Triangulation des méthodes pour une analyse de lgactivité selon différents points de vue: exemple de la gestion des emails chez des cadres surchargés

The activity of email management takes a central place in the professional life of a lot of managers. We already know the several advantages of email like immediacy, speed of response and low-cost, but nowadays, users are more and more complaining about their daily difficult email management. The aim of this article is twofold: we present the interest of a triangulation of methods, articulating extrinsic and situated viewpoint (observations), intrinsic situated (diaries, in-depth interviews) and not situated viewpoints (questionnaires), which appears as an original research strategy for highlighting a multifaceted activity; we also illustrate the relevance description of empirical data for improve our understanding of the identified phenomena. From the study of 2 panels of email overloaded managers (in-depth study of 9 managers, overloaded by their emails management and 200 other managers responding to a questionnaire), and after stressing the advantages, the disadvantages and the complementarity offered by each methodological step, we present the deployment of this activity of management email, interruptions and signs of tensions observed in situ, the detail of the various stages of processing emails, the content and type of particularly costly emails considered g FOR problematicg by managers and the associated negative emotions.