A communication overload scale for use with mobile instant messaging in work management

Abstract

Mobile instant messaging (MIM) applications have an exceptionally large number of users worldwide. Businesses and organizations are attracted to their capabilities, making them the apps of choice for the formation of virtual groups and communities. While this development is plausible, there are possibly some overlooked disadvantages. One of them is technostress, a phenomenon caused by employees who are unable to cope with the use of communication and information technologies for work management. Unfortunately, the existing knowledge on technostress is ill-equipped to tackle this phenomenon because it is more occupied with information compared to communication overload; the latter is more relevant to MIM applications. No scale has been specifically developed to measure communication overload, especially in the context of MIM. This article develops such a scale, comprised of 19 items in five dimensions. The scale was validated based on expert reviews and refined through feedback in a survey of 200 MBA student respondents. The scale enables academics to link communication overload to mental health concepts and allows practitioners to measure employees' communication overload. The latter measurement would enable appropriate interventions and appropriate policies to be developed. These interventions and policies could be useful to manage technostress in the workplace.