The novice consultant and electronic mail: Strategies for and implementation of politeness techniques in different organizational settings

Success in today's professional world necessitates balancing a myriad of often competing and conflicting interests. Not only must employees exhibit self-assurance and aptitude, but they also must exhibit appropriate levels of politeness given their organizations' norms and power structures. Electronic mail has become as ubiquitous for business communication as are talking on the telephone and meeting face-to-face. However, the characteristics of e-mail may not allow employees to communicate in the same manner as with more traditional media. Notably, e-mail does not necessarily provide a strong mechanism for employees to balance all components for effective workplace communication, including those which allow for the maintenance and elevation of relationships. Although scholarly work has been conducted to investigate the defining characteristics, employee perception, and use criteria for e-mail in the workplace, little research seems to center on the ways in which e-mail either supports or maligns hierarchical relationships in organizations and whether relationship and organizational factors are considered in concert. Although some scholars have investigated issues of power and politeness in the workplace for subordinate to superior reporting, this investigation typically surrounds speech communication.;This study examines the ways in which both experienced and novice consultants in two different organizational settings think about and use e-mail for communication to superiors. The methods by which novices in the workplace communicate via writing, especially to superiors, present a gap in the literature. This study works to highlight the ways that novices make decisions regarding the use of e-mail in their messages to superiors. By comparing novice and experienced employee behavior across organizational boundaries, this study yields several findings. First, employees do seem to use particular decision criteria when formulating e-mail messages to managers, including a consideration of the message's recipient and purpose. Novices seem most attuned to hierarchical levels and to the revision opportunities available through e-mail. Second, organizational context appears to affect the way in which e-mail is used by both novice and experienced employees. The two organizations' varying lines of business and hierarchical structures led the participants to emphasize certain e-mail attributes over others. And third, study participants across experience levels and organizations have some difficulty in balancing relationship and organizational needs. Each of these major findings, combined with other evidence, suggest that there does not seem to be a similar politeness understanding between sender and recipient in e-mail communication as exists with more traditional speech-based media. Though audience, purpose, and context continue to be the central rhetorical framework for decision criteria concerning e-mail use, the "universal politeness" traditionally claimed in most speech communication does not equally permeate organizational e-mail messages.