Matthew S. Weber

The Use of Enterprise Social Network Sites for Knowledge Sharing in Distributed Organizations The Role of Organizational Affordances

Enterprise social network sites (ESNSs) are increasingly being introduced into large multinational organizations. In this article, we consider their potential for supporting knowledge-sharing practices within the organization. First, we build on prior work on affordances by applying notions of collective affordances and affordances for organizing to the study of social media, and we theorize how ESNSs may provide organizational affordances for knowledge sharing in distributed multinational organizations in particular. Second, we articulate ways in which ESNS affordances may shape knowledge sharing through consideration of social capital dynamics, support for relationships and interactions, context collapse, and network interactions. Finally, and building on these ideas, we propose a research agenda and suggestions for future research on this topic.

Mobile technology appropriation in a distant mirror: Baroquization, creolization, and cannibalism

Appropriation is the process through which technology users go beyond mere adoption to make technology their own and to embed it within their social, economic, and political practices. The appropriation process is a negotiation about power and control over the configuration of technology, its uses, and the distribution of its benefits. The negotiation surrounding technology appropriation echoes earlier creative tensions in the New World regarding the appropriation of cultural objects and ideas from abroad. This article reviews existing theoretical approaches to the study of technology appropriation and draws inspiration from three Latin American cultural traditions, baroquization, creolization, and cannibalism. It proposes a new theoretical framework that informs an in-depth study of the social, economic, and political impacts of technology appropriation.

Newspapers and the Long-Term Implications of Hyperlinking

This study examines the impact of hyperlinks as a mechanism for establishing interorganizational linkages. In specific, this research focuses on the effect of hyperlinks between newspaper organizations and new entrants into the news media community from 1999 to 2006. Through the lens of community ecology, the formation of hyperlinks is show to facilitate information sharing and knowledge exchange. The findings highlight the importance of hyperlinking in the online space, and demonstrate the underlying mechanisms that govern organizational network position over time. Existing organizations that establish ties to new entrants are shown to benefit through an increase in page views. Results demonstrate that early actions in the online news community had a clear and measurable impact on the news media industry.

Advancing Research in Organizational Communication Through Quantitative Methodology

This article showcases current best practices in quantitative organizational communication research. We emphasize their value in exploring issues of the day and their relation to other research approaches. Materials are presented around four themes: systematic development and validation of measures, including the use of mixed methods; multiple levels of analysis; the study of change and development over time; and relationships among people, units, organizations, and meanings.

Research Methods for Studying Evolutionary and Ecological Processes in Organizational Communication

In a previous MCQ article, Monge et al. overviewed the fundamental concepts and processes of evolutionary theory and their applications to key issues in organizational communication. This article extends that work by providing an overview of research tools for studying organizational ecology and evolution, including (a) the variation-selection-retention sequence, (b) the likelihood of events occurring over a period of time (event history analysis), (c) transition sequence of populations from one state to another (sequence analysis), (d) relationships among nodes in networks over time (network analysis), (e) simulation of complex relationships and interactions (computational modeling), (f) changes in populations’ fitness for survival (NKC models), and (g) competitive interdependence among populations over time (predator—prey models). We conclude with a brief review of graphical and qualitative methods.

Industries in Turmoil: Driving Transformation During Periods of Disruption

Organizational scholars have studied the process of organizational transformation for decades, focusing on the impact of inertia and environmental disruptions as drivers of transformation. Building on this body of work, the present study demonstrates the importance of organizational agency in affecting long-term organizational change. The analysis focuses on 487 newspapers in the United States and looks at the adoption of hyperlinking as part of the process of transforming from print-based organizations to multimedia information providers during an 11-year period from 1997 to 2007. The results show that traditional newspapers that aggressively adopted hyperlinking practices had a decreased likelihood of failure in the long run. The findings provide insights into the important role of individual and organizational action in the transformation process and emphasize the utility of hyperlinks as a communicative tool for organizations seeking to adapt in a digital environment.

The Emergence and Evolution of Social Networking Sites as an Organizational Form

A number of new organizational structures have emerged in recent years, including peer production networks, digitally organized social movements, and social networking sites (SNSs). Researchers have devoted considerable attention to these phenomena as groups and communities. This article takes a complementary approach by conceptualizing them as organizational forms, with focus on the emergence of SNSs as a distinct organizational form. Community ecology theory is implemented to explicate the emergence and subsequent legitimation of organizational forms, providing a foundation for understanding how new forms emerge through interaction with the surrounding environment. Industry data and historical records are utilized to illustrate the development of one specific form: online SNSs. This analysis demonstrates that legitimation is an ongoing process of replication of features, but legitimacy also occurs through recognition from adjacent populations. Findings illustrate the validity of alternative processes of form legitimacy.

Virtuality, Technology Use, and Engagement Within Organizations

Multinational organizations are turning to collaborative technology to enable virtual organizational structures. While collaborative technology provides distributed workers with new affordances to form relationships and share knowledge, collaborative technology also has complex, interwoven implications for virtual organizing. To disentangle these concerns, this study considers four key dimensions of virtuality—spatial dispersion, temporal dispersion, dynamic structure, and functional diversity—in relation to technology use and engagement with peers within an organization. Survey data were collected in a multinational organization that facilitates work through extensive use of collaborative technology. The results of structural equation modeling reveal connections between two dimensions of virtuality, use of collaborative technology and peer engagement in the organization. Findings suggest that understanding interactions in virtual organizations requires a more nuanced approach to virtuality and active management of technology implementation. Moreover, the findings demonstrate that managers need to actively manage the deployment of new collaborative technology by focusing on specific characteristics of work groups.

Normative Influences on Network Structure in the Evolution of the Children’s Rights NGO Network, 1977-2004

This study examines the impact of legitimacy on the dynamics of interorganizational networks within the nongovernmental organizations’ children’s rights community. The 27-year period of analysis included a critical community event: the ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). Building on theories of organizational evolution, hypotheses proposed that (1) ratification of the UNCRC served to codify and more broadly communicate the legitimate norms of the community, and (2) dissemination of normative information made it easier (a) for less experienced organizations to form and maintain partnerships, and (b) for organizations to form partnerships without reference to shared third-party contacts or dominant organizations. Data analysis via a longitudinal network model supported the hypotheses. Further investigation via an event history analysis suggested that these effects were largely confined to links among organizations in the children’s rights community and not to links made by these organizations to more general others.

Organizational Disruptions and Triggers for Divergent Sensemaking

In recent years, scholars and practitioners alike have sought to better understand the emergent communicative processes involved in the implementation of strategic organizational initiatives. In response, this article builds on sensemaking and sensegiving theory to understand the interactions that developed between internal and external stakeholders in response to a post-9/11 change in the Maritime Transportation Security Act. A detailed, emergent account of a failed initiative was derived from public comments in the Federal Register, transcripts from public meetings, newspaper articles, and semistructured interviews with key internal informants. In-depth analysis of these data allowed us to examine a divergent sensemaking process and identify four critical triggers that led to a communication breakdown: (a) unidirectional and parsimonious communication, (b) multifaceted understandings of organizational identities, (c) misaligned cues, and (d) an emergence of interorganizational sensemaking. A first-order analysis presents data from an in-depth case analysis, and a second-order analysis uses the analysis to develop a divergent sensemaking conceptual model. From a strategic communication perspective, our findings demonstrate the importance of taking a broad perspective of the legitimate participants in a sensemaking process, as well as reconciling sensemaking trajectories to avoid contradictions between perspectives. We offer implications for theory, future research, and practice.