A Preliminary Study on the Effects of Electronic Communications in Multi-Cultural Education Sector

Abstract

One of the main issues relevant to both the field of organization theory and the field of information technology is whether electronic communications do enhance participation in decision-making. Common sense and some personal experience do advocate the so-called egalitarians argument that since email, chat and blogs etc, allow direct (non-filtered) communication between people as well as identity/status concealment, then they also enhance more freely and easily day-to-day participation in organizations. Indeed, it is often argued by technology experts that the newer - and so-called better technology - will result in optimization of resources and improvement in organizational communication. Certain technology potentials will be exploited - sooner or later - by employees and employers, and the technical trait of keeping trace induced some authors to point out the risk of supporting direct control and surveillance over employees' behavior. In order to empirically examine the impact of electronic communication, this paper presents a preliminary study conducted within the UAE education sector, attempting to identify organizational effectiveness when dealing with three types of communicators: those more leaning towards the use of traditional media, or computer-mediated media (email and internet), or lastly those who use a combination of both types of communication means. Moreover, an attempt is made to understand language effects on outcomes, as a potential indicator of cultural roots to behavior.