Facilitating Organisational Fluidity with Computational Social Matching

Striving to operate in increasingly dynamic environments, organisations can be seen as fluid and communicative entities where traditional boundaries fade away and collaborations emerge ad hoc. To enhance fluidity, we conceptualise computational social matching as a research area investigating how to digitally support the development of mutually suitable compositions of collaborative ties in organisations. In practice, it refers to the use of data analytics and digital methods to identify features of individuals and the structures of existing social networks and to offer automated recommendations for matching actors. In this chapter, we outline an interdisciplinary theoretical space that provides perspectives on how interaction can be practically enhanced by computational social matching, both on the societal and organisational levels. We derive and describe three strategies for professional social matching: social exploration, network theory-based recommendations, and machine learning-based recommendations.Striving to operate in increasingly dynamic environments, organisations can be seen as fluid and communicative entities where traditional boundaries fade away and collaborations emerge ad hoc. To enhance fluidity, we conceptualise computational social matching as a research area investigating how to digitally support the development of mutually suitable compositions of collaborative ties in organisations. In practice, it refers to the use of data analytics and digital methods to identify features of individuals and the structures of existing social networks and to offer automated recommendations for matching actors. In this chapter, we outline an interdisciplinary theoretical space that provides perspectives on how interaction can be practically enhanced by computational social matching, both on the societal and organisational levels. We derive and describe three strategies for professional social matching: social exploration, network theory-based recommendations, and machine learning-based recommendations.Peer reviewe

Organizational Discourse: Domains, Debates, and Directions

Interest in the analysis of organizational discourse has expanded rapidly over the last two decades. In this article, we reflect critically on organizational discourse analysis as an approach to the study of organizations and management, highlighting both its strengths and areas of challenge. We begin with an explanation of the nature of organizational discourse analysis and outline some of the more significant contributions made to date. We then discuss existing classifications of approaches to the study of organizational discourse and suggest that they fall into two main categories: classifications by level of analysis and classifications by type of method. We argue that both of these approaches are inherently problematic and present an alternative way to understand the varieties of approaches to the analysis of organizational discourse based on within domain and across domain characterizations. We conclude with a discussion of the challenges that remain in the development of organizational discourse as an area of study and point to some of the opportunities for important and unique contributions to our understanding of organizations and management that this family of methods brings. © 2012 Copyright Academy of Management

Does the end justify the means? Information systems and control society in the age of pandemics

As the COVID-19 pandemic unfolds, governments across the globe are enforcing various Information Systems (IS)-based systems of control that, we contend, augur a new organisation of our freedoms, raising concerns related to issues of surveillance and control. Presented as ways to curb the immediate progression of the pandemic, these systems have progressively appertained our lives, thus becoming the new “normal”. Drawing from the concept of “control societies” developed by Deleuze, we explore how, through a logic of “the end justifies the means”, these new systems are being normalised. Beyond Deleuzian studies that describe modern society as a control society, we contend that Deleuze provides useful insights to critically analyse the progressive “normalization” of new forms of digitally enabled control, as well as the implications of this normalisation process. The analysis of this normalisation process highlights the ways in which the current pandemic and its response (i.e., new forms of technological control) are “sociomaterially constructed” through a historic, discursive, and material process. Contributing to MIS research on privacy and surveillance, this reflection on the sociomaterial construction of the control society and of its digitally enabled control systems during the current COVID-19 crisis paves the way to possible forms of resistance and solutions

Email: survivor or walking dead? An exploratory study of thepotential replacement of email by enterprise social networks

International audienc

Control and surveillance in work practice: cultivating paradox in ‘new’ modes of organizing

International audienceThe new world of work is being characterized by the emergence of what are, apparently, increasingly autonomous ways of working and living. Mobile work, coworking, flex office, platform-based entrepreneurship, virtual collaborations, Do It Yourself (DIT), remote work, digital nomads, among other trends, epitomize ways of organizing work practice that purportedly align productivity with freedom. But most ethnographical research already reveals many paradoxical experiences associated with these new practices and processes. Indeed, it appears that with autonomy comes surveillance and control, to a point where, as Foucault observed way back, subjectivity and subject become synonyms, and the current pandemic both strengthens and makes visible this situation. In this introduction to the special issue we make a foray into this situation, using four open and related themes developed in the five papers we selected: managerial control and technology; surveillance and platform capitalism; time and space; and new organizational forms and autonomy. Paradoxical movements are identified for each of them, before we conclude by reflecting on a grounding paradox which appears at the centre of this special issue and the themes it covers

The roles of incubators, accelerators, co-working spaces, mentors, and events in the startup development process

Abstract This chapter aims to explore supporting factors, such as incubators, accelerators, co-working spaces, mentors, and events in the startup ecosystem. To understand these five aspects and to explore their roles in startups, we investigated an Oulu startup ecosystem. In this case study, we conducted research interviews with practitioners working with startups, accelerators, incubators, venture capital firms, and co-working space organizations. By using real case examples, the results discussed in this chapter can help entrepreneurs understand the commonalities and differences between incubators and accelerators, their types (university-based or profit/nonprofit), the kinds of business ideas, and the entrepreneurs they focus on. Furthermore, the roles of co-working spaces, mentors, and events and their effects on entrepreneurs and startups are discussed. At the end of the chapter, we also show the interrelationships between these five aspects in the Oulu startup ecosystem and their influence on different startup development stages

Communities versus platforms: the paradox in the body of the collaborative economy

International audienceCommunities and platforms pervade all aspects of the collaborative economy. Yet, they exist in apparent tension. The collaborative economy is grounded in communities. These are typically characterized by isonomic relations, in which the singularity of members finds its distinctiveness in being woven into mutual, collective endeavor. Yet, the collaborative economy also entails digital platforms organized through largely heteronomic relations in which employees and users are configured as isolate, useful, interchangeable, and flexible “units.” As such, communities and platforms are traditionally framed as separate from, and in contradiction to, one another. There is, it seems a paradox at the heart of the collaborative economy. Yet, inspired by the work of Merleau-Ponty, we argue the expression, embodiment, and eventfulness characterizing the collaborative economy show communities and platforms being constituted by one another. We conclude that the paradox, far from being a condition of opposition and dialectical tension requiring managed resolution, is a generative organizational process