{"title":"Legitimating digital technologies in industry exchange fields: The case of digital signatures","authors":"Laila Dahabiyeh , Panos Constantinides","doi":"10.1016/j.infoandorg.2022.100392","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.infoandorg.2022.100392","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p><span><span><span>Emergent digital technologies need to be legitimated for them to enable new marketplaces to diffuse and scale. The extant literature has emphasized the role of discourse in framing legitimation efforts. Despite recognizing the broader role of technology in the legitimation process, these studies have not examined the specific affordances of digital technologies used by field members and also how this relates to the institutional infrastructure of the field to influence the legitimation process. In our study of an </span>industry exchange field, we drew on </span>archival data between 1997 and 2001 to examine how members of the then emergent e-commerce industry exchange field achieved legitimation of digital signatures in electronic transactions through legislation. Our research contributes to </span>extant research by showing how the legitimation process involves invoking and scaling affordances through sensegiving, translating, and decoupling mechanisms. We also show how affordances are conditioned by the specific institutional infrastructure that supports and enables them, and how issue fields can arise within exchange fields as spaces to (re)negotiate and shape institutional changes. We conclude with implications for further research into the diffusion and scale of digital marketplaces that is of increasing importance in light of recent regulatory debates.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":47253,"journal":{"name":"Information and Organization","volume":"32 1","pages":"Article 100392"},"PeriodicalIF":6.3,"publicationDate":"2022-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"50165925","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Helping at NASA: Guidelines for using process consultation to develop impactful research","authors":"Loizos Heracleous","doi":"10.1016/j.infoandorg.2022.100388","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.infoandorg.2022.100388","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Management research has long been criticized for its perceived lack of relevance or impact beyond academia. How can we, as management scholars, create research that is more relevant and impactful? I argue that Edgar Schein's process consultation approach can be part of the answer. Process consultation's ultimate aim is to help client organizations. Key aspects of what is now recognized as engaged scholarship were fundamental to process consultation even before engaged scholarship was part of the management vocabulary. Based on my engagement process with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration since 2013, I argue that trust can fruitfully be seen as an outcome and an enabler of productive long-term helping relationships and of engaged scholarship; that what I call <em>pragmatic bricolage</em> is important in terms of offering help based on the client's needs as they develop at different junctures; and that unexpected dilemmas in such relationships are inevitable, but ways forward can be found by applying key principles of social systems. I conclude by outlining guidelines for impactful research and for disseminating research to wider audiences.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":47253,"journal":{"name":"Information and Organization","volume":"32 1","pages":"Article 100388"},"PeriodicalIF":6.3,"publicationDate":"2022-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S147177272200001X/pdfft?md5=abcea71bb6da557ba7a811e64d0debd9&pid=1-s2.0-S147177272200001X-main.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"50165934","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Organizational scandal on social media: Workers whistleblowing on YouTube and Facebook","authors":"Tamar Lazar","doi":"10.1016/j.infoandorg.2022.100390","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.infoandorg.2022.100390","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p><span>The paper explores the emergence of organizational scandals on social media, and how the communicative dynamics of such scandals evolve as a social drama. I propose that when whistleblowers utilize information technologies to expose evidence of organizational misconduct, they, and their audiences, engage in </span><em>meta- organizational discourse</em>: The reflexive – immediate and durational – interactions through which organizational stakeholders instigate organizational scandals on social media, negotiate the normative boundaries of whistleblowing, and (de)legitimize the act of disclosing managerial transgressions online. I examine an organizational scandal embedded in the recent wave of workers’ unionization struggles in Israel in which whistleblowers performed the role of investigative journalists by posting a video on YouTube exposing a senior manager trying to dissuade workers from joining the union. Following that, on workers’ unionization Facebook pages, union supporters and opponents vigorously deliberated the intentions and consequences of publicly shaming their manager and damaging the reputation of their company. Analyzing workers’ discourse suggests that participants from both sides experienced the scandal as something that affected all company employees. They acknowledged the high visibility of their social drama and recognized the potential impact of whistleblowing online across organizational spatial and temporal boundaries.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":47253,"journal":{"name":"Information and Organization","volume":"32 1","pages":"Article 100390"},"PeriodicalIF":6.3,"publicationDate":"2022-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"50165931","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Figuring out IT markets: How and why industry analysts launch, adjust and abandon categories","authors":"Neil Pollock, Robin Williams, Luciana D'Adderio","doi":"10.1016/j.infoandorg.2022.100389","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.infoandorg.2022.100389","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Despite being a source of significant change, there has been little focus on how and why industry analysts constantly launch, adjust and abandon market-defining categories. To address this issue, we investigate the Big Three industry analyst firms and find that they promote categories clients find valuable and adjust or abandon those no longer attracting attention. Bringing together insights from information systems research and category scholarship, we show that industry analysts ensure their expertise is seen as relevant to clients through material and visual processes theorised as category-work, figuring-work, and client-mapping, which together create client-induced categories’. This novel theorisation throws light on the processes market intermediaries use to align categories with client concerns and how incorporating categories in graphical figurations can intensify the cycle of category creation and abandonment. It also enhances understanding of the dynamics surrounding transitory terminologies and opens up new research opportunities for studying IT markets.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":47253,"journal":{"name":"Information and Organization","volume":"32 1","pages":"Article 100389"},"PeriodicalIF":6.3,"publicationDate":"2022-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1471772722000021/pdfft?md5=770c91d1e291abf579644cb7d4a2fcb2&pid=1-s2.0-S1471772722000021-main.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"109128870","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Crowdworkers, social affirmation and work identity: Rethinking dominant assumptions of crowdwork1","authors":"Ayomikun Idowu , Amany Elbanna","doi":"10.1016/j.infoandorg.2021.100335","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.infoandorg.2021.100335","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Crowdwork is becoming increasingly popular as evidenced by its rapid growth. It is a new way of working that is conducted through global digital platforms where money is exchanged for services provided online. As it is digitally grounded, it has been assumed to be context-free, uniform and consisting of a simple exchange of tasks/labour from a global workforce for direct monetary pay. In this study, we examine these dominant, largely Western assumptions from crowdworkers' perspective and turn to a non-Western context to destabilise them. We adopt an inductive research approach using multiple sources of qualitative data including interviews, participant observations, documents review, observation of social media chat rooms and online forums. The study reveals that as they lack organisational, occupational and professional context and referent, crowdworkers rely on social affirmation in the construction of their work identity. They construct a work identity of who they are that cuts across the boundaries between themselves, the digital work they do and their social environment. This constructed work identity then frames how they do crowdwork and their relationships with digital platforms and employers. This study advances theories about crowdwork contesting the dominant assumptions and showing that it is not context free, neither it is a simple exchange of labour. Further, it shows that the construction of a crowdwork identity in context plays a significant role in shaping the way this digitally-grounded work is conducted and managed.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":47253,"journal":{"name":"Information and Organization","volume":"31 4","pages":"Article 100335"},"PeriodicalIF":6.3,"publicationDate":"2021-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1016/j.infoandorg.2021.100335","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122098364","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Distributed seeing: Algorithms and the reconfiguration of the workplace, a case of 'automated' trading","authors":"Thijs Willems , Ella Hafermalz","doi":"10.1016/j.infoandorg.2021.100376","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.infoandorg.2021.100376","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Contemporary organizations increasingly rely on digital technologies structuring how work gets done. Algorithms in particular are fundamental for such technologies. Management literature on digital transformation has studied how algorithms either automate or augment work. In doing so, this literature treats algorithms as largely independent from existing work practices. This paper, on the contrary, theorizes and empirically illustrates how algorithms transform the workplace in a spatiotemporal sense by introducing a new epistemic vantage point through which work is understood. We do so by drawing on previous work on reconfiguration and ‘Ways of Seeing’, and through a qualitative case study on sports trading. Our analysis shows that traders and algorithms each perceive and see the market in specific, though incomplete ways. Since this market is partly virtual and constituted via a range of heterogeneous actors, ‘seeing’ the market entails knowing its distributed nature and pulling spatiotemporal distant elements together. Our paper contributes to the literature on the effects of algorithms on work by putting forward the conceptual lens of ‘distributed seeing’. This highlights that digital transformation is more than an instrumental optimization process by automating or augmenting tasks with technology but that it actively reconfigures the work to be done. We show that digital transformation 1) is reciprocal and thus irreversible; 2) patchworked and thus requires mending work; 3) introduces new organizational vulnerabilities.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":47253,"journal":{"name":"Information and Organization","volume":"31 4","pages":"Article 100376"},"PeriodicalIF":6.3,"publicationDate":"2021-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"50165966","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The re-regulation of working communities and relationships in the context of flexwork: A spacing identity approach","authors":"Michel Ajzen, Laurent Taskin","doi":"10.1016/j.infoandorg.2021.100364","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.infoandorg.2021.100364","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Existing studies on flexwork stress its individualizing inclination by showing how it gives autonomy to employees, boosts individual productivity, or supports personal well-being at the expense of group cohesiveness, social ties and other characteristics of the “collective” in organizations. Obviously, flexwork both continues and contributes to an individualization process of working activities and relationships. But, how exactly does flexwork re-regulate working relationships and communities? Is the “collective” irremediably damaged and doomed to disappear? Building on a case study conducted in an insurance company having implemented flexwork, we observe invisibilized employees working from diverse premises (e.g., home, office, etc.) initiating alternative ways of staying united and close. This article shows the re-regulation of these working relationships and communities' through a collective identity process involving de/re-spacing identity; i.e., the spatial and material aspects of flexible work in relation to identity.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":47253,"journal":{"name":"Information and Organization","volume":"31 4","pages":"Article 100364"},"PeriodicalIF":6.3,"publicationDate":"2021-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1016/j.infoandorg.2021.100364","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124638122","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Jeremy Aroles , Dubravka Cecez-Kecmanovic , Karen Dale , Sytze F. Kingma , Nathalie Mitev
{"title":"New ways of working (NWW): Workplace transformation in the digital age","authors":"Jeremy Aroles , Dubravka Cecez-Kecmanovic , Karen Dale , Sytze F. Kingma , Nathalie Mitev","doi":"10.1016/j.infoandorg.2021.100378","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.infoandorg.2021.100378","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>In the introductory paper of this special issue on new ways of working (NWW) the editors first reflect on the meaning of the ‘new’, finding inspiration in Hannes Meyer's essay “The New World” (1926). The ‘new’ is always relative, of course, closely associated with technological innovation, in our case digitalization<span>, and integrates spatiotemporal, technological and socio-cultural dimensions of life and organizing. This SI seeks to offer a reflection on and contribution to deeper understanding of ongoing flexibilization, virtualization and mediation of work practices. The authors go on to contextualize and discuss the contributions of the papers included in this special issue, focussing on significant technological, spatiotemporal, organizational and individual developments associated with new ways of working. Finally, they reflect on the possible relevance of the recent Covid-19 pandemic for the future of work, arguing that this pandemic accelerated NWW in many ways and – given the many paradoxical NWW dynamics and developments – that there could very well be unexpected and adverse consequences, including a turn away from formal ways of working.</span></p></div>","PeriodicalId":47253,"journal":{"name":"Information and Organization","volume":"31 4","pages":"Article 100378"},"PeriodicalIF":6.3,"publicationDate":"2021-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"131613459","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The (re-)configuration of digital work in the wake of profound technological innovation: Constellations and hidden work","authors":"Stefan Klein , Mary Beth Watson-Manheim","doi":"10.1016/j.infoandorg.2021.100377","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.infoandorg.2021.100377","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>This paper explores the technology-induced transformation of work by examining two fields, robotic surgery and teaching from home via Zoom. We begin by examining the perspectives of individual surgeons and lecturers and the relational, organizational, and institutional settings in which they are embedded. Recognizing and emphasizing the idiosyncrasies of these cases, we develop theoretical lenses that allow us to identify the dynamics of the transformation and patterns in reconfiguration work.</p><p>To investigate these illustrative cases of digital work and their implications, we employ two conceptual frames, 1) configuration work (<span>Suchman, 2012</span>), specifically emergent configurations of digital-human work, and 2) orders of change (<span>Bartunek & Moch, 1987</span>), emphasizing the role and development of frameworks in making sense of organizational change.</p><p>We thus combine multi-faceted accounts of individuals' experiences of “figuring out” how to make digital work feasible with reflections on how the transformation of work affects the identities of individuals, organizations, and institutions. We propose that this transformation affects the ways in which we think about ourselves, our colleagues and employers, and the institutions that shape our work.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":47253,"journal":{"name":"Information and Organization","volume":"31 4","pages":"Article 100377"},"PeriodicalIF":6.3,"publicationDate":"2021-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"50165967","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"From sites to vibes: Technology and the spatial production of coworking spaces","authors":"Nada Endrissat , Aurélie Leclercq-Vandelannoitte","doi":"10.1016/j.infoandorg.2021.100353","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.infoandorg.2021.100353","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p><span><span>Mobile and network technologies enable new ways of working (NWW) that disrupt spatial relations and move work to spaces outside formal organizational boundaries. This article addresses this shift by examining the spatial consequences of everyday practices of technology in the context of coworking spaces (CWS) as a pronounced example of where NWW take place. Conceptually, this article links research on technology as a sociomaterial practice with literature on organizational space. Empirically, it draws from a </span>qualitative study of 25 CWS and offers a theorization of the co-constitutive processes with relevant insights for both technology and organization studies. First, this article adds to research on the relational and dialectic nature of technology by documenting its implications in the constitution of CWS as </span><em>site</em>, <em>contestation</em>, and <em>atmosphere</em>. Second, it contributes to existing knowledge on space by shifting the focus from physical <em>sites</em> to spatial atmospheres and <em>vibes</em> that are produced through technology use and the copresence of others. It problematizes engagement with NWW by highlighting how the flexibility to work anytime, anywhere is tied to new responsibilities, including <em>spacing work</em> and <em>spatial self-management,</em> as workers are required to coproduce and aptly navigate the sites and vibes of NWW to achieve personal productivity and affective sociality.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":47253,"journal":{"name":"Information and Organization","volume":"31 4","pages":"Article 100353"},"PeriodicalIF":6.3,"publicationDate":"2021-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1016/j.infoandorg.2021.100353","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"50166548","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}