Résumé en anglais

Managers spend much of their time communicating and use an ever-larger range of communication tools for the purpose. Empirical studies have shown that while ICT tools extend communication opportunities, they do not replace other means of communication. Instead, managers use a set of communication tools in which traditional media coexist alongside ICT tools. In addition, studying the use of just one medium fails to give us a full picture of managerial communication. To gain a better understanding, we need to examine how a range of different means of communication are used. To this end, we conducted a case study in a car manufacturing company with data mainly collected through interviews with 36 managers. Our analysis of the data showed that managers use a set of communication tools that form superposed layers, each new ICT being layered over the existing media. Far from being the result of individual-level rational use, this layering process is socially constructed by the different users depending on their context. Our study identified three forms of layering, namely “subject to constraint”, “planned and emergent”, or “chosen”. We argue that these differences in the layering process can help explain disparities in the outcomes of ICT adoption between organisations.