Relating Electronic Mail Use and Network Structure to R&D Work Networks and Performance
研究分析了研发机构中导师与实习生的电子邮件使用数据，发现邮件使用量和网络中心性与工作网络相关，但与实习生绩效评估无显著关联，而用户在邮件网络中的位置反而影响绩效。
:This study analyzes computer-monitored and self-reported electronic mail usage and network data collected over time from mentors and their summer interns at an R&D organization. Amount and network measures of E-mail usage were significantly associated with work and work familiarity networks. As time passed, interns communicated through E-mail more outside their formal mentor-intern relations. However, amount of E-mail use and most E-mail network measures (such as centrality)were not related to mentors’ assessments of interns’ performance several months later. An intriguing exception was how interns were located in the overall E-mail network. Surprisingly, overall, most forms of communication were negatively associated with performance ratings. These results imply that it is not necessarily how much one uses an E-mail system, but how the users are positioned in that system’s structural context, that may affect R&D performance.