When three’s a crowd: how relational structure and social history shape organizational codes in triads

When members of an organization share communication codes, coordination across subunits is easier. But if groups interact separately, they will each develop a specialized code. This paper asks: Can organizations shape how people interact in order to create shared communication codes? What kinds of design interventions in communication structures and systems are useful? In laboratory experiments on triads composed of dyads that solve distributed coordination problems, we examine the effect of three factors: transparency of communication (versus privacy), role differentiation, and the subjects’ social history. We find that these factors impact the harmonization of dyadic codes into triadic codes, shaping the likelihood that groups develop group-level codes, converge on a single group-level code, and compress the group-level code into a single word. Groups with transparent communication develop more effective codes, while acyclic triads composed of strangers are more likely to use multiple dyadic codes, which are less efficient than group-level codes. Groups of strangers put into acyclic configurations appear to have more difficulty establishing “ground rules”—that is, the “behavioral common ground” necessary to navigate acyclic structures. These coordination problems are transient—groups of different structures end up with the same average communication performance if given sufficient time. However, lasting differences in the code that is generated remain

A simulation-based approach to business model design and organizational Change

While several practice-based approaches of business model design suggest ways to create new business models, there is limited understanding of why and how business models change. This exploratory study employs neural network analysis to simulate business model design and business model change. We conceptualise business model design as a schema of the organisation’s critical resources, transactions, and value proposition. Elements of the schema are connected in a simple neural network. The network evolves based on a constraint satisfaction network until it converges to a stable state of a coherent business model. An in-depth case study of an entrepreneurial venture provides a real-world example to test the analytical framework. Using data from the case study, we run multiple simulations of business model design and business model change. The results suggest that business model change can be understood as a form of constraint satisfaction, linking managerial cognition with business model change. The simulation approach also helps identify possible, but unrealized business models. This novel approach paves the way for new research and practice in business model design and change

Context and Aggregation: An Experimental Study of Bias and Discrimination in Organizational Decisions

This paper addresses a notable gap at the intersection of organizational economics and organization science: how does organizational context influence aggregation of individual behavior in organizational decisions? Using basic centralized versus decentralized organizational structures as building blocks for our experimental design, we examine whether assignment of organizational positions, incentive schemes, and structural configuration induce endogenous adaptation in the form of change in reservation levels (bias) or modified discrimination capability in subjects' behavior. We found that evaluators adapted their reservation and discrimination levels in centralized structures, whereas they did not generally adapt their reservation and discrimination levels when placed in decentralized structures. We identify mechanisms that explain these findings; explain how they influence aggregate, organizational behavior; and discuss implications for research and practice

Conceptual combination: a semantic framework for innovation

An underestimated but pervasive aspect of innovation is its semantic creativity. Innovation is tangled with the generation of new meanings and new representations of familiar objects or processes. This paper explores semantic innovation arguing as a combination of pre-existing conceptual structures. First we shed light on the level at which innovative semantic combinations unfold, that is the conceptual level. Second the paper provides an in depth analysis of the dynamics of conceptual combinations, examining the processes underlying it: similarity detection, selective mapping and search for coherence. Our analysis of a rich set of cases opens up the complex architecture of conceptual combination and shows that, given its conceptual nature, semantic innovations shift among different level of abstraction (products, processes and business model)s and thus can be transferred to entirely different sets of activity. The paper provides a theoretical framework to understand the dynamics of semantic innovation and a contribution to the debate on innovation as knowledge combination in managerial and economic literature

Analogical transfer of experience and the misuse of diversification

Centro per la Ricerca Scientifica e Tecnologica, Trent

Event structure, conceptual spaces and the semantics of verbs

The aim of this paper is to integrate spatial cognition with lexical semantics. We develop cognitive models of actions and events based on conceptual spaces and vectors on them. The models are then used to present a semantic theory of verbs. We propose a two-vector model of events including a force vector and a result vector. We argue that our framework provides a unified account of a multiplicity of linguistic phenomena related to verbs. Among others it provides a cognitive explanation of the lexical constraint regarding manner vs. result and polysemy caused by intentionality. It also generates a unified definition of aspect

Wiring knowledge domains. Metaphors and knowledge combination in a multi-disciplinary field

In the process of combining distant domains of knowledge, metaphors play a privileged role in constructing a shared understanding and in coordinating multiple actors with different background, language and practices. Yet they are still relatively under-investigated, in particular their dynamic interplay with individual cognition and action along the knowledge creation process. Through the case study of a neuroscience research project over a eight-year period, we reconstruct the role that metaphors play in defining conceptually the object of research, interfacing and coordinating different bodies of knowledge, and informing actual practices of laboratory experimentation and technology development. We show how metaphors develop and change over the different phases of the project, responding to the new puzzles they contribute to create and to the changing composition of the network of actors involved. We offer some insight on the emergence of such metaphors and their dynamics in processes of knowledge combination