How can we measure Email Overload?

In times of digital information and communication technologies the overload by emails becomes more and more relevant for many employees. To reduce or even avoid this overload, companies can implement specific countermeasures as soon as they recognize the overflow their employees’ experience. But if somebody is overloaded can not be answered directly by oneself; therefore it is necessary to use suitable constructs to measure email overload. This article includes a literature review to identify constructs to measure this phenomenon. From the field of information systems 55 highly ranked journals and conferences, furthermore 24 sources from the field of psychology were included. Finally, we could identify three different constructs by Dabbish and Kraut (2006), Hogan and Fisher (2006), and Sumecki, Chipulu and Ojiako (2011) to measure email overload. Beyond that, the article focuses on the description of the development of these instruments, discusses advantages and disadvantages, and gives an outlook what should be improved in these instruments in the future