Shared understanding in networked organizations

Abstract

Creating shared understanding has always been seen as a factor for achieving corporate goals in management. Traditionally hierarchy and bureaucracy have been organizational coordination mechanisms to align the efforts of employees towards organization performance. Today, we must recognize that a new set of communication tools, new social media, is challenging the impact of formerly successful organizational practices. With social media employees build their own independent networks and exhibit work practices and professional behavior that are outside any norms of planned bureaucratic structures. In this paper, we explore this shift in attitudes and behavior and re-conceptualize the notion of shared understanding in a network environment. Early examples of networked organizations, like concurrent engineering, show that shared understanding remains a strong impact factor on organizational performance and that there are managerial measures beyond hierarchy and bureaucracy to create shared understanding among network members.