Multicommunicating: Juggling multiple conversations in the workplace

摘要

Multicommunicating (MC) occurs when an individual engages in multiple overlapping conversations with multiple others within a given time period such that the conversations show a pattern of interleaved speaking turns. The research objective is to increase understanding of MC where at least one of the conversations is technology mediated. This would provide an efficiency-seeking approach to most organizations for understanding the production related outcomes of MC. Based on theoretical groundwork of Reinsch et al. (Ref. 1), the present work made extensions by incorporating two additional constructs to understand MC behavior namely media fit and the MC episode initiator. Further, the paper also examines specific process losses and one possible benefit of MC and new insights into the various dimensions of MC intensity. (124 refs.).