Toward E-Mail Governance: Policies and Practices in the Government of Canada / Vers la gouvernance des courriels : politiques et pratiques du gouvernement du Canada

Abstract

The objectives of this study are to identify e-mail management policy development and implementation in the Government of Canada (GC) and examine the current e-mail management practices toward improving e-mail governance. This study conducted a survey with 204 information management professionals from 76 Canadian government agencies who deal with e-mail records in their daily operations. The results showed that respondents widely accepted e-mail management as important and recognized that an e-mail management policy and/or guidelines are significant tools for the effective management of e-mail records. However, the level of implementation and practices varies and are not standardized across agencies. Since the GC tends to rely heavily on an individual employee’s own responsibility to manage e-mail records, employee training is an essential component in effective e-mail management. The results of the study emphasize the importance of policy development and its application to practices at government agencies.

Résumé

La présente recherche a pour but de développer une meilleure compréhension de la gestion des courriels dans les agences gouvernementales canadiennes et d’identifier les caractéristiques qui soutiennent la gestion de ces documents électroniques afin d’assurer leur fiabilité, leur intégrité et leur authenticité. La recherche utilisait un sondage en ligne s’adressant aux professionnels en gestion de l’information qui travaillent au Gouvernement du Canada. Les résultats de la recherche montrent que le courrier électronique est un outil de communication largement utilisé au sein des agences gouvernementales canadiennes. Or, les pratiques visant à assurer la gestion du courrier électronique varient entre les agences gouvernementales. Les résultats suggèrent que pour être efficaces, les outils développés pour gérer les courriels doivent être adaptés au contexte organisationnel et au flux d’information d’une organisation.

Introduction

As e-mail messages have grown uncontrolled into one of the largest corporate information repositories, e-mail has become the most common form of communication at organizations, including governments. The Government of Canada (GC) reported that over 100 separate e-mail systems were used by more than 300,000 government employees everyday in 2015 (Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat 2015). E-mail is considered one of the most important information assets within an information governance framework in providing valuable public services to citizens in government agencies (Shared Services Canada 2016). It should be strategically approached with “a major area of focus for information governance efforts” (Smallwood 2014, 241). In line with this trend, the GC has made a significant effort to develop e-mail management policies and improve their practices. However, it has been reported that some government agencies in the GC maintain e-mails individually on separate systems, and their practices are still “neither cost-effective nor . . . conducive to collaboration across government” (Shared Services Canada 2016, section issue). Thus, an investigation to examine the progress of the GC’s policies and practices is necessary for information professionals and researchers in the field of information management. This study aims to examine the current e-mail management policies and practices in Canadian government agencies and recognize their challenges toward e-mail governance within government agencies.

This study is organized into the following sections. The second section provides a literature review of electronic records management and e-mail management strategies of the GC. The third section presents a data collection and analysis. The fourth section explains the findings of the survey with information management professionals from Canadian government agencies. The final section discusses relevant issues and challenges and concludes with a plan for further research.

Literature review: governments’ integrated directions for information governance

Electronic records management can directly affect the government’s ability to operate effective business activities and should comply with laws and regulations in organizations. During an electronic record’s lifecycle, information governance is a key issue for organizations. Information governance refers to an accountability framework that provides the basic principles and rules, management structure, and information management methods to use information effectively and efficiently in organizations (Logan 2010). This framework specifies expected behaviours for the lifecycle stages of records including creation, description, use, retrieval, storage, sharing, and preservation. Manuela Moro Cabero, Maria-Paz Martín-Pozuelo, and José Zazo (2011) explains that records management is placed at the centre of the convergence model with the following three dimensions: legal, business, and technological dimensions. The legal dimension indicates records management policies, regulations, and guidelines for the operation or performance of business needs at the organizational level, and this is important in a government context for transparent and accountable records and information management. The business dimension indicates records management procedures and practices as a result of organizations’ business operations and activities. The technological dimension indicates systems or tools to technologically process, store, and preserve records. As Robert Smallwood (2014, 241) explains, records management should be strategically approached with “a major area of focus for information governance efforts”; the three dimensions converge within records management as a basic component of processing, storing, and preserving records and information in integrating to build information governance at organizations.

In addition, the conceptual framework for identifying the authenticity requirements of electronic records comprises the four requirements to ensure the authenticity of records within electronic records systems through the juridical, procedural, technological, and sociocultural requirements. The juridical requirement indicates the legal compliance with policy, regulations, and laws at organizations. The procedural requirement refers to the business processes and needs in an administration. The technological requirement indicates technologies or systems to support the business processes. The final one—sociocultural requirements— refers to culture or traditions in the implicit context of an organization. Thus, toward building information governance, organizations should take an integrated approach through legal, procedural, and technological aspects. To support accountable records management, governments must provide an information governance framework and make an integrated effort by developing policies and guidelines, implementing electronic records management systems, and streamlining electronic records management into business processes.

Taking a closer look at individual countries, for example, the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) in the United States implemented the Electronic Records Archives (ERA) Base Instance system to create, collect, review, and approve record schedules and create a request to transfer digital documents to NARA across government agencies (National Archives and Records Administration 2012). In 2012, NARA provided the Managing Government Records Directive (M-12-18), which aims to “reform records management policies and practices” as a new framework and promote the accountability of government agencies by documenting all actions and decisions (National Archives and Records Administration 2012, 1).

In Australia, the National Archives of Australia (NAA) addressed the idea that organizations should deploy records systems that are connected to business processes and emphasized the need for strategic records management (Cunningham 2011; Fricker 2012). The NAA introduced the Digital Continuity 2020 program “to support efficiency, innovation, interoperability, information re-use and accountability by integrating robust digital information management into all government business processes” (National Archives of Australia 2015a). The NAA’s Information Governance Framework directs the factors and business drivers in creating, managing, and using information including legislation, regulations, compliance, risk, and business needs (National Archives of Australia 2015b).

In Canada, within the information governance framework, the GC has made an effort toward managing accountable, transparent, and effective government records since 2005. First, the GC has coordinated “the enterprise-level governance, direction, information structures, processes, tools, and skill sets in place” through the Information Management Strategy (Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat 2010a). During 2007–11, the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat (TBS) (2010b; 2012b, section 5) issued a series of policies on information management, information technology, and records management and tried to “facilitate accountability, transparency, and collaboration; and preserve and ensure access to information and records” for a strategic direction at the federal level. At each agency’s level, the GC’s direction of information governance allows agencies to share common principles and, at the same time, maintain their own capacity for adapting them in institutional-specific contexts (Buhlmann 2011).

In the larger context of electronic records, e-mail is considered “one of the most common methods of communication in the GC” (Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat 2015). The term “e-mail” refers to “a system that transfers messages through electronic networks and a message in the system” (Park and Zwarich 2008, 468). E-mail governance can be defined as the “effective and efficient management of e-mail so that it satisfies an organization’s requirements, including security, regulatory compliance, corporate governance and risk mitigation” (Osterman Research 2006, 1). Effective e-mail governance has recently become an essential component of an organization’s information governance strategy. As a result, several studies have addressed the idea that institutions should ensure the lifecycle management of e-mail records within the context of electronic records, and effective records management requires the creation and implementation of a policy (Gurushanta and Smallwood 2012; Saffady 2013; Saulnier 2007). For Canadian government agencies, Vigi Gurushanta and Smallwood (2012, 32–33) explain the six areas of law applicable to the management of paper and electronic records, including e-mail records: the laws of evidence applicable to records; the national standards of Canada concerning electronic records; the records requirements of government agencies; the electronic commerce legislation; the access to information and privacy laws; and the guidelines for electronic discovery in legal proceedings.” Carole Saulnier (2007) presents the elements that should be included in an e-mail management policy, such as the use of e-mail, access to information, standardization of its creation, and so on.

To effectively manage e-mails within an individual country, NARA in the United States issued the Criteria for Managing Email Records in Compliance with the Managing Government Records Directive (M-12-18), which emphasizes “successful email management as having policies and systems in place together to ensure that email records can be used, accessed, and have the appropriate disposition applied” in the lifecycle (National Archives and Records Adminstration 2016, 4). NARA also enforces the full implementation of e-mail management by requesting that all agencies “manage permanent and temporary email records in an electronic format by December 31, 2016” (National Archives and Records Administration 2012, Goal 1.2, 3–4). NARA also allows each agency’s different contexts, depending on organizational complexity, schedule development, budgetary or procurement” (3–4) and, with the National Security Agency, provides an automated Capstone approach to categorize, schedule, and preserve e-mails based on the work and/or position of the e-mail account (Zhang 2015).

In Canada, for an integrated approach by the federal government, Library and Archives Canada guides agencies to develop polices and facilitates procedures according to the Email Management Guidelines to guide agencies to streamline in a uniform manner. However, since Canadian government agencies have a lot of diversity and limitations at each agency level, the GC decided to upgrade and “consolidate e-mail services within a larger context to reduce costs, increase security and enhance program delivery to Canadian citizens and businesses” (Shared Services Canada 2016). The TBS provides agencies with detailed specifications by implementing “consistent policies, standardized e-mail management practices and tools to support the delivery of programs and services” (aTreasury Board of Canada Secretariat 2012a, 3). The GC is currently implementing an advanced government-wide records management system called GCDocs to implement standardized e-mail management systems that will safeguard all government information across government agencies comprehensively (including e-mail records).

In spite of a lot of effort and direction taken toward integrated policies, practices, and systems of the GC, the implementation stages of Canadian government agencies are still uneven. The TBS’s recent report in 2015 highlights that the vast amounts of electronic information created and exchanged by e-mail have remained “largely unmanaged,” and “the lack of proper information management practices related to e-mail impedes effective decision-making, transparency, and accountability and increases the risks related to retention and disposition” (Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat 2015, section issue). Following from this situation, this study examines the implementation stages of e-mail management policies and practices at Canadian government agencies and identifies the challenges of further development toward e-mail governance in the GC.

Methodology

The objectives of the study are: (1) to identify e-mail management policy development and implementation in Canadian government agencies; (2) to examine the e-mail management practices for implementing the policies; and (3) to examine the challenges facing Canadian government agencies in improving e-mail governance. To address the objectives, the following research questions have been formulated: (1) what are the current e-mail management policies within different Canadian government agencies; (2) what systems are used to manage e-mail at Canadian government agencies; and (3) to what extent are these policies implemented into practice in government agencies? This study adopts a theoretical framework from both Cabero, Martín-Pozuelo, and Zazo’s (2011) convergence model and Eun G. Park’s (2002) conceptual model. The three dimensions of the convergence model were mapped with the three requirements of Park’s model, respectively: legal dimension to juridical requirements; business dimension to procedural requirements; and technological dimension to technological requirements. The three common dimensions were taken as the basis for examining e-mail management policies, practices, and systems and adopted in the design of the survey questionnaire and the data analysis and interpretation.

To answer the research questions, this study conducted a web-based survey with information management professionals who were working at Canadian government agencies. The respondents on the list were identified by searching through job titles in the Government Electronic Directory Services and carefully selected for the relevance of their characteristics and representative role related to e-mail management, including records lifecycle management, policy and procedure development, dissemination, training, and the monitoring of information management activities in the lifecycle at various agencies. A total of 550 records-related professionals from 76 Canadian government agencies were selected as a sample population.

Invitation letters were distributed to the selected professionals. A total of 204 responses out of 550 professionals were received, a response rate of 37%. Considering that the average response rate of an online survey review is relatively low, the response rate was acceptable (Manfreda et al. 2008; Nulty 2008). Based on the three dimensions of the framework, the survey questionnaire was designed with three sections (for example, e-mail management policies, e-mail messaging systems, and e-mail management practices). The questionnaire comprised 30 questions with corresponding sections. For data collection, SurveyMonkey, which is an online survey and questionnaire tool, was used to create the online survey, send invitations to the participants, and manage the responses. To describe and analyse the data, the Statistical Package for Social Sciences was used to identify basic characteristics and trends in the results.

Findings

The questions and summary results of the survey are presented according to the respondents’ demographics, e-mail policies, systems, and practices in each subsection.

Demographics of the respondents

To understand the backgrounds of the respondents, the survey first asked for their demographic information, such as agency, key activity areas, staff size, position, and years in records management. Questions 1–7 and their responses are provided in Table 1.

In Question 3, the respondents indicated that they work in such a variety of activity areas that they can represent how e-mail is largely used at the GC. More than half of the respondents work in agencies with between 250 and 500 employees, while 170 respondents (83%) work as directors or managers.

Table 1.

Respondent demographics (Questions 1–7)

E-mail management policies

The second section asked respondents about e-mail policies and guidelines for managing e-mail records at Canadian government agencies. Questions 8–12 and their responses are summarized in Table 2.

In Question 8, all participants (100%) indicated that they use e-mail in their daily business activities. In Question 9, the majority of respondents (188, 92%) answered that e-mails are positively important in their daily business activities. However, in Question 10, 179 respondents (87%) stated that they tend to encounter challenges in managing e-mail messages, which is an important concern. They specify several difficulties: applying appropriate retention periods to e-mail messages (83); gathering the complete information and documents related to a subject (76); retrieving critical information to make a business decision (68); capturing e-mail records in a corporate repository (62); evaluating the value of e-mail messages (51); managing information overload (46); ensuring the continuity of activities when employees leave (34); storage issues (21); and electronic discovery issues (17). In Question 11, all of the respondents once again responded that they consider e-mails to be corporate records (100%). Some respondents added comments to this question. For example, five respondents addressed the idea that while e-mail messages that have business value are e-mail records, most e-mail messages have a transitory value only. Four respondents said information technology professionals and senior managers sometimes consider e-mail to be a form of ephemeral communication and not as records. As for an e-mail management policy and/or guidelines, which was the focus in Question 12, 171 respondents (84%) positively answered that their agency had developed, or is currently developing, an e-mail management policy and/or guidelines. An agency with 20 of the respondents (10%) is planning to develop an e-mail management policy or set of guidelines in the near future. This result is very positive. Only eight respondents (3%) mentioned that their agency does not have any e-mail management policy and/or guidelines and is not planning to develop any specific tool to manage e-mail records. The result of this question reflects that overall, the GC agencies are well justified in developing e-mail policies.

Table 2.

Summary of e-mail policies (Questions 8–12)

In Question 13, 171 respondents who indicated that their agency had developed, or is developing, an e-mail management policy in Question 12 were subsequently asked about the type of e-mail policy. In total, 64 respondents (37%) only had a separate written e-mail management policy. More than a quarter of respondents (46, 27%) have a general electronic records management policy applicable to different types of electronic records, including e-mail records, while 28 respondents (16%) included a section on e-mail management in their general electronic records management policy. However, 25 respondents (16%) have no e-mail policy or guidelines. Two respondents (1%) stated that their agency only has a broad information management policy that includes all media. Thus, although agencies are positive about the development of a policy, the need to establish a separate e-mail policy does not seem to be considered important at this time.

Table 3.

Summary of e-mail policies (Questions 13–16)

In Question 14, regarding the content and issues that are addressed in an e-mail management policy, the respondents seemed to agree evenly on the listed five points, despite each agency’s individual function, activity, and the resources available. In Question 15, while 43 respondents (38%) were satisfied with their organization’s current e-mail policy, 69 respondents (62%) were not satisfied, which furthermore expresses interesting points: 27 respondents indicated that the roles and responsibilities of professionals should be clearly defined between record managers and information technology professionals and users; 34 respondents stated that their agency’s e-mail management policy should provide guidance on the use of an e-mail system and e-mail etiquette; 23 respondents remarked that their agency’s e-mail management policy should include the creation and editing of e-mail records; and 11 respondents stated that the e-mail management policy should be enforced by legal compliance. In Question 16, 73 respondents (67%) were involved in the creation (21) and implementation (31) of the e-mail management policy (see Table 3).

Table 4.

Summary of e-mail systems (Questions 17–19)

E-mail systems

The next section (Questions 17–19) asked participants about e-mail systems and records management systems. Regarding the existence of a records management system in Question 18, approximately three quarters of the respondents (149, 73%) mentioned that a records management system is provided by the GC. It is noteworthy that 55 respondents (27%) use e-mail without a records management system. In Question 19, regarding the agency’s approach on how to manage and save e-mails, the agencies’ practices vary. Half of the respondents (107, 53%) save e-mail records in a corporate records management system; surprisingly, 59 respondents (29%) still print and file the hardcopies of e-mail records either in personal files or in shared files; 27 respondents (13%) keep e-mail records in each respondent’s inbox; 11 respondents (5%) save e-mail records to corporate servers. One respondent added comments on this question by saying there is “no consistency in managing e-mail records so [employees] do whatever they want because the guideline is not enforced.” This result clearly reflects how the respondents’ agencies are not standardized with regard to managing e-mail records, although the need to share consistent policies was addressed (see Table 4).

E-mail management practices

In the last section, Questions 20–28 asked respondents about e-mail management practices through the implementation and dissemination of e-mail policies. To implement e-mail management policies within their agency, Question 20 asked respondents about the means or tools to communicate and disseminate e-mail management policies, such as training; publishing it on their agency’s website or intranet; hearing about the existence of an e-mail management policy from colleagues; making a formal announcement to their users; or by using other means of dissemination (for example, occasional information sessions). However, one respondent stated that “the main difficulty resides in the lack of interest from employees in the agency, not in the dissemination method” (see Table 5).

Table 5.

Summary of e-mail management practices (Questions 20–24)

Regarding the respondents’ recognition and implementation of an e-mail management policy in Question 21, 65.5% of responses were positive, although their responses tend to vary across agencies. As for Question 22, the methods of ensuring employees’ compliance with the e-mail management policy were through a monitoring program (35%), an internal periodical audit on an annual basis (24%), quality control (20%), and others (9%), such as mailbox quotas or developing automatic classification tools to take the responsibility away from employees. However, it is noteworthy that 14 respondents (12%) stated that there is no method currently in place to ensure compliance. As for the reasons about employees not being compliant with an e-mail management policy, as addressed in Question 23, more than half of the respondents said that they are too busy (66%) or the policy is too complex (13%). In addition, 17 respondents did not even know if they should adopt an e-mail management policy (15%). As for the other reasons (6%), one respondent mentioned: “Employees are running at 100%. Generally, they do not understand the shift from centrally managed to locally managed at their desktop. Many refuse to become recordkeepers. [This is] somewhat a stereotypical situation, thus resistance continues at all levels.”

Table 6.

Summary of e-mail management practices (Questions 25–28)

Two respondents pointed out that a “lack of training and continuous education” or “compliance to e-mail policy is not viewed as a priority.” Another answered that there is “a combination of not having a specific e-mail management policy, too many e-mails to manage, and no system or guidelines for employees to use.” The answers to these questions bring up serious concerns. As for the consequences of not complying with the e-mail management policy in Question 24, the responses strongly vary across agencies from no consequences (36%) to several kinds of penalties (51.5%), such as a written warning (16%), a verbal warning (12.5%), suspension (10%), limited access to the e-mail system (8%), and termination (5%). Interestingly, one respondent stated that although “consequences should be a result of not adhering to Government of Canada legislation on IM, the organization is not equipped to manage [e-mails] across the board, nor to properly monitor compliance. Thus, no disciplinary measures can be enforced.”

Regarding the retrieval of e-mails as addressed in Question 25, while 130 respondents (64%) responded positively by saying it was very easy to moderate, 74 respondents (36%) answered negatively. As for a way to ensure the long-term preservation of e-mail records in Question 26, while half of respondents (107, 52%) answered positively, 61 respondents (30%) said that their agency does not preserve e-mails long term. In Question 27, 53 respondents (26%) stated that their agency had experience with proving the integrity of an e-mail record. In Question 28, 65 of the respondents’ agencies (32%) had been ordered by a regulatory body to produce an e-mail record. Questions 29 and 30 asked for additional comments and further contact information for clarification (see Table 6).

Discussion

To examine the policies, systems, and practices related to e-mail management at Canadian government agencies, the survey in this study was designed to provide a basic context for identifying the current progress of e-mail management at Canadian government agencies and for improving this progress. The results of the study are considered valid across agencies as long as e-mail records are being managed within the GC’s lifecycle context, which shares common features and similar working environments. The findings demonstrate interesting points that lead to significant issues and challenges in managing e-mail records within the GC. First, the respondents of this study unanimously identified that e-mail management is undoubtedly a matter of maintaining corporate records, and 92% of the respondents considered this to be positively important. To ensure the appropriate management of e-mail records, this is a primary step in understanding the business value of e-mail records in daily business activities within the lifecycle framework. If an employee considers e-mail records as only a communication tool or an information technology function, their perception should first be changed to develop proper policies and improve practices. Nevertheless, in their practices, there are various kinds of challenges in managing e-mail messages, which demonstrates how employees feel when dealing with e-mail at government agencies.

Second, regarding e-mail management policy, agencies have recognized the necessity of policy development. The majority of respondents (84%) have made an effort by having already developed, being in the process of developing, or at least planning to develop e-mail management policies. Considering that Smallwood (2013) points out that in building information governance, policy is key to moving toward achieving business needs, strategies, objectives, and making decisions to overcome problems, the result of this question is very encouraging. However, the nature of their existing e-mail policies seems to vary and can be divided into four groups, ranging from general information management policies to independent e-mail management policies. The reasons for this variety may be drawn from each agency’s level of importance of assessing the value of e-mail records. Among the four groups, if GC agencies plan to improve e-mail management practices, the initial development of a separate written e-mail management policy and guideline is strongly recommended as the best strategy for the GC.

Third, as for policy implementation, the degree of policy implementation again varies considerably. As a result, there are no standardized practices across agencies, which is one of the biggest challenges for Canadian government agencies. Regardless of existing e-mail policies or guidelines, some agencies still do not implement them properly, resulting in the remark that they “have failed to capture and manage e-mail records.” The reason for this may be affected by a lack of enforcement among employees. If that is the case, installing default functions to e-mail systems can be used to enforce the implementation of e-mail policies. To encourage employees to follow the policy, agencies may adopt incentives or penalties as a part of an enforcement strategy.

Fourth, regarding e-mail systems, it is a positive finding that respondents consider a corporate records management system to be an important tool to manage e-mail. However, agencies use different kinds of systems in practice. Although e-mail should be managed as official records within an electronic records management system, some agencies use and store e-mails via an e-mail messaging system only, without using an electronic records management system, which is another challenge to agencies because the absence of electronic records systems and tools means that the authenticity, reliability, integrity, and usability of e-mail records is not ensured in the lifecycle management. Furthermore, it is a negative finding that the practices of dealing with e-mails as corporate records vary. Half of the respondents stated that they save e-mail records to corporate records management systems, which is positive. However, 13% of the respondents indicated that they keep them only in an e-mail inbox and, worst of all, 29% of respondents still print and file hard copies of e-mail. As one solution to solve these unstandardized and outdated practices, installing GCDocs will enable agencies to standardize electronic records management, including e-mail records, in a consistent and accountable way across agencies. For the present, agencies are at unequal stages of implementing this system, and it is going at a slower pace than planned. Thus, installing GCDocs should be promoted to facilitate and complete the process.

Another reason for inconsistent practices at agencies is a result of a lack of employee training about implementing an e-mail policy. To move toward e-mail governance, implementing standardized policies and practices is key in supporting the effective management of e-mail records and sharing coherent practices through uniform systems. The findings of the survey show that since the GC tends to rely heavily on individual employees’ own responsibility for managing e-mail records, training for employees should be emphasized as the most critical factor for their performance in e-mail management (Zwarich 2014). Top managers at each government agency should understand the importance of standardized policies and practices and support employee training programs for their appropriate use and implementation. In addition, quality control programs are necessary to verify whether employees recognize the proper adoption of e-mail records and saving and managing them in compliance with an authorized e-mail records management policy.

For future development, the GC should continue to enhance transparency and accountability by moving forward toward fulfilling the Open Government Initiative (OGI). In 2016, more than 43 Canadian government agencies moved to a “common, modern, consolidated, secure, reliable and cost-effective email system to develop an information technology platform that underpins the vision of Blueprint 2020” (Shared Services Canada 2016, Email Transformation Initiative). Along with a new OGI direction, the GC will enhance its capacity to coherently manage electronic records and e-mail records.

Conclusion

As concern for effectively managing e-mail records has grown within Canadian government agencies, government-wide record management policies and systems at the federal level have enabled agencies to implement policies and adopt practices within their own context. This study shows that the policies, systems, and practices for e-mail management should be standardized across government agencies, and training should be further improved and aligned to effectively manage e-mail records. The results of this survey have contributed to understanding a portrait of the development and implementation of an e-mail management policy and improving practices at the GC. For future research, large-scale surveys and in-depth interviews with a bigger population of information management professionals will be designed to understand how e-mail management policies and e-mail management systems are put into practice comprehensively in a variety of settings within Canadian government agencies. Thus, the results of this study can help provide a snapshot of an e-mail management framework for the standardized directive of the GC.