Technology-push and communication-pull forces driving message-based coordination performance

This study adopts ‘push–pull’ concepts to address the effects of technology, communication and tasks on e-mail coordination, and to explore appropriate e-mail contexts in cooperative work. The perceived benefits of communication technology form a ‘push’ force. Two ‘pull’ forces include the desire to solve a cognitive gap caused by the communication context, and the desire to bridge the performance gap in allocating resources to tasks. The empirical findings confirm that ‘technology-push’ and ‘communication-pull’ forces are positively associated with e-mail coordination performance, showing the coexistence of rational and social influences, while the association between task and communication contexts indicates that the development of perceived information-sharing norms is context-dependent. Accordingly, this study concludes that appropriate information-sharing norms enable actors to create an active communication context for using e-mail in cooperative work.