ability to convey rich information. Characteristics of a medium that provides rich information include the capacity of the medium to convey multiple cues (both verbal and nonverbal), provide immediate feedback, and create a personal focus (Carlson and Zmud 1999; Daft and Lengel 1986; Rice 1992). Research has suggested that individuals match a richer medium with a more equivocal message (message with multiple meanings) and a leaner medium with a less equivocal message. An effective match results in a more efficiently communicated message. Most of the research supporting media richness theory has explored perceptions of media fit asking individuals to respond to hypothetical situations and choose which medium would most effectively communicate that hypothetical message (Rice 1992; Trevino et al. 2000). While media richness theory is often supported by examining perceptions of media use, actual examination of media use has not supported media richness theory (Dennis and Kinney 1998). Dennis and Kinney (1998) found that actually matching media richness to task equivocality did not improve decision quality, decision time, consensus quality, or communication satisfaction. However, individuals commonly suggest that ambiguous or confusing messages should be matched to a richer medium. This research suggests that many individuals employ a strategy as they engage in a communication situation that involves a connection between the message characteristics and the medium characteristics. This research explores the strategies that individuals use as they enter communication situations involving more than one conversation at a time.
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Building off media richness research, Turner and Reinsch (2007) suggested that multicommunicating might also involve the match between the equivocality of the message and the number of conversations attempted at any one time. They found that communicators seek to economize in the allocation of personal presence across multiple, interleaved interactions. Two factors that influenced that choice were the equivocality of the message and the status of the interlocutor.
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2008). Thus we anticipate that the media used in multicommunication are likely to be those possessing one or both of those characteristics. This research study investigates multicommunicating by surveying business people to find out what types of multicommunicating leads to successful outcomes versus what types of multicommunicating leads to unsuccessful outcomes. Additionally, we explored the type of media that tend to be combined to create multicommunicating episodes.
2.3 Media characteristics 3 Methods We see the decision to multicommunicate as also involving specific characteristics of the media, as suggested by media richness theory, but also involving the type of social situation that an individual would like to create, as suggested by Goffman (1959, 1967). Goffman argues that interaction or performance is determined by physical place (1959, 1967). The digital media environment creates a virtual space so individuals can create the space that they want to interact in. They can do this by choosing specific communication technologies that enable certain forms of presence. Two characteristics that appear to help determine that space have been labeled compartmentalization and flexibility of tempo (Reinsch et al. 2008). Compartmentalization describes the cross-conversational availability of cues. Specifically, media with this characteristic provide the opportunity to hide activity in one conversation from a conversational partner in a second conversation. For example, chat technology allows someone to communicate with several communication partners without any of the partners knowing how many chat windows are open at one time. Two overlapping chat interactions are fully compartmentalized, while two face-toface conversations provide no compartmentalization. Flexibility of tempo describes the extent to which a participant may delay a response (allow a gap of silence) without giving offense or disrupting the interaction. Within two overlapping chat conversations, the individuals involved do not have visual cues of the participants to know who is at his or her desk and who is not. Therefore, the speed of response can be governed not only by a person’s typing skill, but the possibility that he or she has been delayed in receiving the message (perhaps absent from his or her desk) or distracted by other tasks (Reinsch et al. 2008) Thus chat is socially constructed to allow for delays in response as being acceptable. Additionally, messages without an enduring form (Herring 2003) such as a live conversation, do not allow for flexibility of tempo. Email, on the other hand, does allow for flexibility of tempo. We have argued that media characteristics such as compartmentalization and flexibility of tempo contribute to the prevalence of multicommunicating (Reinsch et al.
We distributed questionnaires to 250 young professionals who had recently left a full-time job in order to enter an MBA program at a university in the mid-Atlantic region of the United States. We received responses from 238 persons (participation in the survey was voluntary). The data were collected for a class discussion of electronic media and are used in the current study as archival data. In responding to the questionnaire each respondent was asked to write brief descriptions of one successful multicommunication episode and one unsuccessful multicommunication episode. As recommended in critical incident methodology (Flanagan 1954), we left “successful” and “unsuccessful” undefined. Each respondent was also asked to identify up to three media combinations that he or she had used to multicommunicate and to provide some demographic data. Thirty-seven of the respondents reported that they had never participated in multicommunication or wrote vignettes suggesting that they did not understand the concept. Data from those individuals were discarded, leaving responses from 201 persons. Critical incident descriptions were typed into an electronic file, proof-read, and content analyzed. Low reliability coefficients caused us to review the written incident descriptions. We noted that respondents had, in some cases, offered two examples of successful episodes within a single answer space, confusing the coders. We also concluded that respondents had described many unsuccessful episodes so briefly as to preclude reliable content analysis (e.g., “The person I was talking to would get upset” or “I…dropped one [conversation] to focus on the other”). Thereafter, we analyzed the successful and unsuccessful episodes separately. We revised our rater-training procedures, divided some descriptions of successful episodes into two episodes (yielding a total of 211 episodes), trained two new raters, applied content analysis to the descriptions of successful episodes, and assessed reliability with Scott’s pi (Scott 1953).The reliability coefficient for the number of simultaneous interactions was .68; for whether the interaction included at least one written medium, .85; for whether the
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interaction included at least one oral medium, .93; for whether at least one interaction was work related, .82; for whether at least one interaction was personal, .84; and for whether all topics discussed were related, .79. When the raters disagreed, one of the authors read the description and coded it. We performed an exploratory content assessment of the unsuccessful episode by having one of the authors identify the reason(s) that an episode had been regarded as unsuccessful, and group illustrative quotations into categories. The second author then reviewed and revised the category groupings. In addition to describing examples of successful and unsuccessful multicommunicating, each respondent was asked to identify up to three media combinations that he or she had used most frequently to engage in multicommunicating. Finally, each respondent was asked to provide some demographic data.
4 Results Respondent age ranged from 22 to 40 (mean = 28.19). Seventy percent (140) of the respondents were male; thirty percent were female (61). One hundred forty-one (70%) of the respondents identified the United States as their country of origin; the remaining 60 respondents were from countries around the globe. 4.1 Descriptions of successful episodes Content analysis of the successful episodes indicated that 155 (73%) of the descriptions concerned incidents in which the protagonist had participated in two overlapping conversations; the remaining 56 descriptions concerned incidents of three or more simultaneous interactions. Content analysis found that 184 (87%) of the episodes included the use of at least one written medium (e.g., e-mail); 197 (93%) of the episodes included the use of at least one oral medium (e.g., telephone). Furthermore, 179 (85%) of the episodes included discussion of at least one work-related issue while only 40 (19%) included discussion of at least one personal (i.e., non-work-related issue). In 62 (29%) of the episodes all discussed topics seemed to be related to each other; in 106 (50%) instances, the topics seemed not to be related to each other; and in 43 (20%) instances the raters were not able to determine whether or not the discussed topics were related to each other. The content analysis of the descriptions of successful episodes sketches multicommunicating as consisting—in the experience of our respondents—of two (or, less often, three or more) simultaneous conversations, frequently combining both a written (e.g., e-mail) and an oral medium
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(e.g., telephone), most often for work-related purposes. The following are three illustrative examples: On conference calls, we would mute our end of the conversation to talk about what the other parties were saying or about the other participants. Topics discussed on the calls were financial and [the] status of people involved varied. I had no strong feelings about the interactions other than some concern that I might miss something relevant on the conf. call. The side comments were either financial or comments about the callers (lack of knowledge, truthfulness, etc.). Sometimes it was necessary to talk on the phone with a client or co-worker while typing. I found it worked so long as you were talking and typing about the same topic. Typing . . . [numbers] was much easier than typing . . . sentences. I would answer several short questions on [text messaging system], be on the phone with [a] customer and read my e-mail at the same time. I found that I phased in and out of each conversation. Phone is probably where it was the most evident that I was listening [only] for keywords. 4.2 Descriptions of unsuccessful episodes As previously noted, we did not conduct a conventional content analysis of the descriptions of unsuccessful episodes. Our informal content assessment—which allowed an episode to be placed in more than one category—identified several categories of reasons that a respondent had identified a particular episode as “unsuccessful” (See Table 1). These categories described specific mistakes on the part of one or more of the communicators as well as characteristics of the multicommunicating context. This list points to a variety of reasons that an episode might be labeled as “unsuccessful” including factors such as discontinuation, inefficiency, or mistakes either in the informational content being conveyed or in the conversational management process. 4.3 Media combinations used to multicommunicate: Survey responses Besides describing both a successful and an unsuccessful example, each respondent was also given two parallel lists of media that are frequently found in the contemporary workplace (e.g., email, telephone) and asked to mark as many as three combinations that he or she “tended to combine” when multicommunicating. Thus, these responses concerned self perceptions of typical behavior rather than a description of specific examples. Fourteen persons listed a single combination;
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Table 1 Categories for unsuccessful multicommunicating episodes Number of occurrences
Type of unsuccessful incident
Unsuccessful because of an error 34 The respondent misunderstood or missed information (e.g., 049: “I missed the outcome of the discussion”) 19 Process error, an error in conversational management such as being noticeably unprepared for a speaking turn (e.g., 056: “I lost my train of thought”) 18 A message was directed to the wrong target, or mixed up content from interactions (e.g., 171: “I sent the message that should go to A to B”) 6 A generic description of “bad” communication (e.g., 214: “trying to do both resulted in doing both poorly”) Writing errors (e.g., 013: “emails have spelling mistakes”) Respondent failed to discover errors in information received and used the incorrect information while multicommunicating (e.g., 164: “given bad information [from office during interaction with a customer] and looked like a fool”) Unsuccessful because of another reason 34 At least one participant became annoyed (upset, unhappy, irritated, frustrated) (e.g., 009: “This was very frustrating”) 26 One (or more) of the interactions was discontinued (or ignored or deferred) (e.g., 011: “I paid no attention to the phone conversation”) 22 Interaction was slowed down or failed to achieve objective (e.g., 133: “I cut the phone conversation”) 16 Behavior violated standards of professionalism (politeness, respect) (e.g., 111: “I found the behavior disrespectful”) 11 A multicommunicator was caught (discovered or detected) (e.g., 055: “the person on the phone could hear me typing) 11 Multicommunication described as not possible for the respondent with certain media combinations (e.g., 220: “IM and the phone does not work in any situation I have encountered”) 6 Multicommunication was un- (or less) successful because of circumstances (e.g., 110: “this happens when I am tired”)
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Table 2 Media combinations identified as used frequently for multicommunicating Times mentioned
Percentage
Media combination
171 061 052 050 044 044
85 30 26 25 22 22
Telephone & Email Telephone & instant messaging Face-to-face & Email Face-to-face & telephone Email & Email Email & pager
031 028 025 015 014 011 005 004 002 002 001 Total 560
15 14 12 07 07 05 02 02 01 01 00
Telephone & pager Email & conference call Face-to-face & face-to-face Face-to-face & conference call Telephone & telephone Face-to-face & instant messaging Telephone & conference call Face-to-face & pager Conference call & conference call Pager & conference call E-mail & instant messaging
Percentage calculated on the basis of 201 respondents
15 persons listed 2 combinations; and 172 persons listed three such combinations. The identified combinations are reported in Table 2. As can be seen, a combination of telephone and e-mail was, by far, the most common (171 persons, 85% of 201 respondents). Indeed, a combination of telephonic communication (phone call or conference call) with an exchange of text (e-mail, text messaging, pager) was extremely common, constituting 293 (52%) of all the 560 identified combinations. Also common were combinations of two written media (89 mentions, 16% of 560), a combination in which both media provide compartmentalization and flexibility of tempo. The use of electronic text (which provides both compartmentalization and flexibility of tempo) with another electronic text or with the telephone (which provides partial compartmentalization but little flexibility of tempo) is consistent with our expectations. There are, of course, occasions as shown in our data where multicommunication occurs in the presence of face-to-face interaction (which provides no compartmentalization and little if any flexibility of tempo). It should be noted, however, that many of the combinations with face-to-face incorporated a second medium such as e-mail, instant messaging or a pager with both compartmentalization and flexibility of tempo (67 mentions, 12% or all identified combinations) or, in other cases a medium such as a telephone or a conference call that provides at least partial compartmentalization (65 mentions, 12% of all identified combinations).
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And, we should add, a combination of face-to-face and telephone may occur during a meeting when one of the participants desires additional information and has the concurrence of others to seek it immediately. A combination of face-to-face with face-to-face was mentioned only 25 times (less than 5% of all identified combinations). To our surprise, no one mentioned a combination of instant message with instant message, perhaps because they assumed instant messages were usually combined with other instant messages. These results are consistent with the content analysis of the previously discussed successful episodes, pointing to a frequent combination of a written medium and an oral one (87% of the successful episodes included at least one written medium and 93% included at least one oral one). These results are also consistent with the expectation that multicommunicating is facilitated by (but not dependent on) the availability of media that allow for compartmentalization and flexibility of tempo (Reinsch et al., 2008, p. 396).
5 Discussion This study suggests that multicommunicating is a prevalent process within the workforce today. Most of the professionals entering MBA programs have experienced it and can describe successful and unsuccessful incidents. In fact, some of the respondents do it so often that they had a difficulty isolating a specific instance because “I do it so often, I don’t even think/ notice when I am doing it.” Goffman’s (1959) presentation theory suggests that individuals engage in specific interaction behavior based on the cues presented. Our research suggests that individuals recognize the opportunities provided by the characteristics of the media to create new conversations in the “hidden” virtual space of many new media types. What has been very interesting to discover is that there was not a specific formula that dictated a successful incident. We had assumed that successful incidents would involve situations where all of the different forms of communication were focused on solving one specific problem as the following incident describes: In a very fast paced fashion office, some multimedia communication was advantageous. In instances where multiple input is favorable, face-to-face, phone, and email were all simultaneously used during extensive meetings. During these situations I felt energized and confident that I was getting the latest and best information possible. Or this example: The key doctor called me about the efficacy of a certain drug. I didn’t know about that drug because it
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wasn’t my product. I opened my laptop and my IM. Whenever the doctor asked me about something on the drug, I asked [was able to email while on the phone with the doctor] the product manager of that drug about what the doctor asked. Consequently, the doctor hung up with full consent. After one month, I got good feedback from that product manager. In this situation, all the communicators involved are using the multiple media to achieve the best solution possible. As a result, the purpose of the multicommunicating—to solve a problem—and the perceptions of the multicommunicating—we are all in this together to focus on this one problem—were in-synch. However, many of the successful incidents in our data set could best be described as allowing participants to precariously straddle the balance of multiple messages and varying relationship demands. Because of the talent of the multicommunicator involved, or the specifics of the situation, or the demands of the content, the multicommunicator was able to “get away with it.” For example: I, unfortunately have poor skills in multicommunicating. My father, however, specializes in this area. One particular time, I sat in his office conversing with him while he wrote an email to a client, and listened to a conference call with a client and some venture capital people who were discussing ways to refinance a business. He still managed to talk to me about a personal matter. If this hadn’t been my father, I might have been offended, but I know he is capable of following more than one conversation at one time. Or this example that explicitly references the media characteristic flexibility of tempo: On long conference calls, it is efficient to read and respond to email or instant messaging on my computer. I frequently experienced this. In addition, I often instant messaged multiple people at the same time because it takes time to read, write, and respond to IMs. It is possible to follow multiple conversations because of the time lag between responses. Several discussed the ability to selectively listen while participating in multicommunicating: Occasionally conference calls will have several agenda items, of which I am only involved in a couple. In those instances I can email and listen intermittently to the conversation and successfully communicate through both. I had a client who was very fond of talking. She called me and began talking about non-work, nonhigh priority items, and so I proceeded to write
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business emails while lightly listening to the client. I would occasionally respond to her making her feel like I was fully attentive, and I managed to get some work done at the same time. Participants provided examples that suggested that the combinations of various media allowed them to straddle conversations and use the down time, usually devoted to listening, to engage in additional conversations. The discussions of unsuccessful incidents suggest that this practice may be found offensive or disrespectful to the target of the communication so the skill of being able to “pretend to listen” is increasingly valued in today’s marketplace. This skill along with the compartmentalization characteristic of certain media, allow the individual to hide the behavior. A serious concern that we found was that few respondents seemed to recognize the dynamic, two-way nature of the communication process. A person participating in one conversation engages in: (a) interpretation (e.g., defining the situation; making attributions . . . noting relevant aspects of the setting . . .), which gives rise to (b) goal generation (forming intentions pertaining to . . . instrumental objectives . . . [and] relational and identity objectives), which serves as the impetus to (c) planning or action assembly . . . , which eventuates in (d) enactments (executing behavioral plans . . . ), which is followed by (e) monitoring (observing and evaluating the outcomes . . . ), the results of which may lead to (f) . . . recycling processes b through e. (Burleson and Planalp 2000). Therefore, multicommunicating requires the communicator to short circuit many of these processes. Specifically, processes involved in interpretation, which directly impact goal generation and planning, as well as processes involved in monitoring may receive less attention as the communicator attends to additional messages. The difficulty in attending to these processes is reflected in the unsuccessful incidents that were described. What seems most troubling about multicommunicating is the lack of strategic thought associated with its practice. Most respondents seemed to view the practice as an opportunity for efficiency—to do more in less time. The frenetic pace associated with communication and managing responses may be leading to a situation where a response is valued more highly than the content of the response. In this way, conversation becomes a game of high stakes juggling where the goal is to keep as many balls in the air as possible without dropping them. Additionally, the practice of multicommunicating becomes very sender focused with little attention on the receivers. The goal is not to process the receiver’s message but to give the opportunity for the
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sender to express him- or herself. Communication, in our view, is ideally a dynamic process that requires the processing of messages in relation to the development of them and it seems that processing time receives much less focus during multicommunication. Another important issue to consider is the role of type of task and expertise of the communicator. Turner and Reinsch (2007) found that higher task equivocality discouraged multicommunicating. Their research suggested that the task can be a salient factor in understanding the effectiveness of multicommunicating in a specific situation. In addition to task equivocality, the perception of a task can vary depending on the experience of the individual performing the task. Haerem and Rau (2007) found that experts and novices pay attention to different aspects of the tasks which have an influence on perceptions of complexity and performance. As multicommunicating is an interactional process, it must consider the needs and experience of both the sender and the audience. Channel expansion theory (Carlson and Zmud 1999) suggests that individual can become more adept while using a specific technology, which can then change the perceptions that individual has about the richness of a specific medium. Perhaps an individual might be able to develop a specific skill associated with multicommunicating that involves a combination of understanding the complexity of the task, the characteristics of the media involved, and the perceptions and needs of the audience. Better understanding of the constructs involved with the development of this skill would be helpful to organizations as they continue to wrestle with the challenges of implementing and managing these options. 5.1 Implications for teachers and managers This research suggests that the changing nature of communication within the workplace accompanied by the varied media for engaging in interaction creates a somewhat unstable context. We use the word unstable because the norms for participation, what to say, when to say it, where to say it, have not yet stabilized and will probably not be stabilized for some time. Absent these norms for communication, the possibility for misunderstanding is much higher and as a result, the need for explicit communication is much more important. Such issues might be addressed both in the classroom and in the workplace. For example, it might be important to explicitly reference to a communication partner when an individual is multicommunicating so that the need to hide the behavior is removed. Much like some individuals distinguish whether a message is being sent by a Blackberry versus being sent by a computer, this message would signal to the communicators involved that the individual has limited time or attention for the message.
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Additionally, as many of these communication technologies allow the communicator to balance the time pressures of communication through flexibility of pace, the onslaught of messages may create pressure to “just communicate” at whatever the cost. The goal then becomes returning as many messages as possible, much like the volley in a tennis match, rather than understanding audience needs and reaching productive dialogue. Communicators should consider removing themselves from the pace of the situation by making a list of key individuals and messages that require especially thoughtful interactions. This list would provide an explicit reminder to the communicator to exhibit caution when multicommunicating during encounters with those individuals or topics. We did not find a specific pattern that could help us understand negative incidents of multicommunicating. Many of the times, the participants did not give us enough information to understand the mistake. But those that did, often suggested that they just pushed the envelope too far. In their effort to improve efficiency, they did not recognize the nuances or context specific needs of the various conversations that they were involved in. This challenge is what makes multicommunicating much more demanding than multitasking. Often, we do not understand the specific concerns or pressures facing the audience that we are communicating with and the lack of cues to support the interaction often makes it harder for us to construct an understanding of the needs of the message. Organizations will continuously be faced with new communication technologies as optional tools to introduce or accept for use within organizations. When assessing these tools, organizations need to make explicit to employees the protocols that are accepted within the organization. For example, if face-to-face is considered paramount, perhaps a rule is created that individuals must turn off all personal communication devices during meetings. Or an organization might have a rule that if you bring a device for communicating to a meeting and plan to use it throughout the meeting, you can listen at the meeting, but you cannot provide input. Similarly, an organization might provide specific rules for how to communicate with a superior and what channels are appropriate. Social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace, and LinkedIn and presence sites like Twitter continue to blur the presentation of our front stage and back stage communication. These immersive environments provide ubiquitous access in terms of time and space (Hill and Roldan 2005). Twitter and Facebook allow participants to provide real time updates to let others know what they are doing at any one time. While it might be interesting for your friends to know that you are on your way over to a meeting with a specific company about a project, it could be devastating to the organization if your competition knew that same information. Therefore, as the organization makes decisions about
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the implementation of new forms of communication, it is important that managers think through the implications of these technologies on workplace interaction. Similarly, unintended consequences of mixing home roles with office roles will be important for users to recognize (Brown 2008; Kishore and McLean 2002). 5.2 Limitations While this study provides interesting insights into multicommunicating behavior, we wish we had collected date pertaining to specific characteristics of successful and unsuccessful incidents. The critical incident method provided interesting anecdotes. However, it might have been helpful to guide participants with specific questions like, “Who was involved?”, “Where did it happen?”, “What was the problem?”, “When did it happen?”, “How did all participants view the situation?” to give us a more standardized description of positive and negative incidents. Additionally, while respondents identified positive and negative examples of multicommunicating, we only know the perception of the incidents from one perspective, that of the respondent. Obviously many incidents that might have been thought positive by one individual could be interpreted negatively by another. One participant suggested when referring to a positive incident that it was successful because of the nature of the relationship that he had with his father. Specifically he said, “If this hadn’t been my father, I might have been offended.” Therefore, the context of a multicommunicating episode involves a complex array of variables that lead to its perception within an interaction. Turner and Reinsch (2004) found this as well when subordinates would specifically assess the appropriateness of multicommunicating depending on whether it involved a superior. Superiors’ multicommunicating behaviors were excused because of their status, and many cautioned against multicommunicating with superiors. This suggests that the relationships involved are critical to the understanding of successful and unsuccessful incidents. Also, while we know which media tend to be paired together, we also would like to have understood the strategy associated with those pairings. It would also be interesting in the successful incidents to better understand when pairings involved messages that differ either qualitatively or quantitatively. Qualitative multicommunicating would involve the stacking of messages involving differing content (that is, not only more messages but messages about different topics). Quantitative multicommunicating would involve multiple messages that concern a single topic. Therefore, multicommunicating during a face-to-face meeting might involve emailing or texting someone during the meeting to get better information in real time to solve a problem in the meeting (quantitative). Some of our respondents reported combining
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an oral medium and an oral medium. These could be examples where an individual clarified additional information by telephone or face-to-face while in a face-to-face meeting. Since all the communicators involved in such instances are aware of the multicommunicating behavior, the need for compartmentalization may not be as great and there may be greater allowance for flexibility in tempo. All communicators would understand the benefit of bringing in the additional information to the meeting to solve the problem.
6 Conclusion This project suggests that multicommunicating is a prevalent behavior that is emerging within the context of many work environments. It combines topics, communicators, and media types to create a cacophony of messages requiring true orchestration for effective communication to occur. It allows participants to expand the hours of the day by allowing them to participate in multiple meetings at any one time. Spurred by a sense of urgency and the need to respond, multicommunicating may drive communicators to value a false sense of efficiency over strategic effectiveness, and the juggling of messages over the development of dialogue. As these messages are juggled, it may become increasingly more difficult to focus on the needs of the recipient, creating a tunnel vision on the part of the communicator. As this practice continues to dominate the workplace, researchers must continue to examine the balance between productivity achieved and opportunities missed.
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Jeanine Warisse Turner earned her Ph.D. at The Ohio State University and is now an Associate Professor in the Communication, Culture, and Technology Program at Georgetown University. Her research examines the use of communication technologies and their impact on dialogue and work practices inside and outside organizations. Lamar Reinsch earned his Ph.D. at the University of Kansas and is now Professor of Management at Georgetown University. He currently serves as Academic Director of Georgetown’s Executive Masters of Leadership degree program. His research interests include leadership, message variables, and communication technologies.
