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Treem JW, Barley WC, Weber MS, Barbour JB. Signaling and meaning in organizational analytics: coping with Goodhart's Law in an era of digitization and datafication. JOURNAL OF COMPUTER-MEDIATED COMMUNICATION : JCMC 2023; 28:zmad023. [PMID: 37520858 PMCID: PMC10376445 DOI: 10.1093/jcmc/zmad023] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/01/2022] [Revised: 02/14/2023] [Accepted: 04/11/2023] [Indexed: 08/01/2023]
Abstract
The future of work will be measured. The increasing and widespread adoption of analytics, the use of digital inputs and outputs to inform organizational decision making, makes the communication of data central to organizing. This article applies and extends signaling theory to provide a framework for the study of analytics as communication. We report three cases that offer examples of dubious, selective, and ambiguous signaling in the activities of workers seeking to shape the meaning of data within the practice of analytics. The analysis casts the future of work as a game of strategic moves between organizations, seeking to measure behaviors and quantify the performance of work, and workers, altering their behavioral signaling to meet situated goals. The framework developed offers a guide for future examinations of the asymmetric relationship between management and workers as organizations adopt metrics to monitor and evaluate work.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - William C Barley
- Department of Communication, University of Illinois Urbana–Champaign, Champaign, IL, USA
| | - Matthew S Weber
- Department of Communication, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, USA
| | - Joshua B Barbour
- Department of Communication Studies, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA
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2
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Data sustainability: Data governance in data infrastructures across technological and human generations. INFORMATION AND ORGANIZATION 2023. [DOI: 10.1016/j.infoandorg.2023.100449] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 03/06/2023]
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3
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Hetemi E, Pushkina O, Zerjav V. Collaborative practices of knowledge work in IT projects. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PROJECT MANAGEMENT 2022. [DOI: 10.1016/j.ijproman.2022.10.004] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/28/2022]
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4
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Barley WC, Ruge-Jones L, Wissa A, Suarez AV, Alleyne M. Addressing Diverse Motivations to Enable Bioinspired Design. Integr Comp Biol 2022; 62:icac041. [PMID: 35588375 DOI: 10.1093/icb/icac041] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/14/2022] Open
Abstract
Bioinspired design (BID) is an inherently interdisciplinary practice that connects fundamental biological knowledge with the capabilities of engineering solutions. This paper discusses common social challenges inherent to interdisciplinary research, and specific to collaborating across the disciplines of biology and engineering when practicing BID. We also surface best practices that members of the community have identified to help address these challenges. To accomplish this goal, we address challenges of bioinspiration through a lens of recent findings within the social scientific study of interdisciplinary teams. We propose three challenges faced in BID: (1) complex motivations across collaborating researchers, (2) misperceptions of relationships and benefits between biologists and engineers, and (3) institutionalized barriers that disincentivize interdisciplinary work. We advance specific recommendations for how to address each of these challenges.
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Affiliation(s)
- William C Barley
- Department of Communication, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 3001 Lincoln Hall MC-456, 702 S. Wright St., Urbana, IL 61801 USA
| | - Luisa Ruge-Jones
- Department of Communication, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 3001 Lincoln Hall MC-456, 702 S. Wright St., Urbana, IL 61801 USA
| | - Aimy Wissa
- Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering, Princeton University
| | - Andrew V Suarez
- Department of Entomology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
- Department of Evolution, Ecology, and Behavior, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
| | - Marianne Alleyne
- Department of Entomology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
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5
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Alaimo C, Kallinikos J. Organizations Decentered: Data Objects, Technology and Knowledge. ORGANIZATION SCIENCE 2021. [DOI: 10.1287/orsc.2021.1552] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/16/2022]
Abstract
Data are no longer simply a component of administrative and managerial work but a pervasive resource and medium through which organizations come to know and act upon the contingencies they confront. We theorize how the ongoing technological developments reinforce the traditional functions of data as instruments of management and control but also reframe and extend their role. By rendering data as technical entities, digital technologies transform the process of knowing and the knowledge functions data fulfil in socioeconomic life. These functions are most of the times mediated by putting together disperse and steadily updatable data in more stable entities we refer to as data objects. Users, customers, products, and physical machines rendered as data objects become the technical and cognitive means through which organizational knowledge, patterns, and practices develop. Such conditions loosen the dependence of data from domain knowledge, reorder the relative significance of internal versus external references in organizations, and contribute to a paradigmatic contemporary development that we identify with the decentering of organizations of which digital platforms are an important specimen.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Jannis Kallinikos
- LUISS University, Rome 00197, Italy
- The London School of Economics and Political Science, London WC2A 2AE, United Kingdom
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6
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Comi A, Vaara E. Political Dynamics in Knowledge Work: Using Visual Artifacts to Deal with Pragmatic Boundaries. ORGANIZATION SCIENCE 2021. [DOI: 10.1287/orsc.2021.1512] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/20/2022]
Abstract
Previous research on knowledge work has started to explore how organizational actors deal with pragmatic boundaries that arise from their different interests, priorities, and viewpoints. Material objects, such as visual artifacts, can be used to shape and manipulate pragmatic boundaries, but our understanding of these dynamics is only partial. In this paper, we maintain that focusing on the uses of visual artifacts offers an opportunity to deepen our understanding of the political aspects of knowledge work. To this end, we conducted a practice-based study of an architectural project in which the building design became contested. Our empirical analysis reveals four practices in which visual artifacts are used to deal with pragmatic boundaries: surfacing, bridging, preventing, and minimizing. Through these practices, organizational actors can make boundaries more or less visible with important implications on their power relations and the project at hand. The main contribution of our study is to advance understanding of the political dynamics in knowledge work by revealing how visual artifacts can be used to manipulate pragmatic boundaries. By so doing, our analysis also helps to move the conversation on visual artifacts beyond their role as epistemic objects that sustain (or hinder) knowledge work.
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Affiliation(s)
- Alice Comi
- College of Design and Innovation, Tongji University, Yangpu District, Shanghai 200092, China
- Corresponding author
| | - Eero Vaara
- Saïd Business School, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 1HP, United Kingdom
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Rowe F, Te’eni D, Merminod V. The maturation of digital objects in innovation projects: the role of interpersonal networks and team sharing atmosphere. EUR J INFORM SYST 2021. [DOI: 10.1080/0960085x.2021.1967210] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/20/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Frantz Rowe
- University of Nantes and SKEMA Business School, France
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Malhotra A, Majchrzak A, Lyytinen K. Socio-Technical Affordances for Large-Scale Collaborations: Introduction to a Virtual Special Issue. ORGANIZATION SCIENCE 2021. [DOI: 10.1287/orsc.2021.1457] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/20/2022]
Abstract
In this special issue, we review 14 articles published in Organization Science over the past 25 years examining large-scale collaborations (LSCs) tasked with knowledge dissemination and innovation. LSCs involve sizeable pools of participants carrying out a common mission such as developing open-source software, detector technologies, complex architecture, encyclopedias, medical cures, or responses to climate change. LSCs depend on technologies because they are often geographically distributed, incorporate multiple and diverse epistemic perspectives. How such technologies need to be structured and appropriated for effective LSC collaborations has been researched in piecemeal fashion by examining a single technology used in a single collaboration context with little opportunity for generalization. Studies have tended to black box technology use even though they acknowledge such uses to be critical to the LSC operation. We unveil the black box surrounding LSC collaboration technologies by identifying three challenges that LSCs face when they pursue an LSC effort: (1) knowledge exchange challenges, (2) knowledge deliberation challenges, and (3) knowledge combination challenges. We examine how technology was used in responding to these challenges, synthesizing their use into three socio-technical affordances to improve knowledge dissemination efficiency and innovation effectiveness: knowledge collaging, purposeful deliberating, and knowledge interlacing. We demonstrate the intellectual benefit of incorporating socio-technical affordances in studies of LSCs including what small group collaboration research can learn from LSCs.
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Affiliation(s)
- Arvind Malhotra
- Kenan-Flagler Business School, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27599
| | - Ann Majchrzak
- Department of Data Sciences and Operations, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California 90089
| | - Kalle Lyytinen
- Department of Design & Innovation, Weatherhead School of Management, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio 44106
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Leonardi PM, Woo D, Barley WC. On the making of crystal balls: Five lessons about simulation modeling and the organization of work. INFORMATION AND ORGANIZATION 2021. [DOI: 10.1016/j.infoandorg.2021.100339] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/26/2022]
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10
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Leonardi PM, Barley WC, Woo D. Why should i trust your model? How to successfully enroll digital models for innovation. INNOVATION-ORGANIZATION & MANAGEMENT 2021. [DOI: 10.1080/14479338.2021.1873787] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/22/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Paul M. Leonardi
- Technology Management, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA, USA
| | - William C. Barley
- Department of Communication, University of Illinois, Champaign, IL, USA
| | - DaJung Woo
- Department of Communication, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, USA
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11
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Katz JH, Herman GL, Johnson MA, Loewenstein J. Cultivating not gatekeeping: a key leadership role in the creative process. BMJ LEADER 2021. [DOI: 10.1136/leader-2020-000352] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/04/2022]
Abstract
Background Creativity and innovation are frequent features in healthcare discussions and proposals. A burgeoning area of research shows that evaluating proposals is a crucial juncture in the creative process. Leadership can make a substantial difference in how well the evaluation process does.Result Organisational leaders want creativity, yet often inadvertently act as gatekeepers and disproportionately reject creative proposals. We review research to provide guidance for leaders on how to cultivate creativity through improvements in the process of evaluating proposals.
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Dosi C, Mattarelli E, Vignoli M. Prototypes as identity markers: The double‐edged role of prototypes in multidisciplinary innovation teams. CREATIVITY AND INNOVATION MANAGEMENT 2020. [DOI: 10.1111/caim.12410] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/29/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Clio Dosi
- Management Engineering, School of Economics Management and Statistics University of Bologna Bologna Italy
| | - Elisa Mattarelli
- School of Management San José State University One Washington Square San Jose CA 95112 USA
| | - Matteo Vignoli
- Management Engineering, School of Economics Management and Statistics University of Bologna Bologna Italy
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13
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Zhang X, Wang X. Team learning in interdisciplinary research teams: antecedents and consequences. JOURNAL OF KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT 2020. [DOI: 10.1108/jkm-07-2019-0372] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/17/2022]
Abstract
Purpose
Team learning is critical to interdisciplinary research teams (IDR teams) to use heterogeneous knowledge effectively. Nevertheless, team learning is rarely addressed in the IDR team literature. Also, few studies investigate the antecedents and consequences of team learning in IDR teams, leading to a lack of guidance for management practices. This study aims to investigate how team learning can be developed and how team learning influences team outcomes in IDR teams.
Design/methodology/approach
A questionnaire survey on 304 members of 37 IDR teams in a research university in China is conducted. Data are analyzed using a partial least square structural equation modeling.
Findings
The results support most hypotheses in general. For the antecedent variables, task interdependence, trust and constructive conflict positively affect team learning. For the outcome variables, team learning improves shared mental models, coordination quality and team performance significantly. Additionally, task uncertainty positively moderates the team learning-coordination quality relation and team learning-team performance relation. However, this paper does not find support for the moderating role of task uncertainty on the team learning-shared mental models relation.
Originality/value
To the best of the knowledge, this is the first study investigating the antecedents and consequences of team learning in IDR teams. A multidimensional measurement of team learning for the IDR team context is developed. This study investigates how team behavioral factors influence team learning and the effect of team learning on shared mental models, coordination quality and team performance. This study also explores the contingency role of task uncertainty in the effects of team learning.
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Leonardi PM, Treem JW. Behavioral Visibility: A new paradigm for organization studies in the age of digitization, digitalization, and datafication. ORGANIZATION STUDIES 2020. [DOI: 10.1177/0170840620970728] [Citation(s) in RCA: 52] [Impact Index Per Article: 13.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/16/2022]
Abstract
The digitization, digitalization, and datafication of work and communication, coupled with social and technical infrastructures that enable connectivity, are making it increasingly easy for the behaviors of people, collectives, and technological devices to see and be seen. Such digital connectivity gives rise to the important phenomenon of behavioral visibility. We argue that studying the antecedents, processes, and consequences of behavioral visibility should be a central concern for scholars of organizing. We attempt to set the cornerstones for the study of behavioral visibility by considering the social and technological contexts that are enabling behavioral visibility, developing the concept of behavioral visibility by defining its various components, considering the conditions through which it is commonly produced, and outlining potential consequences of behavioral visibility in the form of three paradoxes. We conclude with some conjectures about the kinds of research questions, empirical foci, and methodological strategies that scholars will need to embrace in order to understand how behavioral visibility shapes and is shaped by the process of organizing as we catapult, swiftly, into an era where artificial intelligence, learning algorithms, and social tools are changing the way people work.
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15
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Kou CY. Subjective interdependencies in knowledge integration. KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT RESEARCH & PRACTICE 2020. [DOI: 10.1080/14778238.2019.1678413] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/25/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Chia-Yu Kou
- School of Business, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland
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16
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Järvi K, Almpanopoulou A, Ritala P. Organization of knowledge ecosystems: Prefigurative and partial forms. RESEARCH POLICY 2018. [DOI: 10.1016/j.respol.2018.05.007] [Citation(s) in RCA: 33] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/16/2022]
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17
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McAllum K. Coming “home” to do glocal engaged scholarship? A reflexive account of managing competing commitments during an organizational ethnography. JOURNAL OF ORGANIZATIONAL ETHNOGRAPHY 2018. [DOI: 10.1108/joe-12-2017-0066] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/17/2022]
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to focus on how the author’s status as an international academic wanting to maintain “local” research relationships in the author’s country of origin both improved and derailed the process of conducting an organizational ethnography.
Design/methodology/approach
Using visual representations of the research design process inspired by Maxwell’s (2013) model, the paper traces the evolution of a glocal engaged scholarship project and the personal, professional, and commitments that pulled the researcher and the research project in competing directions.
Findings
The first iteration of the project showed that, despite geographical nomadism, the author was firmly anchored to professional norms and methodological choices, with these attachments to values, principles, and practices constituting a global academic “home.” As the project unfolded, local organizational needs and desires that called into question the researcher’s local organizational knowledge and methodological choices destabilized the author’s sense of home, creating a situation of “away-ness” that acted as a catalyst for reflexivity about the project and relationships with organizational partners.
Originality/value
By overturning a view of home as being rooted in a particular locale and homelessness as being nomadic, this confessional tale problematizes the idea that some organizational ethnographers and projects are local while others are foreign.
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Maas JB, van Fenema PC, Soeters J. ERP as an organizational innovation: key users and cross-boundary knowledge management. JOURNAL OF KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT 2016. [DOI: 10.1108/jkm-05-2015-0195] [Citation(s) in RCA: 17] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/17/2022]
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to provide more insight in the ways key users act as knowledge managers and boundary spanners during the enterprise resource planning (ERP) system usage phase. Despite the recognized importance of key users during the implementation phase of an ERP system, little is known about their role in the ERP usage phase.
Design/methodology/approach
To provide rich insight in the boundary-spanning mechanisms utilized by key users to share knowledge, a qualitative approach was applied. In this study, “abductive” theme coding for 58 interviews with key users, end-users and managers has been used. This paper found six mechanisms and characterized them as “crossing” structural, social or cognitive boundaries.
Findings
Six boundary-spanning mechanisms have been distinguished which have been applied by key users to overcome several knowledge management issues. Subsequently, these mechanisms lead to a model which describes three different roles that key users may fulfill to efficiently share and transfer knowledge during the ERP usage phase.
Research limitations/implications
Knowledge barriers during an ERP implementation and their accompanying six boundary-crossing mechanisms have been distinguished.
Practical implications
The recognition of the essential role that key users can fulfill during the usage phase of an ERP system is an important implication. Management has to take into account that tasks and responsibilities of key users have to be clear from the start and they may cautiously select employees who are suited to become key users.
Originality/value
The main contribution is the importance of the impact of key users on the effectivity of knowledge management during the ERP usage phase.
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