Title
The office tyrant - social control through e-mail
Abstract
The changing role of technology in the virtual workplace has been accompanied by a proliferation of research activity focusing initially on the technical aspects and, more recently, on the social and political aspects of the diffusion process, including power and politics. This paper builds on the work of Kling and Markus on power and politics in IT, extending it to e-mail and more specifically, to the use of e-mail for petty tyranny. Reviews the literature on petty tyranny and its implications to IT and e-mail. Presents a case study in which e-mail was used by a department chair to manipulate, control, and coerce employees. The discussion links the events in the case with the literature on petty tyranny. In conclusion, demonstrates that e-mail features make it amenable to political abuse and elaborates on the more general, theoretical, practical and ethical implications from this research.
Year
DOI
Venue
1999
10.1108/09593849910250510
Information Technology & People
Keywords
Field
DocType
case studies,control,electronic mail,management,social control,diffusion process
Social control,Public relations,Sociology,Petty tyranny,Politics
Journal
Citations 
PageRank 
References 
4
0.70
15
Authors
2
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Celia T. Romm114818.21
Nava Pliskin239951.92