research paper series - Stanford Graduate School of Business

Research Paper No. 1612

Technologies of Status Negotiation: Status Dynamics in Email Discussion Groups

David A. Owens Margaret A. Neale Robert I. Sutton

RESEARCH PAPER SERIES

GRADUATE SCHOOL OF BUSINESS STANFORD UNIVERSITY

Technologies of Status Negotiation: Status Dynamics in Email Discussion Groups

David A. Owens Vanderbilt University [email protected] Margaret A. Neale Stanford University [email protected]

Robert I. Sutton Stanford University [email protected]

Appearing in Neale, M.A., Mannix, E.A., & Griffith, T.A. (2000) Research in Managing Groups and Teams, Volume 3, Greenwich, CT: JAI Press

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Technologies of Status Negotiation: Status Dynamics in Email Discussion Groups Abstract This chapter considers the social structuring processes that occur in groups that use computer medicated communication (CMC). We propose several mechanisms through which status is created, negotiated, and managed in such groups. This chapter builds on earlier model of status dynamics in face-to-face groups (Owens, 1998; Owens & Sutton, 1999) to develop a series of propositions about how the differences between face-to-face and computer-mediated communication affect how group members attempt to manage their status. We use qualitative data from on-going workgroups to ground and guide this perspective on how communication technology shapes status negotiation.

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Owens, Neale & Sutton

Introduction A modest body of research has examined the issue of status in computer-mediated groups. This research has thus far yielded equivocal findings about the existence and maintenance of status orders in computer-mediated communication (CMC) groups. In their work, Sproull and Kiesler (1986; 1991) have suggested that computer mediation of a groups communications might reduce status differences in groups because of the limited communication bandwidth would provide and make vivid fewer social cues. Sproull and Kiesler speculated that, since social cues are conveyed through message content, the lack of this type of information (i.e., social cuelessness) would lead to status equalization between group members (Sproull & Kiesler, 1986; Sproull & Kiesler, 1991). The logic of this argument is appealing, but empirical research has found inconsistent support for this reduced social cues model. A few studies have found evidence of movement toward status equalization in computer-mediated groups (Dubrovsky, Kiesler, & Sethna, 1991; Hiltz & Turoff, 1978; Siegel, Dubrovsky, Kiesler, & McGuire, 1986; Sproull & Kiesler, 1986), but participation has not been found to equalize. Others have found that status differentiation remains present and pronounced in computer-mediated groups (Grint, 1989; Herring, 1993; Mantovani, 1994; Matheson, 1991; Walther, 1992; Weisband, Schneider, & Connolly, 1995). These findings are easily explained for pre-existing groups, after all the status order that exists in other interactions is probably just replicated and reinforced during computer mediated interactions. What is more difficult to explain, however, is that status orders routinely arise in carefully controlled experiments where group members have had no previous interactions or outside knowledge of one another (Weisband et al., 1995). Overall, these findings seem to contradict a general cuelessness hypothesis. Given that many social status cues present in face-

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to-face groups are missing in computer-mediated groups, and given these groups nonetheless appear to develop sharp distinctions between members’ status, this chapter considers how status differences are generated and maintained in computer-mediated groups. One approach to better understanding status in computer-mediated (and face-to-face) groups is to examine how status is negotiated in such groups more closely than in past research. Thus, while electronic mail communications, for example, provide reduced bandwidth for communicating social status, the technology may still enable users many other means to signal their social status. In this chapter, our aim is show that a deeper understanding of status dynamics will enable researchers to observe, decode, and assess what kinds of status signal are being communicated despite (or with the help of) computer mediation. Our view is that a deeper and richer view of status, status orders, and status negotiation in groups will enable researchers to discern what status signaling is occurring, how it occurs, and its consequences. Specifically, this chapter examines two interrelated questions: (1) how do the properties of the media affect a members’ ability to manage their influence in a group, and (2) how do group interactions become patterned in ways that reinforce or subvert these properties, thus creating a stable influence structure (i.e., status order) in the group.

Status Dynamics in Face-to-Face Groups Conventional research on group status processes focus on the dominance and submission dimension of status behavior. This approach has the virtue of simplicity, as it enables researchers to make predictions regardless of relative or absolute status distances between individuals engaging in the behavior – all you need to know is who is higher status (and therefore dominant) and who is lower status (and therefore submissive). Yet while this approach

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can be used to describe the pecking order behavior often attributed to animal groups (and implied in human groups), it does not address many other basic elements of status orders, such as the stability of a status order, the basis of an order’s status currency, or the strategic or cooperative behaviors undertaken on the part of potential status seekers in groups. A more complex model of status dynamics in face-to-face groups was first outlined by Owens and Sutton (1999) and then expanded and refined by Owens (1998). This model, rather than viewing status as a purely reward- or ego-driven force as psychologists emphasize, conceives of status as a force for order in complex social groups as emphasized by anthropologists and sociologists. Owens proposes that the forces driving an individual to manage status, and the behaviors used to do so, are best explained by his or her absolute level of status in group (i.e., low, medium, or high) and by the degree to which the behaviors or moves used to manage status threaten (versus reinforce) the group’s status order.1 Owens (1998) proposes that low status members are most likely to attempt to increase integration within a group (thus ensuring their own proper integration in it) by using behaviors that both give them a useful role in the group and that maintain the current social order (e.g., Blau, 1964). These actions by low status members focus on the social and emotional aspects of group life and include behaviors like ingratiation (e.g., flattering and complimenting others), supplication (i.e., taking on unvalued socio-emotional roles), and volunteering (e.g., offering to perform menial and undervalued tasks for the group). Owens’ model predicts that medium status individuals are most likely to engage in task-directed contesting behaviors, particularly those that

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We use Goffman’s (1969) term the move to indicate a basic status-negotiating behavior that occurs in a

status contest. Goffman defines moves as strategic game-like behaviors or "structured courses of action that objectively alter the situation of participants” in a social interaction (Goffman, 1969).

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make their expertise, knowledge, or skill visible, vivid, and of seemingly enhanced importance. Such status moves can make salient an individual’s positive value to a group and its task functioning. Examples of such moves include the use of technical jargon (to display technical knowledge), and attempts to redefine a group’s problem into one’s own domain of expertise. Finally, Owens proposes that the highest status members are most likely to use dominating moves such as interruption and gesture to control the participation and attention of others in the group, with the effect of reinforcing and displaying (i.e., reifying) their own high status in the group. Moves by high status members are directed at controlling the status-managing behaviors of others in the group, thus directly and indirectly affecting the relative status-order configuration of the group. The model is summarized in Table 1.

Stratum

Relevant Move-Type Dominating Moves Interruption Participation control Threats Reinforces Status Quo Order Contesting Moves

High Status

Framing Social capital Expertise framing Jargon Threatens Status Quo Order Integrating Moves

Medium Status

Ingratiation Supplication Volunteering Reinforces Status Quo Order

Low Status

Table 1

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In addition to proposing this more subtle and complete view of group status dynamics, Owens (1998) first shows how this model is grounded in qualitative evidence from face-to-face groups and then validates it with a quantitative coding of behaviors observed in face-to-face group meetings in a research and development organization. The evidence presented in that study illuminate how status-managing moves are made in face-to-face group meetings—for example—through the use of props such as portable computers, beepers or phone to signal technical savy, busyness, and high valuation by the organization; through the use of physical layout as individuals jockeyed for a seat at the focal point of the group’s attention; through body language as individuals directed dismissive and interruptive gestures at one another using their hands, heads, eyes, and mouths to control the group’s conversational flow; and through attendance control as individuals were invited (or not) to participate in particular meetings. Yet, while the likely effects of such behaviors are pertinent to the present chapter, the characteristic features of computer-mediated-communication media make the moves discussed in that study irrelevant to computer-mediated contexts, since they make it impossible for users to observe the display of props, dress, gestures, seating arrangements, and other status cues. The aim of the present study, therefore, is to modify and extend this model of group status and negotiation to groups that use computer-mediated communication, and in particular electronic mail. As other researchers have pointed out, the constraints and features of different communication media can play a large role in shaping the ways that people manage their relationships with one another (Johansen, Vallee, & Spangler, 1979; Rice & Love, 1987; Walther, 1992; Walther & Burgoon, 1992; Weisband et al., 1995). These constraints and features of information technologies may well have important implications for the model of status dynamics presented above. For example, the asynchronous character of electronic mail

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makes it impossible to routinely interrupt others on a group mailing list, and yet interruption is a primary strategy that high-status members use to assert and reinforce their status in face-to-face groups. This constraint of electronic mail raises the question of what other move strategies—if any—high status members can use in place of interruption. Or consider email persistence. The fact that an email communication has an easily forwarded physical embodiment—and can therefore be introduced into other contexts and to unforeseen audiences quite effortlessly—is likely to affect how it will be used as a status managing tool. We presume that status-managing emails are likely to be more carefully considered than are the verbally delivered statements, outbursts, demands, or reactions commonly observed in meetings. But what effects can we expect beyond these? Taken together, Owens’ model, emerging theory, and evidence about the ways that digital technologies can shape human communication suggest that status negotiation and management in groups is unlikely to occur through simplistic uni-dimensional behaviors. Rather, communication, negotiation, and sparring about status—that is the playing and displaying—is likely to occur through dynamic, patterned behaviors that are tempered, modified, and strategically created and manipulated subject to the special affordances provided by the computer mediated information technologies. We assume that the moves used for status management will differ between the computer-mediated and face-to-face venues, so we seek here to understand which kinds of status behaviors are favored in which settings and why. Since the computer-mediated technologies remove some kinds of social context information from a group’s communications (Sproull & Kiesler, 1986), we presume that status information will be conveyed in other ways in the computer-based media, and that this will occur as individuals exploit characteristic differences between the face-to-face and computer-mediated

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media types. We presume further that individuals will most likely exploit those specific features in the technology that lend differential advantage to their own status management goals, based on the status stratum that they occupy. Thus—consistent with the status dynamics model presented above and within the features of the communications technology at hand—low-status individuals will seek new ways to integrate, medium-status individuals new ways to contest, while those at the highest status levels innovate new ways of reinforcing their dominance of a group’s social order. Rather than focusing only on the equalizing effects of status, we approach this study as an examination of the potential effects that media will have on individuals at all status levels as they go about managing their status in a group.

Alternative Mechanisms for the Management of Status Methods and Data To provide a grounded basis for exploring these ideas and developing a set of propositions about them, we undertook a qualitative study of group email messages sent among members of two different project workgroups in an R&D organization. The 20-plus groups in the organization were voluntarily formed to pursue ideas as formal research or development projects. All members of the research staff occupied same formal rank (“Member of Research Staff”) in the organization, with the one member who was appointed as the project facilitator possessing additional reporting duties. The project groups were not physically co-located and they met in face-to-face meetings on a weekly basis. They actively supplemented group communication and interaction using an email discussion list. Formal membership in a group’s discussion list was by possible only with the express approval of the list’s owner, often the project’s facilitator. Subscribers received all messages sent

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to the list in their personal email accounts, and while only subscribers received messages, the organization chose to make it possible for any member of the organization to post to or to send a message to the list. A list’s subscribed membership usually constituted the formal membership of the project group, though other interested parties could request (or be requested) to join the list as well. The 200+ members of this organization used these discussion lists extensively, averaging 20.6 list memberships per organizational member over a total of 246 lists. The members of the lists sampled in this study averaged 2.5 messages posted for each workday to a groups’ project lists.2 Our base data consisted of all 2084 messages posted to two particular project groups’ email-lists during a recent 2-year period. The data were studied qualitatively through an iterative process of sampling a small number of postings, inducing a proposition from the examination from those postings, and then returning to the data to gain further subjective evidence about the plausibility of that proposition. Our explicit goal in this process was to induce a set of interesting propositions about status in CMC groups, rather than to attempt to evaluate or validate them.

Differences of Interest Between Face-to-Face and Computer-Mediated Venues To begin our exploration of the dynamics of status management in computer-mediated groups, we first categorized some differences between the two media according to featuredifferences that are well-established in the literature. These are displayed in Table 2 below. Besides being among the more obvious differences between the media types, we propose that this particular set of difference dimensions is especially salient to an examination of the status dynamics in a group. As we argue in detail below, these particular characteristic features are

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As described below, projects often had multiple lists with overlapping memberships.

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those most likely to affect the carryover of face-to-face interaction patterns into the computer media, and are therefore those that are most likely to evidence differences in how status is negotiated and managed in computer mediated groups. In pursuing our conceptual investigation we assumed that the underlying status dynamics model (Owens, 1998) was operational, but also expected that different affordances and characteristic features of the communication technology would result in differences in how individuals were able to use it for purposes of status management. On this basis, we began to look for clues that indicated how status differences were perpetuated and contested in the email medium. Taking these characteristic differences one by one, we now step through each, examining the implications for status management in light of Owens’ model and provide some suggestive examples to ground our propositions.

Characteristic Difference Bandwidth

Affordance of Interest Paralanguage Rate and Frequency of Messaging Length of Messages Equivocality Informality Participation Control Production Blocking Attendance Control Availability Content Control

Accessibility / Asynchrony

Immediacy (Presence)

Reactive Feedback Response Length and Timing Emotional Display Permanence of Message

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Bandwidth Probably the most obvious and oft-cited difference between the face-to-face and computer-mediated communication technologies is the limited-bandwidth of the computer-based media (e.g., DeSanctis & Gallupe, 1987; Short, Williams, & Christie, 1976; Sproull & Kiesler, 1986). While this characteristic is presumed to prevent the communication of many types of social-status information (Sproull & Kiesler, 1986), recurrent findings of well-defined and stable status structures in computer-mediated groups suggests that status signaling occurs in other, possibly emergent ways (Contractor & Eisenberg, 1990; Fulk, 1993) (e.g., Lee, 1994; Yates, Orlikowski, & Okamura, 1999).

Textual Status Indicators While the limited bandwidth of the computer-mediated technologies such as email precludes the signaling of social status through the visual or auditory means conventionally used in face-to-face meetings (for example through dress, physical stature, gesture, voice volume, etc., e.g., Knapp, 1978), the computer media does provide users with the ability to signal status through alternative textual means. Such alternative signals may serve as social-cue substitutes in the computer-mediated setting (Short et al., 1976; Walther, 1992). For example, the wellestablished convention of a signature file3 appended to the end of an email message can contain simple messages that entertain others, that bolster credibility, or that serve to reinforce an

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These are the text messages included (at the sender’s option) at the end of every email message sent. The

signature files are primarily intended to include contact information, but often contain quotations, graphic images constructed from alpha-numeric text characters, political slogans, or whatever text the sender desires to have attached to each message he or she sends.

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individual’s status in a social group. Note that these are exactly the types of moves (i.e., integrating, contesting, and dominating) described in the model of status dynamics. The most obvious dominance moves are made through the inclusion of status-signaling titles or honorifics (Sherblom, 1988). But more subtle signals can be also be sent. While contact information that is often conventionally included in a signature file may seem innocent, innocuous, and possibly even helpful—information about an individual’s building and office location, telephone numbers, and alternative email addresses can signal a great deal about his or her status (Bowers, 1992; Sherblom, 1988). We noted that a while a number of signature files included such contact information, many did not. It occurred to us that in this particular organization that had arranged a relatively high-turnover group of interns, post-docs, contractors, and temporary workers around a stable core of full-time long-term researchers (as described in Owens, 1998), the simple possession of an office and a permanent phone extension signaled that individual’s relative integration (a medium- or high-status characteristic) in the organization. On the other hand, contractors, interns, and other temporary hires who lacked these perquisites of integrated organizational membership would be forced to, as one option, leave that area of their messages blank, thus acknowledging their potential low social status in the organization. Alternatively, as the model of status dynamics predicts, we expect low status individuals to be more likely to use a signature file to make integrating moves to the group. The inclusion of messages with positive socio-emotional content can have the effect of improving and reinforcing a group’s positive social-relations, while facilitating the mover’s own integration within the group (Blau, 1964; Owens & Sutton, 1999). The inclusion of paralanguage such as clever graphics composed from alphanumeric characters, funny or heartwarming quotes, or the use of

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positive emoticons (i.e., relational icons or smiley faces ;-) (Asterhof, 1987; Walther, 1992), can all be considered as integrating moves. These communications make a person appear as nonthreatening to a group, thus making them potentially more desirable for inclusion and integrated membership (Owens & Sutton, 1999). For low-status individuals, integrated membership in the group implies an improvement in their status (Goffman, 1959, p. 13). We hypothesize that these types of integrating moves used less frequently by higher-status individuals who already possess integrated status in the group. -- Insert Slide 1 Data Here --

Rate and Length of Messaging Another form of bandwidth limitation in computer-mediated communication technologies occurs with the requirement that messages be typed at a keyboard. Researchers of status in faceto-face groups have long believed that the amount and length of communications that an individual addresses to the group is indicative of his or her status (e.g., Bales, 1951; Berger, Wagner, & Zelditch, 1985). But, since messages in the computer-mediated setting must be typed, a person’s typing skill is likely to limit the frequency and length of messages that can be sent. If we assume that typing skill is not necessarily correlated with high status, it is clear that this feature of the technology has the potential to change the observed participation patterns in the group, and moreover, the meaning that those patterns will have for participants (Walther, 1992). It is not completely clear, however, what the overall effects on the rates and lengths of messaging will be. We expect that high status individuals are more likely to be (or to appear to be) busy (Owens & Sutton, 1999); to be able to say more with less (since those with low status are likely to pay close attention to them and puzzle out for themselves the meanings of any equivocal

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messages) (e.g., Fiske & Taylor, 1991; Padgett & Ansell, 1993); and to be under less pressure to rapidly respond to requests made by lower status individuals. Unlike in the face-to-face venue, we therefore hypothesize that message length and frequency will be in inverse proportion to status at the uppermost stratum, with high-status individuals sending fewer, less time-responsive, and shorter messages. Consistent with our argument above, we propose that in the low-status stratum, individuals will be more likely to send integrating, positive socioemotional messages. What remains to be examined is the relative length and frequency of those messages. Owens (1998) found that low-status individuals tended to make fewer moves than did those individuals with medium status and far fewer moves than those with high status. We also assume that integrating messages are likely to be shorter than the content-contesting messages (Owens & Sutton, 1999) likely to be sent by those in the middle status stratum. These factors lead us to predict that fewer and shorter messages will be sent by low-status individuals. Though it is possible that low-status individuals may attempt to increase integration by sending more messages to the group (Huff, Sproull, & Kiesler, 1989), or that they may work harder to overcome by the increased social distance in the computer communication technology (DeSanctis & Gallupe, 1987), we nonetheless predict that the tendency to make fewer status moves will be the overriding factor over messaging length and rate. -- Insert Slide 2 & Slide 3 Tables Here --

Equivocality The potential for a message to be equivocal—that is to have multiple meanings and to be possibly confusing to the message receiver—has been a central focus in research that has attempted to understand the implications of choosing a particular media for a sent message. The

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media-richness view (e.g., Daft, Lengel, & Trevino, 1987; Daft & Macintosh, 1981) proposes that high-bandwidth media such as face-to-face interactions are “rich” in their ability to convey information and therefore a message receiver’s uncertainty about the purpose or content of a message (i.e., the message equivocality) is likely to be low. On the other hand, low-richness media such as form letters, memos, or other formal written communications, though they require lower investment by the sender, lack in their ability to reduce message equivocality. Treating equivocality as generally undesirable it is argued a media should be chosen to match the richness of the media to the bandwidth of the message. This serves to reducing equivocality while minimizing messaging costs (e.g., Daft & Lengel, 1984). More recent work has softened the normative view towards media choice (e.g., Trevino, 1987) by acknowledging that managers may choose media on the basis of the symbolic message that the media itself sends. Thus “putting a message in writing may suggest commitment to an idea”, while “a savy manager may choose to meet face-to-face to convey a willingness to be open to the ideas of others” (Trevino, Daft, & Lengel, 1990, p. 85). We find this latter direction to be suggestive of a status-management perspective, though rather than trying to reinforce or legitimize the content of a message (Trevino et al., 1990), we posit that individuals may strategically choose a richness mismatch that allows the preservation of a desired level of equivocality (e.g., Markus, 1994). It is reported, for example, that Cosimo de’ Medici wielded enormous influence hiding behind a deputy and acting as an indecipherable sphinx (Padgett & Ansell, 1993). Further, we argue for a movement beyond the conventional assumption in the media-richness paradigm that a media has an inherently fixed level of (or potential for) equivocality (Daft et al., 1987), since this view ignores those adaptive processes with which a group adapts a technology to its own particular social and technical context

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(Contractor & Eisenberg, 1990; Fulk, 1993; Yates & Orlikowski, 1992). In this case we are interested in potential adaptations that can affect the level of message equivocality. For example, email users have developed new languages or paralanguages and use-modes to convey additional layers of meaning and context within textual messages (Asterhof, 1987; Walther, 1992). In our sample, we observed that individuals used relational icons (i.e., emoticons or smileys ) to add layers of meaning to messages, but it was also clear that these additional layers did not only reinforce the message sent. Often the invented icon language was used to spin or twist the meaning of a statement or communication. In our view, by doing so an individual is actively and strategically adjusting the equivocality of the message in the medium (Markus, 1994). Through this kind of adjustment, an overly direct, face-threatening statement (Brown & Levinson, 1987) can be moderated and made less strident by appending an emoticon. ;-) -- Insert Slide 4 Data Here -This has important implications for status management in the computer-mediated group. Owens’ (1999) status model proposes that low-status individuals are likely to pursue integration as a status-management strategy, and that one of recurrent moves was likely to be supplication, or the adoption of an under-valued social role in the group, such as that of the chronic volunteer, the devil’s advocate or the fool. We note that for the latter two roles in particular, an important function can be for the occupant to deliver the “harsh truth” to the high-status members of the group, but do so from the relatively protected, if strictured, confines of the role (Strauss, 1959; e.g., Turkle, 1984). Used to mitigate “harsh truths,” emoticons serve as a signal of or shorthand for temporarily occupying the role. Thus, an individual can deliver a threatening message while retreating from it at the same time. In this way the message is delivered from the relative safety

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of the role, but delivered nonetheless. This exemplifies the process with which users may use the adjusted bandwidth of the media for the purposes of status-management in a group. The implications of this equivocality move for status management in a computermediated environment remain unclear. This move provides a handy way to signal a supplicant role, thus allowing an individual to have voice (or render criticism) in a computer-mediated group in a way that mitigates the personal threat of the message. But for low-status individuals, this feature is the same as was always available in face-to-face groups. Alternatively, high-status individuals may be less affected because they are likely to be less sensitive to the need to temper or mitigate threatening moves, as well as being less sensitive to the negative impact of their interactions (Gruenfeld, Keltner, & Cameron, 1999), though—as we discuss in greater detail below—the permanence of email messages and the potential for forwarding them to audiences and contexts outside of the move-makers knowledge or control, may have some effect on these insensitivities. Those in the middle status stratum, however, may find advantage in the equivocality-adjusting move. Owens’ (1998) study suggested that the supplicant role was one that tended to have some permanence for its occupant, effectively trapping low-status individuals within the role they had adopted (or been forced into). We conjecture here that individuals at the medium status level may avoid such roles, because this potentially entrapping characteristic. However, the relational icon may be used as a quick shorthand to connote a role, but without the full entrapping effect. One winking smile may signal a joke, but it does not have to mean that one is the joker ;-). In our sample of email messages, we noted that a number of relational icons that served to temper contesting and dominating messages were sent by medium and high status individuals, while we could find very few examples of low-status individuals making an emboldening move.

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While this unquestionably deserves further, more rigorous empirical investigation, we reiterate our main point about this issue: it is clear that the strategic use of equivocality in computermediated technologies need suffer no abatement because of presumed bandwidth limitations in the media.

Informality While some have argued that the informality often observed in computer-mediated communications results from attempts on the part of communicators to replicate an oral style of face-to-face interactions (Gumpert & Cathcart, 1986; Walther, 1992), others conjecture that it is the diminished social distance resulting from the lack of social cues in the media that is responsible (Sproull & Kiesler, 1991). In the status-management perspective, we speculate that it is the strategic application of the former that achieves the effects of the latter. We propose that informality—often justified as a constraint inherent in the technology—can serve as a strategic way to subvert the status-indicating signals conventionally used in face-to-face or written formal communications. While no discernible technological limitations prevented the users in our sample from structuring their email communications in exactly the same formal tones and formats used in written formal communications such as memos or business letters, we noted that only rarely (six times in the full sample) did emails start with the opening “Dear …”, while at the closing end of messages, we noted that a large majority of postings ended with dashes followed by the sender’s first name (only) written in lowercase letters (e.g., --- dave). Such moves, including the deletion of formal salutations and formal closings, the exclusive use of lowercase letters, the retention of spelling and grammatical errors, and the failure to use titles and honorifics, while ostensibly due to the lack of “spell-checking” software and to the wish to save time and effort (Shea, 1994), also

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imply an equality of status since the use of informal language is conventionally reserved for use among status equals or in downwardly-directed communications (Sherblom, 1988). To the extent that all members of a group, regardless of status held, can take advantage of these informality norms this feature of the media represents a potentially equalizing force. Whereas high-status individuals have had differential access to informality as a status management tool in face-to-face communications, its use in upwardly-directed communications in the computer-mediated environment may now occur under the guise of a technological limitation, though with a status-order subverting effect. Lower-status individuals can now imply to the group that they are integrated and status equals through the use of the informal communications norms. -- Insert Slide 5 Data Here --

Accessibility / Asynchrony Another critical dimension of difference between face-to-face interactions and those conducted over computer-mediated technologies is the greater accessibility to the group’s communication stream that these latter technologies can provide. The increase in accessibility is facilitated both by the ease with which computers are able to duplicate and route messages, as well as by the asynchronous character of the medium (Sarbaugh-Thompson & Feldman, 1998; Sproull & Kiesler, 1986). In use, the computer-mediated technologies make both time and space less important mediators of group interaction, and we expect that this has implications on statusmanagement strategies in groups. One of the more fundamental findings in early status research is that control over a group’s communication channel is associated with high status in a group (Bales, 1951; Berger et al., 1985; Kelley, 1951). Thus, in face-to-face meetings, where the primary communication

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channel is verbal, control over the verbal channel can result in differential influence over a group’s deliberations and decision-making efforts. Because of bandwidth limitations in face-toface meetings (i.e., since only one person can talk and be understood at a time), the primary mechanism of channel control involves verbal interruption. This is often reinforced with attention controlling moves such as gesturing, arranging the seating, and arriving late or leaving early which serve to call the group’s attention to the move maker. Attendance control—offering selective invitations to participate in a given meeting—is another such characteristic feature of the face-to-face venue that favors channel control as a status management strategy by those with high status. In computer-mediated communications, however, we believe that important differences in channel accessibility and a relative lack of affordances for blocking the participation of others is likely to lead to the use of status-managing behaviors different than those observed in face-to-face venues.

Participation Control In face-to-face meetings, the rate and frequency of verbal interactions is limited only by the rate at which individuals can talk. But it has been well noted by groups researchers that people can only listen to one person at a time and that such production-blocking puts upper limits on the rates of communication. A universal finding of group status research makes it clear that such blocking does not occur randomly or rationally (e.g., as ideas occur to members of the group, or through a process of orderly turn-taking), but that the process is differentially controlled by those at the top of the status hierarchy. Control is exercised through the use of signaling mechanisms—such as verbal interruptions, physical gestures, and introducing and ending topical content—that tend to cause lower status individuals to defer to the mover’s

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communications. While these basic behavioral patterns in face-to-face groups are so ingrained and natural to group interaction that they appear as invisible, many computer-mediated venues such as email discussion lists lack the ability to convey the status signals that these patterns rely on. In particular, it is the asynchronous character of the media that can prevent blocking from taking place. In an email discussion list, for example, an individual’s ability to address the group with messages are is inherently (or routinely) disabled to the subtle and far-reaching extent possible in face-to-face groups. This means that individuals, regardless of status, potentially gain equal access to the group’s communication channel and indicates one possible source of the inherently equalizing character of certain computer-mediated technologies. Yet, consistent with our approach, we argue that we must also consider other ways that such an affordance might be used or subverted for purposes of status management in an interacting group. One of the simplest and most direct ways to mitigate the threat that such equalized access might pose to an existing status order is to appointment (or self-appoint) a discussion-list moderator.4 In this interaction mode (a mode often used in publicly-accessible discussion groups), a moderator initiates the list (i.e., the group communication channel) and maintains control over it by limiting what messages can get posted to the list. Messages that group members wish to have posted to the list must be forwarded to the moderator who decides whether to post the message or whether to edit the message before posting. Thus, the moderator enjoys potentially complete control over all communications that the group sees via this channel.

4

A list initiator and moderator can be a defacto controlling force despite the fact that the actual position of

being a list moderator is normally viewed as an administrative one and thus not performed by those usually considered high-status. The attention afforded list moderators also serves to increase the moderator’s status as well.

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According to the norms of discussion list usage (e.g., Shea, 1994), the moderator is expected to judge appropriate content as well as appropriate forms of expression. Postings that are deemed too long, too repetitive, or as possessing inappropriate content or expression are rejected and not passed on to the list’s audience. It is clear that this mode of use can give differential control over the communication channel to a high-status moderator in a form (i.e., interruption and blocking) that much resembles that used in face-to-face groups. However, when groups are not moderated, we expect that lower-status individuals are likely to use the unfettered access that the computer-mediated technology gives them to the group’s communication channel to seek attention, to display valued characteristics and, possibly, to contest the group’s extant status order without the threat of being blocked or interrupted. Since virtually all research into the computer technologies involve nonmoderated media, this is one of the more likely sources of the equalization effects commonly observed.

Attendance Control More generally, communications channel control in face-to-face groups is practiced by controlling the attendance at a meeting; by inviting or not inviting particular individuals to a group meeting. Beyond the reduced direct influence that an individual is likely to suffer by not being present as a group meets, makes decisions, and allocates valued resources, exclusion from important meetings is also symbolic of low status in a group or organization (Bloch, 1971; Owens, 1998).5 The email discussion venue, however, lacks affordances for inviting or

5

This is exemplified in a recent widely reported news story where “Republican Lt. Gov. Steve Windom

opened the {Alabama} Senate’s special session with a jug hidden under his desk for urinating because he feared

24


uninviting individuals to the interaction. Whereas in face-to-face group meetings invitations are distributed for each meeting event, in the computer media, once an individual has been made a subscriber to the list they become privy to all subsequent discussion on the list. The list remains always and instantly available and accessible. Thus even individuals who in other venues might be excluded from participation and influence can, by subscribing, become party to all of a group’s deliberations and decisions in that media. In effect, the email discussion list serves as a perpetual meeting throughout the list’s life. We also note that this potentially equalizing affordance of the communication technology can be subverted. As we examined a list of all project-related discussion lists in use in our focal organization, it became clear that for a number of projects each had multiple lists associated with it, that the lists discussed similar topics, and that the lists contained varying degrees of overlapping membership. Often, “core” and “general” lists were discernible, with those individuals considered core members of the group (i.e., those who were well-integrated in the group) being subscribed to both lists, while marginal group and outsiders subscribed only to the “general” list or to neither. (-- Insert Slide 6 Data Here --). While this practice is easily justified in the way that it helps to prevent marginal members from being overloaded with needless detail concerning the group’s day-to-day functioning, this arrangement also serves to insulate the group from the scrutiny and influence of outsiders, while ostensibly allowing the non-core membership to keep abreast of the group’s interaction and progress. In effect this practice allows those message senders with the requisite knowledge to selectively address the desired audience through the judicious choice of group mailing lists; note that this is done even within a group working on the same project.

Democrats {would} strip him of power if he {took} time to go to the restroom” (USA Today, March 30, 1999).

25


Whereas a member’s direct participation in a group’s computer mediated deliberations might be controlled through a group’s moderation or subscription practices, the actual message content that constitutes the group’s deliberations are much less easily controlled; depending on the implementation such messages are usually easily forwarded by members of the group to others, be they non-subscribed members of the group or even outside parties. This affordance can be used to invite the scrutiny of (or intervention by) outsiders into the group’s interactions. Depending on the forwarding individual’s relationship with the outside individual (and the outside individual’s status), this can have a potentially equalizing effect on influence in the group. We observed innumerable cases where messages were CC’d (or “carbon-copied”) with a copy of the posted message being individually addressed to outside individuals who were not members of a particular list. While many of these messages served to inform unsubscribed marginal and low-status group members about meeting times and places and other coordinating information, others seemed focused on offer up to outside scrutiny or adjudication potentially contestable decisions or directions that the group was undertaking. -- Insert Slide 7 Data Here --

Availability The asynchrony and ubiquity of computer-mediated communications technologies are often thought to be primary to the equalizing effect of the media, and this differentially favors the influence strategies of lower-status participants. This occurs as challenges to the group’s influence structure can be bid, in the computer-media, at any time in an uninterruptible fashion by those with lower status. However, there remains another less examined side of medium availability that deserves consideration and which may counter this equalizing effect (cf.

26


Sarbaugh-Thompson & Feldman, 1998). In groups that conduct a large proportion of their interactions using computer media (because of geographical constraints or by preference), the constant availability of the group audience can actually serve to facilitate a constant reinforcement or reification of the existing state of the group’s status order by the group’s high-status members. For example, in our focal organization, individuals were not collocated with respect to project membership within the building. This meant that the construction and reinforcement of each group’s status order could occur only during formally called meetings, when all members were present, or when high-status individuals walked or telephoned around the building visiting with their lower-status groupmember status-subordinates. From a strategic status management perspective, we presume that such a “one-to-one” status management strategy is inefficient in that it fails, through its lack of group audience, to easily generate or communicate a consensus about the shape of the group’s overall status structure. On the other hand, high-status leaders could use the availability and relative ubiquity of the computer media as a constant telepresence, using it to reinforce their superior status in the group at any time outside of formal meetings. Also, since members of this organization participated in multiple projects, the constant availability of a group communication channel could be used to constantly remind members of their commitment to a particular project.

Content control In addition to possessing differential control over the rates of participation in face-to-face groups by lower-status members through dominance strategies such as blocking and attendance control, high-status group members also maintain differential control over the content of a group’s discussions. This is done as high-status members go about summarizing a group’s

27


progress, as they introduce new topics for discussion, and as they terminate or prevent discussions about alternative or competing topics (Berger & Morris Zelditch, 1985). Since, as we discussed above, these blocking or participation-control mechanisms may be lacking in the computer mediated venue, we presume that other mechanisms may be used to achieve the same ends. As one strategy, individuals may try to force the group’s discussion and decision-making into the media venue where they maintain a relative influence advantage. For example, since dominant individuals may be able to induce greater conformity or opinion change in the face-toface venue (Adrianson & Hjelmquist, 1991) (cf. Van Maanen & Schein, 1979), they may attempt to force the group to address particular topics in a face-to-face venue rather than allowing the discussion to occur the computer-mediated venue where lower status group members may enjoy some status-equalization. Alternatively, in order to increase their relative influence, those with low and medium status in the group may be more likely to attempt to address particular topics in the computer-mediated venue where, for example, they may counteract a high-status individual’s influence with a group’s tendency towards voting (an inherently more egalitarian decisionmaking mechanism) in the computer-mediated venue (Poole, Holmes, & Desanctis, 1991). Thus we expect that higher status members of the group will be more likely to attempt to move group discussions and decision-making about topics of any importance into the face-toface venue where they will possess greater, if conventional, dominating influence over the group, and, alternatively, that medium status individuals attempting to challenge the group’s status order by seeking or asserting greater influence will be more likely to attempt to introduce substantive topics into the email venue and attempt to get them acted upon in that venue. This dynamic is consistent with a conceptualization of media-choice as being driven by efforts to on the part of

28


individuals to consolidate and enhance their influence in a group. -- Insert Slide 8 & Slide 9 Data Here --

Immediacy The third notable characteristic feature of computer-mediated communication technologies that can potentially affect status interactions is the decreased level of immediacy or social presence that it makes available (Short et al., 1976). This decrease is conceptualized as resulting from the limited bandwidth that the computer offers for rapidly communicating the wider spectrum of verbal and nonverbal messages that are transmitted in face to face communications, and from the lack of synchronous feedback to such information that usually occurs in face-to-face communication processes. We expect based in a status-management perspective that such differences in presence and immediacy will turn out to have important effects because a group’s observation of played and displayed status moves—and particularly reactions to those moves such as ratification, rejection, uncertainty, ridicule—are central to the status order construction process. This leads us to the following observations and propositions.

Feedback Inherent in the notion of status-orders as socially emergent constructions is the requirement that a group reach and share a general consensus about the shape of the order (Owens, 1998). It is only when a group reaches a mutual consensus about its shape that a status order can gain usefulness as a coordination tool; only then does each person understand how they are expected to behave relative to others, and further, any contesting that does occur will do so according to the status currency valued by the group. In a face-to-face meeting the sharing or mutual consensus process occurs in real-time as individuals make status-managing moves and as

29


others react to those moves with verbal and nonverbal moves of their own. Owens (1998) reports how clumsy or weak status moves may get ignored, ridiculed, or treated with “eye-rolling” by high-status members of a group, reactions that tend to render such clumsy moves immediately and unequivocally ineffective. Effective moves on the other hand, are ratified by the group as the group nods agreement or otherwise allows the status-mover to continue with his or her attempts at integrating, dominating, or contesting the group’s status-quo. Being allowed to continue talking, to change the topic, to frame one’s own expertise or value in the group, or to otherwise exercise influence in the group can occur subtlely, immediately, and quickly in a face-to-face meeting. Yet participants in the shared context all invariably understand the patterns, languages, and outcomes of these rapidly played moves. It is through this first-hand observation and participation that the social order of the group remains consensual and shared. Because of differences in presence or immediacy in computer-mediated environments (Short et al., 1976), we expect that the behaviors used to express and reinforce a group’s consensus about its status order are likely to take different forms. At the coarsest level we presume that this characteristic difference will favor the equalization of status in groups, since medium- and low-status individuals will gain access to a wider range of move-behaviors that can now be enacted without a threat of immediate rejection or counter-moves by others (Hiemstra, 1982). For example, in a computer-mediated setting the length of time that it takes an individual to craft a response to a move cannot generally be observed. Whereas in face-to-face groups, this timing information is paramount to a group’s assessment of the cleverness or quick-wittedness of members, in a computer venue the lack of this information is likely to have an equalizing tendency between those having great verbal skills (generally the more visible and outspoken high

30


status members) and those others who tend to be the more quiet and reserved (and lower-status) members of a group. We also reason that moves will stand unchallenged for longer periods of time in a persistently available email discussion-list venue. This means that higher-status individuals may lose some amount of differential control over the group’s status-managing and influence processes since they will now be less able (through pure timing effects) to explicitly link their own potentially opinion-leading responses to the moves being made by others. Therefore, we conjecture that high-status individuals will spend more of their time and energy in efforts to proactively set the tone of the computer-mediated interactions and in policing the status moves of others, since through early (and constant) interventions they can influence the group’s adoption of some particular set of more stable (and favorable) interaction norms (Contractor & Eisenberg, 1990; Fulk, 1993; Schmitz & Fulk, 1991; Yates & Orlikowski, 1992). Therefore, we expect to see more messages explicitly endorsing or negatively sanctioning the form and tone of the list’s discussion somewhat in the spirit of a list moderator, while we expect that relatively fewer will intervene directly on the basis of topical content. We propose that such a strategy can serve to proactively substitute for the lack of feedback immediacy is characteristic in the computer-mediated environment.

Response Latency While the timing of reactions to status moves provides one type of status signal to a group, the timing of responses to requests may provide another kind of signal in the computermediated venue. Since interactions are less likely to occur in short and immediate succession (and more likely to be spread over time), the time taken to respond to messages that request information or that relay demands may indicate to the group information about the status relationship among members of a group.

31


We speculate that lower-status individuals are likely to respond more quickly to messages sent by higher-status individuals in direct proportion to the status difference between them; the greater the status difference the more rapid the response. On the other hand, high-status individuals are more likely to take longer to respond to (or ignore) messages sent by those with low status in the group. We presume that when status differences are greatest, high-status individuals will perceive little threat to the status order from low-status movers. The implicit symbolic message of the large response latency is that the message was insufficiently important to warrant an immediate response. On the other hand, where status differences are small, an individual becomes more susceptible to losing status at the hands of a contesting other. In this case we expect a much quicker status-managing response. As discussed earlier, we still expect the length of a response to a message to serve as a signal status as well, with shorter socioemotionally directed messages being sent by those at the top and bottom of the hierarchy, and longer task-directed messages being sent by those in the middle. -- Insert Slide 10 Data Here --

Emotional Display Though the potential lack of “immediacy” in computer mediated communications has been noted by researchers, many actual users of computer systems—particularly email—bemoan the technical immediacy or efficiency (Sproull & Kiesler, 1986) with which computer users can compose and send (or missend) messages . For example, the occurrence of flaming or severely and inappropriately criticizing another individual’s posting is well-documented (Martin, O'Shea, Fung, & Spears, 1992). Such behavior is thought more likely to occur in computer-mediated than in face-to-face venues because the social cues that serve to temper behavior in face-to-face groups are potentially missing in the computer environment (Sproull & Kiesler, 1986).

32


Interpreted from a status management perspective, we concur that in a face-to-face group the tempering occurs, but for the reason that status moves serve to constantly reinforce the extant social status order of the group. Users of email, however, argue that it is rather the ease with which responses can be composed and delivered, and the inability in most systems to retrieve a message already sent that are to blame for any such normatively inappropriate communications in the group. It is only after pressing “send’ or after receiving an unexpectedly emotional response in return that they realize the full relational impact that their message actually had. When viewed as strategic behavior, we believe that are alternative ways to explain such inappropriate communications in a group. Since it is impossible for an email discussion-list audience to know how long (or with what intentions) an individual has spent composing an email message to the group, the notion of flaming as an immediate but un-thinking visceral response, while plausible, also serves as a convenient rationalization for sending messages that display high levels of negative emotion to the group. We believe that this may be a similar dynamic to that described above, where we posited that high levels of informality are justified in generally accepted (but technically incorrect) shortcomings of the technology. In fact, technically speaking, it should be easier, more immediate, and more visceral to send such messages verbally in face-to-face groups than spending the time typing and then sending such messages using a computer mediated technology (Hiemstra, 1982). We suspect that it is the generally accepted normative rationalizations about the technology that allow users to post status-managing messages that lie outside the bounds of what would normatively be considered appropriate for someone in their status stratum. Thus, where it has been noted that the display of negative emotion is more common among higher-status

33


individuals due to the relative insensitivity of high power individuals to the consequences of their interactions (Gruenfeld et al., 1999; Ridgeway & Johnson, 1990) and that such behavior is much less common among those at lower status levels (Teidens, 1999), we expect to see many more expressions of negative emotion from those lower in the status hierarchy. We view this as a potentially status-equalizing force in a group’s computer-mediated interactions.

Discussion The purpose of this chapter was to explore how status is managed in groups using computer-mediated communication technologies. As a mechanism for exploration, we observed the electronic interactions of two research teams in a research and development organization. Given the lack of formal structure in the organization studied, we proposed that the status order was likely to be reinforced (and contested) in this electronic domain of group interaction, just as it was in other domains of the groups’ interaction. We reasoned that since proximate physical control may not have been possible in the multi-project-based organization, the constant “reminding” of the shape and currency of that status order was as likely to be waged through computer-mediated communication as through direct or face-to-face communication. We predicted and found some evidence pointing to the likely existence of status-relevant movebehaviors similar to those found in Owens’ (1998) study of status contests in face-to-face meetings; however, we also noted that since the affordances for status management that are available to groups when their interactions are mediated through a computer medium differ from those available in the face-to-face medium, that the favored behaviors and strategies were likely to systematically differ as well. That is, individuals seem to use the means at hand for the purpose of creating new signals of status or for subverting existing signals when this can be done

34


to advantage. The systematic nature of these moves suggests that team members are being (and have been) socialized to understand the implications of the use of these moves and are able to apply these new tactics to social situations in predictable ways (Orlikowski, Yates, Okamura, & Fujimoto, 1995; Van Maanen & Schein, 1979). As such, media changes provide an occasion for structuring (Barley, 1986) that can have a profound influence on the how various social dynamics—such as status contests—unfold during the life of a group or team (DeSanctis & Gallupe, 1987). Understanding how individuals will eventually use the new media to reinforce or adjust the status order of teams is clearly an important topic and one that has clear strategic implications (Bowers, 1992). Computer-mediated communication has typically been heralded as a force for status equalization and participation. It does, in fact, allow for lower status individuals to have increased access to higher status individuals. However, some important features of the interaction technology remain under the close control of higher status individuals. Most telling of these is access to the medium and control over decision-making venues. However, to determine whether there is, in the end, an equalizing effect will probably depend more heavily on the context of the decision and the local currency of the group. Throughout this chapter, we have identified a series of propositions that reflect the limitations and opportunities inherent in status contests that occur through computer mediated interaction. These propositions are listed below.

Propositions 1. High status individuals will make greater use of electronic communication. However, medium status individuals will construct and send longer messages through electronic mail than will either high or low status individuals.

35

Owens, Neale & Sutton 2. The status of individuals will influence the venues in which they attempt to get decisions considered. Higher status individuals will attempt to exert more interpersonal influence on others by moving group decision-making into face-to-face meetings, while lower status individuals will assert a preference for computer-mediated venues. 3. High-status individuals are more likely to be oriented towards controlling the social relations of the group, for example by setting the tone that others use in the email venue. 4. The computer-mediated media will have an equalizing effect on group participation length in a group, but this will not be the only signal of an individual’s status. Other effects such as participation rate are likely to remain unequalized. 5. In general, moves by high status individuals will tend to make the status order more stable, while moves by middle status individuals tend to change it. Individuals at the bottom of the status hierarchy are most likely to make moves that reinforce it. 6. Bandwidth limitations may not be as constraining or equalizing as generally reported. Using technical shortcomings as rationalizations, individuals at all status levels invent new norms for interaction and new modes of communication.

We would caution the reader to remember that the focus of this chapter is on how status contests are played out through electronic mail in the context of research teams. We have not, for example, considered how other technology choices influence status orders in teams. Further, the teams in this study were not limited to communicating only through electronic mail. Rather, electronic mail was a major component of their interaction. They all had the option of face-toface encounters between and among group members. In many respects, the results of our analysis here reflect how parties use electronic media to enhance or offset status contests and status ordering in teams. Further, the groups that we studied all had pre-existing status relationships, but because of multiple, competing group demands and a lack of co-location, face to face meetings were not held so often as teams might have liked. Finally, we focused in this chapter on the form of the interaction rather than the context of the actual message. Clearly what an individual has to say plays a critical role in the success of his or her attempts to reinforce or restructure the current status quo. While critical, this aspect of the status contest remains for others to untangle. In summary, computer-mediated communication removes yet another boundary of groups. 36


Normally groups or teams have an identifiable time and place. Group membership is typically salient when all members are physically present (typically in meetings). What electronic mail and other computer-mediated technologies have done is to create an environment in which there are meetings without end. In this more ubiquitous environment, status moves are as easily implemented as sending a memo. One does not have to wait until a meeting ten days or two weeks down the road. The opportunity to engage in a status contest is available twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. The trick now becomes how a team member or an organization manages this new set of opportunities.

37


Slide 1 – Signature Files

z

z

----------------------------------------------------------------Rick Spooner Member of Research Staff: Ventrex Research Inc. Doctoral Student, ABD: University of Utah 408-372-6936 (office in San Jose, CA) 871-543-8432 (home in Salt Lake City, UT) ---------------------------------------------------------------Tom L. Johnson Lark Communications Email: [email protected] Phone: +1.408.435.3587 Fax: +1.408.435.3215 ................................................................ Wilson Flane Inc. DESIGN... Royal College of Art VENTREX Research 23 Kings Lane Computer Related Design 1801c Page Mill Rd. Cuswell Hill Kensington Gore San Jose London W12 4DN London SW7 2EU CA 97629 England England U.S.A. tel/autofax: tel: e-mail: +44(0)196 435-6229 +44(0)171 846-3827 [email protected] ................................................................

Slide 2 - Lengths of Messaging 7\SHVRI0HVVDJHV $YHUDJH/HQJWK

Status/ Type Project

Low

Medium

High

23.8

28.9

34.8

Work-Rel.

2.7

10.1

3.5

Social

8.8

6.9

7.4

Admin

9.7

8.9

9.0

38


Slide 3 - Average Messaging Rates

0HVVDJLQJ5DWHV2QHWKHGLUHFWRU@ PHHWLQJVJHWDWDUJHWHGJURXSRILQWHUHVWHGSDUWLHVWRJHWKHUWR LQIRUPWKHPRIRXUSODQVDQGWRJHWWKHLUFULWLTXHEHIRUHZHWUDYHO WRRIDUGRZQWKRVHSDWKV -DPHV

41


Slide 9 - Move into F-to-F venue by High-Status Person

&RQWHQW&RQWURO0RYHV LQWR)WR)9HQXH

6XEMHFW&KDQJHLQVFKHGXOHPHHWWRPRUURZDW& 7R$OSKDFRUHVZHQVHQ

'XHWRYDULRXVFRQIOLFWVZHZLOOKDYHRXUXVXDOZHHNO\URXQGXS PHHWLQJ7XHVGD\DWSPLQ&UDWKHUWKDQLQWKHPRUQLQJ $JHQGDLWHPV 8SGDWHRQSHRSOHHTXLSPHQWFROODEVSDFHHWF 5HFHQWGHVLJQZRUN ZKDWHYHUHOVHLVRQSHRSOH VPLQGV 6HH\RXWKHQ

Slide 10 Messages Posted by Message Type

0HVVDJHV3RVWHG7RWDOVE\7\SH

Status/ Type Project

Low

Medium

High

529

1626

2272

Work-Rel.

65

356

332

Social

335

748

743

Admin

234

645

557

42


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