When Bad Email Happens to Good People: A Case of Information Technology Mismanagement

Email is a powerful communications tool, playing an increasingly important role in our organizations (Fulk and Desanctis, 1995). Yet with power should come responsibility. By far the most dangerous form of power is power wielded by the ignorant. Email use in general is the most widely used form of computer mediated communications in organizations (Kalakota and Whinston, 1996). Broadcast usage of computer mediated communications, in particular through the use of mailing lists, is one of the most frequent uses of interorganizational email (Kettinger and Grover, 1997). This chapter presents a case study of electronic mailing list abuse and mismanagement. The abuse I will discuss takes many forms, as not only is the email system abused, but so too are mailing list participants, and mailing list moderators. My discussion centres on mailing list membership and what happens when mailing list members are not properly trained in the operation of such lists. In addition, a proper definition of mailing list characteristics is suggested. We illustrate these issues through a case study of two different types of mailing lists, the first being a Read-Only Subscription-Based (ROSB) and the second being an UnModerated Mandatory Participation (UMMP) list. The lists have been so-named to protect the anonymity of the list owners and members. We present the ROSB/UMMP mailing list mix-up, analyze the reactions and responses to the mailing list abuse, and present points of action to avoid such problems. The lessons learned are instructive for both IT professionals and users by shaping the requirements and demands for training in the adoption of new information technologies.