The office tyrant: Abuse of power through e-mail

The changing role of technology in the modern office has been accompanied by a proliferation of research activity focusing initially on the technical aspects and more recently on the social and political aspects of the diffusion process, including power and politics. This paper builds on the work of Markus on power and politics in IT, extending it to e-mail and more specifically, to the use of email for petty tyranny. We start with a review of the literature on petty tyranny and its implications to Information Technologies and e-mail The review is concluded with a series of assertions about the use of e-mail for petty tyranny. To demonstrate how these assertions can operate within an organisational context, a case study is presented. In the case, e-mail was used by a department head to manipulate, control, and coerce employees. The discussion synthesises the analysis by demonstrating that e-mail features made it amenable to political abusive tyrannical uses. The paper is concluded with a discussion of the implications from this case to e-mail research and practice.