MUNCIE, Ind. - Business people usually talk face-to-face or on the telephone, but that may not be the best way to communicate, says a Ball State University study.

A survey of Midwestern corporations found technology is changing the way employees communicate with each other, increasing the need for training, said Jensen Zhao, a business education and office administration professor.

He surveyed 182 U.S. companies of different sizes in various industries to determine how corporate employees communicate and how users perceive the impact on productivity.

"Many respondents said their companies could not exist in today's business world if they did not use e-mail, phone, pagers, voice mail, and fax," Zhao said. "The finding indicates a growing positive impact of computerized communications systems on user productivity, and that face-to-face meetings do not have the strongest positive impact on productivity."

Nearly all of the responding companies were using face-to-face meetings, fax, paper mail and letters, telephone/pager/voice mail, and paper memos and reports. E-mail was available in only 67 percent of the firms with groupware and intranets found in 39 percent.

The survey also found:

• telephone/pager/voice mail and face-to-face meetings are more commonly used than e-mail, paper memos, reports, paper mail, letters, fax, groupware and intranets.
• e-mail, telephone/pager/voice mail and fax were ranked at the top in enhancing user productivity.
• telephone/pager/voice mail, face-to-face meetings, and e-mail were preferred by users.

Most respondents spent from 11 to 40 percent of their weekly communication time having face-to-face meetings and using voice mail systems. Only about 10 percent of their communication time was spent using fax, paper mail, letters, memos and reports. Zhao said that intranets and groupware development may be lagging because of the lack of training provided to employees.

"If users are not trained to use a new system, they will not like to use it regardless of how good it is," he said.

Also, comparisons between different industry groups found that information and communication technology companies chose e-mail, groupware and intranet significantly more often than other types of companies when performing routine activities.

"This strongly suggests the importance of communication technology education and training as employees in these firms have received in college or in-house," Zhao said. "Teaching new technologies can help employees enhance productivity as well as develop competitive advantages in an computer-networked marketplace."

By Marc Ransford, Communications Manager

(NOTE TO EDITORS: For more information, contact Zhao at (765) 285-5233.)