Organisations today face much competitiveness and economic pressure than a few decades ago. More and more geographic dispersed organisations start to employ several advanced communication media, such as electronic mail (e-mail), which is in order to increase personal and organisational productivity. The term of communication can be defined as the transfer and understanding of meaning. Organisational communication can refer to all the patterns, networks and systems of communication within an organisation (Robbins et al, 2003, 516). There is an issue about organisational communication media is whether e-mail has replaced the need for face-to-face contact between managers and staff. This essay argues that e-mail has not replaced the need for face-to-face but both medias are coexisting and being used in different ways. There are several parts in this essay which will prove the above argument. In the first part, this essay will identify the advanced features and drawbacks of e-mail with comparing to face-to-face contact. The second part will employ three theoretical models to analyse the choice of organisation communication media between e-mail and face-to-face contact.
E-mail has significantly changed both personal and organisational life in the last 15 years (Miller, 2003, 267). E-mail is defined as a written document which is created by user at a computer and sends the document via computer to other users. In particular, e-mail is a ubiquitous form of organisational communication that can be used to send instant messages to targeted individuals or a large organisational group (Miller, 2003, 268). Comparing with traditional communication media, such as face-to-face contact, e-mail has a number of advanced features. First, e-mail allows message transmission tha ...