Why discard when you can keep them?: A case study on the e-mail retention behaviour in firms
D Burda, Frank Teuteberg · Journal of Law Information & Science · 2013
Firms are increasingly required to consciously retain and dispose of specific information as part of an effort to ensure compliance with legal and regulatory mandates. While e-mails represent a major part of all corporate records, they can be used as electronic evidence in legal investigations and compliance audits. However, the decision towards e-mail retention or disposal is often incumbent upon employees in the course of performing their jobs. This paper presents the results of a case study seeking to uncover how and why employees retain e-mails. We employ qualitative and quantitative data collection methods, thereby analysing mailboxes of 20 employees and more than 700,000 e-mails. Our findings point towards different types of employee behaviour and a fractional tendency to hoard vast amounts of e-mail pursuing a 'keep everything forever' mentality. Based on the consolidated findings, we elaborate a set of propositions, highlight the organisational implications and suggest opportunities for future research.