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Developing Insight, Advancing Knowledge

Current projects are centered around understanding the design of organizations specifically the exploration of behavioral practices, structural elements and how these are configured, interact, as well as the tradeoffs decisions. Studies fit into three streams: designing organizations for distributed work, the implementation of emerging technologies, and strategic decisions in young ventures.

 

Approach:

Phenomenon Grounded Theory Building

Motivated by unexpected observations in the world combined with inducting theoretical and practical insight. Primarily supported by in-depth field data (e.g., interviews, observations) and computational models.

Interdisciplinary Perspective

Leveraging a broad and dynamic range of perspectives such as organizational theory, information systems, human-computer interactions (HCI), sociology, psychology, economics, and strategy.

Multi-level System View

Examining questions across various levels (groups, organizations, ecosystems) while embracing the principles of micro foundations, adaptive systems aggregation, and interdependence.

 
 
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Designing Organizations for Distributed Work

This area of consists of projects which explore the distribution of individuals within organizations. Including the opportunities and implications resulting from location-independent or hybrid design, and more broadly a consideration of how space and time are leveraged and proximity is perceived. 

Current Projects:

  • Collaboration in Location-Independent Organizations [currently R&R]

    This paper identifies two collaboration orientations, namely asynchronous and real-time, as well as their distinct set of enabling practices. The asynchronous configuration utilizes collaboration practices, namely an open single source of truth, rich work trails, and informed action-first iteration. These allow the asynchronous oriented organizations to maintain interdependence while simultaneously releasing employees from physical or temporal constraint.

  • Perceived Proximity in Distributed Organizations

    This paper examines how fully distributed organizations increase perceived proximity, an outcome which is evaluated both as an overall perception across an organization as well as looking from the experience of individuals and their person-to-person interactions. Based on interview data I categorize three organizations as having reached high levels of perceived proximity while claiming the other three have only achieved a moderate level, and explore the various social practices. These practices are then formally captured in a system dynamics style process model.

  • Hybrid Collaboration

    An ongoing ethnographic project looking at how an organization who made the strategic decision to not have employees fully return to offices are adapting their creative processes to a hybrid work environment. This data collection is focused the types of events generally considered very difficult to do well virtually, such as critique sessions which typically involve the discussion of in-progress work, critical feedback, and the collaborative use of whiteboards. I am interested in how these collaborative events will evolve, including the revision of prior practices, development of new behavioral norms, as well as how virtual and physical space is or is not used and combined.

  • Dynamic Model of Hybrid Work

    This is an early-stage project, an of exploration of potential hybrid work structures. Hybrid organizational designs have not been particularly effective in the past and yet many organizations are currently moving in this direction. I anticipate that the use of practices designed to enable dynamic behavior and structures will produce stable and effective ways of working. As such, I am interested in the effect of dynamic design rules, particularly the frequency and strategic intention of an organization’s formal and informal collocation guidelines and more broadly how organizations think about work in relation to both time and place on the ability of an organization to effectively utilize hybrid work designs.

 
 
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Implementation of Emergent Technologies

Projects in this stream examine sociotechnical systems including both the exploration of the impact of emerging technologies in organizations as well as the critical importance of practice in how these tools or technologies are implemented.

Current Projects:

  • Humans and Technology Forms of Conjoined Agency in Organizations [Published in Academy of Management Review]

    This paper, in the context of routine development, distinguishes who, humans or technology, acts in developing protocols and selecting actions, results in four types of conjoined agency. The four types are: assisting such as the use of work processing software, arresting which aligns with distributed ledger technologies, augmenting which is typified by machine learning, and automating which can be seen in advanced AI such as neural networks. We then use this distinction to theorize about how each type of conjoined agency influences the ability of routines to change. [with Alex Murray and David Sirmon]

  • Tokenized Information: Coordinating with Distributed Ledger Technologies [currently under review]

    This paper motivated by the changing nature of work and the challenge of increasingly prevalent opportunities for misinformation asks how distributed ledger technologies (DLTs) are able to coordinate work. The data suggests that DLTs based on their inherent properties of immutability, transparency, and traceability enable the coordination mechanism of tokenized information. Defined as confirmed and uninterrupted metadata linked to a primary material this mechanism of tokenized information supports coordination when uncertainty from potential misinformation challenges the achievement of collective objectives. [with Alex Murray and David Sirmon]

  • Power Shifts in Distributed Ecosystems

    Inspired by ecosystems implementations of distributed ledger technologies, such as the IBM Food Trust, this project examines the effect of complete historic transparency, exchange automation, transaction immutability and traceability, as well as the use of closed versus open protocols on an ecosystem’s power landscape. This project aims to show how the use of a technology based on the notion of distributed governance can systematically enable change and empower those who are traditionally disenfranchised, and when/how that ideal is misused to maintain current power structures

  • Modeling the joint work of humans and technology in organizations

    An early stage computational modeling project aimed at further developing the idea of conjoined agency through both a formalization of the process. This extension explores routine dynamics through a simulation based approach which captures repeated interactions between human and technology as environmental conditions shift prompting routine change.

 
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Strategic Entrepreneurial Decisions

This area of study consists of a variety of projects looking at young ventures and their strategic decision as they grow including resource gathering, hiring strategies, and scaling processes.

Current Projects:

  • Interdependence and Equifinality: Young Technology Ventures’ Resource Configurations and the Paths to Exit [currently 2nd R&R]

    This paper examines over 130 ventures with fsQCA to generate multiple configurations of early resources which lead to entrepreneurial success (exit). The results suggest that no single resource is critical, and while the resource rich path was present additional configurations suggests that entrepreneurs can stage their acquisition of resources in a variety of ways. A finding which compliments prior work recognizing the importance of each resource while also suggesting there is process flexibility providing alternatives for resource constrained entrepreneurs. [with Emily Cox-Pahnke, David Sirmon, and Joanna Campbell]

  • Remote Hiring: Ventures who Hire Remote Workers

    This paper investigates which type of ventures opt to hire remote workers. Empirically this being done via a quantitative exploration of a large job posting website to gain insight across a variety of organizational sizes, locations, and industries. Still at an early stage this paper has a strong set of initial findings and is being further developed. [with Cristiano Bellavitis and Ben Hallen]

  • Scaling Culture in Location Independent Organizations

    This project is motivated by the discovery that recently employees of a fast growing location-independent organization are frustrated with how the culture and practices that were crucial to their success with distributed work were being eroded. Practices that had evolved as the organization grew from 2 to around 600, where being dismissed as the organization brought additional high level employees and continued to grow surpassing 1000 people. This is being examined in contrast to another well matched location-independent organization that remains larger by employee count yet has maintained and evolved the culture and practices supporting their location-independent.