The growing communication of email in professional settings has pulled corporate culture as a whole towards a more casual, laidback, and less formal environment. One of the most dramatic changes email brings to an organization is the speed of communication. Effective email messages are short and to-the-point, the information is chunked and easy to read, and any attached document can quickly be read because the reader or user has the ability to search the document for key words or phrases.
Email does not require attention by both parties at the same time. Not only is sending and receiving messages superiorly faster than it was only a decade ago, the amount of time it takes to read or analyzed a document for a specific purpose has also increased. “Email allows an easier discussion of complex content” (Hinda and Kiesler 377).
The structural organizations of corporations have changed through e-mail. E- communication changes the structure of organizations because “communication is integral to organizational form, advances in communication capabilities through electronic technologies are implicated in a wide variety of changes in forms” (DeSanctis, Fulk 337).
Electronic communication systems are enablers of changed forms by offering capabilities to overcome constraints on time and distance, key barriers around which organizational forms traditionally have been designed” (DeSanctis, Fulk 337).
Because of the informality of email, email helps establish a corporate culture and helps the writer establish many rhetorical situations over various discourse communities.