Email Adoption, Diffusion, Use and Impact Within Small Firms: A Survey of UK Companies

  • Authors:

  • Jaa Sillince;S Macdonald;B Lefang;B Frost

  • Affiliations:

  • Management School, Royal Holloway, University of London, Egham, Surrey, TW20 0EX, UK;Management School, University of Sheffield, 9 Mappin Street, Sheffield S1 4DT UK;Management School, University of Sheffield, 9 Mappin Street, Sheffield S1 4DT UK;Management School, University of Sheffield, 9 Mappin Street, Sheffield S1 4DT UK

  • Venue:
  • International Journal of Information Management: The Journal for Information Professionals
  • Year:
  • 1998

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Abstract

A survey of 360 small firms of between 10 and 250 employees revealed that 274 (76.1%) had not adopted, and 86 (23.9%) had adopted email. Of firms with less than 100 employees, non-adopters were four times as numerous as adopters, whereas companies with 100-250 employees had a slight majority of adopters. Of the adopters, three-quarters adopted email between 1995 and 1996, whereas only 13% adopted email between 1994 and 1995. Two-thirds of adopting companies have less than 10% of employees using email regularly. A relatively larger proportion of Managing Directors answered the questionnaire from non-adopting companies. A higher proportion of Finance and Computer managers answered the questionnaire in adopting than in non-adopting companies. Of most importance as reasons for non-adoption was that customers and suppliers and other organisations with which respondents needed to communicate did not use email. Of medium importance were implementation barriers to email adoption-expense of installation and maintenance, email being too technical, etc. Of least importance were worries about effect on internal company communication. Adopters used email mainly for simple, fast messages about topics on which there was no disagreement (answering and asking questions, exchanging time-sensitive information, keeping close contact with suppliers and customers). The smaller the company the more that email was used for company-to-company communication rather than for internal communication. Unfortunately, a majority (56.2%) of email adopters said that organisations with which they wished to communicate seldom had email. The main impact of email on personal work effectiveness was ability to make and keep links with external business contacts, and reduced use of fax, post, and telephone. The main perceived impacts on the business were efficiency gains and the ability to perform new tasks such as transmitting electronic spreadsheets and CAD drawings, and the ability to work away from base.