Quand les TIC réussissent trop bien dans les organisations : le cas du courrier électronique chez les managers

In most companies managers have to cope with an ever increasing mass of information to deal with, along with coordination problems that are also more and more complex due to the multiplicity of time units and places. Among the tools managers have to hand is e-mailing, which is the most commonly used and widespread means of communication within companies. Therefore, this medium stands out as an appropriate matter for research in order to study how ICT interrelate. Recent studies such as the millefeuille theory have highlighted this stacking up of communication tools in corporations by which they do not complement each other nor show any coherence – and this led to a large number of communication channels. The purpose of this paper is firstly to bring out evidence that e-mailing, with its emerging idiosyncrasies, and how it is used by everyone actually explain why interrelating several technologies that are expected to complement each other is so difficult – and secondly, to show how e-mailing had become indispensable and a prerequisite in managers’ array of communication tools.