Clues, cues and complexity: unpackuing the concept of organizational surprise

We discuss why surprises, defined as events that happen unexpectedly or expected events that take unexpected shapes, are important to organizations and should be considered in the organizational literature. The concept of organizational surprises is unpacked on the basis of a typology built around the (un)expectedeness of issue and process. This typology uncovers the several types of surprising events that organizations may face, and contributes to the literature by suggesting that different surprises require distinct approaches.

DISCO: Distributed Multi-domain SDN Controllers

Modern multi-domain networks now span over datacenter networks, enterprise networks, customer sites and mobile entities. Such networks are critical and, thus, must be resilient, scalable and easily extensible. The emergence of Software-Defined Networking (SDN) protocols, which enables to decouple the data plane from the control plane and dynamically program the network, opens up new ways to architect such networks. In this paper, we propose DISCO, an open and extensible DIstributed SDN COntrol plane able to cope with the distributed and heterogeneous nature of modern overlay networks and wide area networks. DISCO controllers manage their own network domain and communicate with each others to provide end-to-end network services. This communication is based on a unique lightweight and highly manageable control channel used by agents to self-adaptively share aggregated network-wide information. We implemented DISCO on top of the Floodlight OpenFlow controller and the AMQP protocol. We demonstrated how DISCO's control plane dynamically adapts to heterogeneous network topologies while being resilient enough to survive to disruptions and attacks and providing classic functionalities such as end-point migration and network-wide traffic engineering. The experimentation results we present are organized around three use cases: inter-domain topology disruption, end-to-end priority service request and virtual machine migration

(Re)writing biography: Memory, identity, and textually mediated reality in coming to terms with the past

This paper is concerned with how biography, memory, and identity are managed and displayed in a public confession of having been an informer for the Securitate (the former Romanian Communist Secret Police). Drawing on discursive psychology, the analysis reveals how biographical details are produced by drawing upon categorizations of people, context, and events, and organizationally relevant products such as the ‘‘archive,’’ the (Securitate) ‘‘file,’’ ‘‘information notes,’’ and personal notes. It is suggested that constructions of memory and identity are legitimated through a relationship with an organizational and personal accomplishment of accountability. The question guiding the analysis asks not why, but how remembering assumes the form that it does and how, ultimately, it can connect biography, memory, and identity to the wider ideological context. It is shown that a process of (re)writing biography is located in the ‘‘textual traces’’ contained in personal and ‘‘official’’ records. Recollections, dispositions, intentions, and moral character are intertwined with a textually mediated reality in producing the public record of disclosure, and the personal and political significance of what is remembered

Approved routes and alternative paths: the construction of women's rarity in large accounting firms. Evidence from the Big Four France

Despite decades of gender-balanced recruitment and clear-cut criteria for promotion based on meritocracy, women in public accounting firms remain proportionally fewer in number in the highest levels of the hierarchy than men. This paper aims to explore the mechanisms fostering women's rarity in top positions within French accounting firms in terms of organizationally constructed approved paths. Drawing on 21 semi-structured interviews with both male and female accountants, the specificities of these approved paths, alongside the construction of alternative, feminised routes, lacking the legitimacy of the former and often implying a derailment of women's careers from a very early stage, will be explored. It is suggested that more than a matter of only lifestyle preferences or practical constraints, this rarity is constructed by the interplay between the two, often resulting in "unintended and unwanted consequences, which retroactively may become unacknowledged conditions of future actions" (Giddens, 1984: 76). The focus of this study is to understand how the discursive and practical components of daily routines contribute to the reproduction of Big Four's gendered culture. Furthermore, this paper invites to question the concept of the glass ceiling and consider the construction of women's rarity in the accounting profession in terms of a labyrinth.gender, Big Four, career path, lifestyles, constraints, glass ceiling, France

Inside the Corporate Veil: The Character and Consequences of Executives’ Duties

This paper is based on a keynote address to the 2006 annual workshop of the Australian Corporate Law Teachers\u27 Association on The Pathology of Corporate Law. The paper\u27s thesis is that fuller understanding of many corporate malfunctions requires examination of organizational structures and patterns of interaction below the level of the board within a corporation\u27s hierarchy. The paper argues that there is merit to mandating duties of skill and care at the executive level, drawing on examples of executive conduct in recent corporate fiascos. The paper also explores the application of the business judgment rule to officers. As conventionally formulated, the rule\u27s prototypical subject appears to be a board of directors that, exercising original and undelegated power, makes discrete decisions about particular transactions or other matters. The paper questions the rule\u27s applicability to the work done by officers, many of whom may be appointed on the basis of a reasonable belief that they will diligently bring relevant skills to bear in an ordinarily careful manner

Cognitive modeling of social behaviors

To understand both individual cognition and collective activity, perhaps the greatest opportunity today is to integrate the cognitive modeling approach (which stresses how beliefs are formed and drive behavior) with social studies (which stress how relationships and informal practices drive behavior). The crucial insight is that norms are conceptualized in the individual mind as ways of carrying out activities. This requires for the psychologist a shift from only modeling goals and tasks —why people do what they do—to modeling behavioral patterns—what people do—as they are engaged in purposeful activities. Instead of a model that exclusively deduces actions from goals, behaviors are also, if not primarily, driven by broader patterns of chronological and located activities (akin to scripts). To illustrate these ideas, this article presents an extract from a Brahms simulation of the Flashline Mars Arctic Research Station (FMARS), in which a crew of six people are living and working for a week, physically simulating a Mars surface mission. The example focuses on the simulation of a planning meeting, showing how physiological constraints (e.g., hunger, fatigue), facilities (e.g., the habitat’s layout) and group decision making interact. Methods are described for constructing such a model of practice, from video and first-hand observation, and how this modeling approach changes how one relates goals, knowledge, and cognitive architecture. The resulting simulation model is a powerful complement to task analysis and knowledge-based simulations of reasoning, with many practical applications for work system design, operations management, and training

Re-thinking the project manager's role and practice : a case study in the context of an IT department

This thesis explores the social construction of the project manager role and its enactment within an organizational context. The research builds on the themes of the Rethinking Project Management agenda in focusing on research that is about, in and for project management practice (Winter et al. 2006b). The complex organization context of project practice is engaged with and themes such as role legitimacy, organizational power, organizational boundaries and the nature of project and organizational time are explored. The importance of the influence of the professional association’s project management model to the construction of the organizational project manager role and enactment is investigated. The research utilizes an empirically focused treatment of structuration theory (Giddens 1984) as a conceptual framework in addressing the social construction of the project managers’ role and its enactment. The research was conducted using a case study approach in which multiple instances of project managers’ practice in a shared IT organizational context were examined from the perspective of interactions across the boundary between the projects and the organization. The case study data was analysed and findings were generated through the iterative engagement with the organizational phenomena, the conceptual framework and the research questions being explored. The conclusions of the research support the Rethinking Project Management agenda and propose a wider and more social consideration of projects and their management that takes into account the social construction of projects, the importance of boundary spanning activities and objects, and the social nature of time as key elements in rethinking the role and practice of project managers