lbiggier@luiss.it
http://www.luiss.it/facolta/economia/biggiero

1. Introduction

This is a research project on the role played by CMC in complex organizations. It is focused to analyze antecedents and consequences of CMC introduction, especially under the form of email, in complex organizations. It places in the stream of research on the influence of electronic media on communication in organizations (Orlikowski & Yates 1994; Yates, Orlikowski & Okamura 1999).

It is widely accepted (Biggiero 1998; Biggiero 1999; Nohria & Eccles 1992; Posner & Cabana 1998) that postfordist evolution of organizational design and management is leading toward less hierarchical forms of organization, which are often labeled as network-organizations. They have a few of routines and a lot of self-organizing processes, which are well witnessed by the diffusing use of teamwork (Fisher 1993; Katzenbach 1987). It is also widely accepted that that organizational evolution is due to the growing environmental complexity, which, according to the law of requisite variety (Ashby 1956), push organizations to become as well complex as their environments. Hence rigid hierarchies must complexify into self-organizing network organizations. In few words it happens because complexity need flexibility and collective rationality, and thus a few of routines and of authority. Moreover human resources become critical factor of competitiveness, and their motivation is increased by participation in decision making, and hence again by teamwork. Of course complexity acts even in terms of multi- or de-location, because organizations must be as well differentiated as territories. This phenomenon is well represented by the evolution of multinational corporations (Mucchielli 1998; Nohria & Ghoshal 1997).

At the same time, ICT allows for de-located fast communications, even for collective forms. It is an antecedent and a consequence of network evolution, because organizations can effectively decentralize thank to ICT and this process foster a further diffusion ICT. Moreover, especially in the case of CMC, the informality of email communications favor less hierarchical relationships (William 1998). Finally, the distribution of information makes more viable flat and network organizations, affording a diffused participation in decision making. In the language of cybernetics we can say that ICT and network evolution are in structural coupling, linked by a positive feedback effect.

2. The Central Hypotheses

According to the theory of information (Ashby 1956; Brillouin 19 ; Shannon & Weaver 1947) the variety (complexity, richness, uncertainty) of the media (channel) must equal that of the message to be transmitted. Thus, the more complex the organization the richer the media. According to Ngwenyama & Lee (1997) the richest media is face-to-face, while the poorest is numeric documents. CMC, and especially email, is in the middle. What enriches face-to-face communication is the body-language and all signs related to the physical context of the interaction. Another explanation is that, for complex communication needs trust, trust can not be built at a distance (Nohria & Eccles 1992), because "trust needs touch" (Handy 1995). However "ICT can replace face-to-face communication in certain trust situations" (Raster 1999), that is, once a certain degree of trust has been established, it can be maintained and feed by ICT or CMC (Walther 1995). Therefore we can make following three hypotheses:

1. complex organizations, to be effective need trust and rich media, above all face-to-face;
2. complex organizations, to be efficient need fast and simple media, above all email;
3. complex organizations, to be effective and efficient need a mix of rich and poor media, where face-to-face is the background for the latter.

3. Types of Communication

Communication is distinguished in three ways:

• Degree of formality (formal vs. informal) (Dickson 1996; Krackhardt & Hanson 1993)
• Degree of richness (from face-to-face to virtual (phone, fax, regular and electronic mail)) (Daft & Lengel 1986; Ngwenyama & Lee 1997; Townsend, DeMarie & Hendrickson 1998),
• Size (dyadic vs. collective) (Hollingshead, McGrath & O'Connor 1993).

4. Research Goals and Expected Results

Research goals are to test three hypotheses, through empirical and field research. EU projects can be taken as cases for complex organizations. They are just characterized by self-organizing processes and network structure. Their temporary nature helps in evaluating structures and processes, and emphasizes the role played by trust. They show all focused characteristics (Capron, Massart & Naulleau 1999), as having formal and informal meeting and communications, face-to-face and virtual teams and meetings, dyadic and collective communications.

We expect to find all types of communications, but mostly email and a parsimonious use of face-to-face. Many projects create mailing lists, to encourage collective and informal communications. We also expect to find dyadic as well as collective communications, with the formation of transversal coalitions, which can gather people in different ways from formal ones.

5. Methodology

The list of all EU projects must be got, distinguishing those which used CMC, and especially mailing lists. Depending on how many the latter are, we can choose to limit to them or to extend the analysis to all CMC projects. Empirical research will use scientometric analysis of documents and webometric analysis of email communication. Field research will use interviews to project members, possibly only to some longitudinal case studies.

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