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Phrases That Signal Workplace Hierarchy

February 18, 2012 Comments off
Source:  2012 ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW)
Hierarchy fundamentally shapes how we act at work. In this paper, we explore the relationship between the words people write in workplace email and the rank of the email’s recipient. Using the Enron corpus as a dataset, we perform a close study of the words and phrases people send to those above them in the corporate hierarchy versus those at the same level or lower. We find that certain words and phrases are strong predictors. For example, “thought you would” strongly suggests that the recipient outranks the sender, while “let’s discuss” implies the opposite. We also find that the phrases people write to their bosses do not demonstrate cognitive processes as often as the ones they write to others. We conclude this paper by interpreting our results and announcing the release of the predictive phrases as a public dataset, perhaps enabling a new class of status-aware applications.

See: Email Language Tips Off Work Hierarchy (Science Daily)

Categories: Association for Computing Machinery, business and economics, labor, management, social and cultural issues, technology and internet
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