A Capacity Perspective on E-mail Overload: How E-mail Use Contributes to Information Overload

Information overload caused by e-mails are a known issue in practice and academia. There is a lot of research on information overload and e-mail use and misuse. However studies on the phenomenon e-mail overload, describing how e-mail as technology contributes to information overload, are scarce or fragmented. We therefore investigate how e-mails lead to causes of information overload and are creating the phenomenon of e-mail overload. As a theoretical framework, we employ the theory-based model of factors affecting information overload. The resulting research model and measurement scales help to understand the induction of e-mail overload. The proposed scales are then tested for construct validity in a pretest assessment that is based on an item-sort task. The results show very high values for the substantive validities of the constructs, indicating good construct validity.