Towards Understanding an Employee's Retention Behavior: Antecedents and Implications for E-mail Governance

Despite the rise of social media in the business context, e-mail is still the pervasive and ubiquitous means of corporate communication documenting the majority of all business activities. Due to its decisive role in providing evidence in litigations or compliance audits, e-mail has gained the notion of a “smoking gun”. Thus, the effective retention and disposal of e-mails is of vital importance for firms in an effort to ensure compliance and reduce their litigation risks. This study investigates an employee’s e-mail retention behavior. Drawing on the theory of planned behavior and prospect theory, we derive a research model that identifies the antecedents of employees’ corporate e-mail retention behavior. The model is tested with data collected from 105 employees. While only 31% of the participants report the existence of retention policies, our results indicate that a combination of technological and socio-organizational measures is adequate to influence an employee’s retention behavior.