<$BlogRSDUrl$> Marcus P. Zillman, M.S., A.M.H.A. Author/Speaker/Consultant
Marcus P. Zillman, M.S., A.M.H.A. Author/Speaker/Consultant
Internet Happenings, Events and Sources


Thursday, March 04, 2004  

Multiple Recipients Tend To Ignore eMail Requests
http://hbsworkingknowledge.hbs.edu/item.jhtml?id=3947&t=technology

Ever wonder why those mass-mailed pleas for help usually fall on deaf ears? Greg Barron, the CLER Research Fellow at Harvard Business School, and his colleague Eldad Yechiam, a post-doctoral research fellow at Indiana University's psychology department, say that the more people listed as recipients of an e-mail help requests, the lower the response rate. This is mostly attributable to "diffusion of responsibility," where each recipient assumes that someone else will respond, says Barron: "The fundamental part of this dilemma is that the utility of not volunteering is higher than the utility of volunteering, assuming that someone else has volunteered. The key to making the dilemma (and the diffusion of responsibility) disappear lies in increasing either the cost of not volunteering (i.e., of shirking) or the personal gain from choosing to respond. The easiest way to do this is simply to designate responsibility. In this context it is interesting to note that responsibility literally means the ability to respond." Barron suggests individualizing each e-mail request (forget those undisclosed listservs) and bemoans the technological efficiency of most e-mail clients that make such individual requests cumbersome to produce. "That is not surprising since the need here, for the personal touch, is not technological but psychological." (Harvard Business School Working Knowledge 1 Mar 2004) [Copyright 2004. NewsScan Daily]

posted by Marcus Zillman | 4:07 AM
archives
subject tracers™