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"Organizational analysis"
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Organizational Learning: From Experience to Knowledge
Organizational learning has been an important topic for the journal
Organization Science
and for the field. We provide a theoretical framework for analyzing organizational learning. According to the framework, organizational experience interacts with the context to create knowledge. The context is conceived as having both a latent component and an active component through which learning occurs. We also discuss current and emerging research themes related to components of our framework. Promising future research directions are identified. We hope that our perspective will stimulate future work on organizational learning and knowledge.
Journal Article
The Genesis and Dynamics of Organizational Networks
An extensive body of knowledge exists on network outcomes and on how network structures may contribute to the creation of outcomes at different levels of analysis, but less attention has been paid to understanding how and why organizational networks emerge, evolve, and change. Improved understanding of network dynamics is important for several reasons, perhaps the most critical being that the understanding of network outcomes is only partial without an appreciation of the genesis of the network structures that resulted in such outcomes. To provide a context for the papers in this special issue, and with the broader goal of furthering network dynamics research, we present a framework that begins by discussing the meaning and role of network dynamics and goes on to identify the drivers and key dimensions of network change as well as the role of time in this process. We conclude with theoretical and methodological issues that researchers need to address in this domain.
Journal Article
On Network Theory
Research on social networks has grown considerably in the last decade. However, there is a certain amount of confusion about network theory-for example, what it is, what is distinctive about it, and how to generate new theory. This paper attempts to remedy the situation by clarifying the fundamental concepts of the field (such as the network) and characterizing how network reasoning works. We start by considering the definition of network, noting some confusion caused by two different perspectives, which we refer to as realist and nominalist. We then analyze two well-known network theories, Granovetter's strength of weak ties theory [Granovetter, M. S. 1973. The strength of weak ties.
Amer. J. Sociol.
78
(6) 1360-1380] and Burt's structural holes theory [Burt, R. S. 1992.
Structural Holes: The Social Structure of Competition
. Havard University Press, Cambridge, MA], to identify characteristic elements of network theorizing. We argue that both theories share an underlying theoretical model, which we label the network flow model, from which we derive additional implications. We also discuss network phenomena that do not appear to fit the flow model and discuss the possibility of a second fundamental model, which we call the bond model. We close with a discussion of the merits of model-based network theorizing for facilitating the generation of new theory, as well as a discussion of endogeneity in network theorizing.
Journal Article
Knowledge Collaboration in Online Communities
Online communities (OCs) are a virtual organizational form in which knowledge collaboration can occur in unparalleled scale and scope, in ways not heretofore theorized. For example, collaboration can occur among people not known to each other, who share different interests and without dialogue. An exploration of this organizational form can fundamentally change how we theorize about knowledge collaboration among members of organizations. We argue that a fundamental characteristic of OCs that affords collaboration is their fluidity. This fluidity engenders a dynamic flow of resources in and out of the community-resources such as passion, time, identity, social disembodiment of ideas, socially ambiguous identities, and temporary convergence. With each resource comes both a negative and positive consequence, creating a tension that fluctuates with changes in the resource. We argue that the fluctuations in tensions can provide an opportunity for knowledge collaboration when the community responds to these tensions in ways that encourage interactions to be generative rather than constrained. After offering numerous examples of such generative responses, we suggest that this form of theorizing-induced by online communities-has implications for theorizing about the more general case of knowledge collaboration in organizations.
Journal Article
Theorizing Practice and Practicing Theory
This paper describes the emerging field of practice theory as it is practiced in relation to organizational phenomena. We identify three approaches-empirical, theoretical, and philosophical-that relate to the what, the how, and the why of using a practice lens. We discuss three principles of the theoretical approach to practice and offer examples of how practice theory has been used in the organizational literature and in our own research. We end with a discussion of the challenges and opportunities that practice theory affords organizational scholarship.
Journal Article
Identity in Organizations: Exploring Cross-Level Dynamics
Most research on organization-based identities focuses on a single level of analysis, typically the individual, group, or organization. As a spur to more cross-level identity research, we offer speculative discussions on two issues concerning nested identities. First, regarding the
processes
through which identities become linked across levels, we explore how identities at one level of analysis enable and constrain identities at other levels. We argue that, for a collective identity, intrasubjective understanding (\"I think\") fosters intersubjective understanding (\"we think\") through interaction, which in turn fosters generic understanding-a sense of the collective that transcends individuals (\"it is\"). Second, regarding the
content
of linked identities, we suggest that identities are relatively isomorphic across levels because organizational goals require some internal coherence. However, for various intended and unintended reasons, isomorphism is often impeded across levels, and identities tend to become somewhat differentiated.
Journal Article