Special Issue: Connectivity in and around Organizations

 Connectivity in and around Organizations

Connectivity has become the foundation for organizing as it increasingly underpins and defines the way we live and work. Understanding the world of digital connectivity is central to our ability to understand human social behaviors. Moreover, even as globalization comes under threat, it is difficult to imagine a world without pervasive connectivity. 

 

In the current Special Issue of Organization Studies, we summarize four waves of connectivity-globalization, socialization, personalization and datafication—that combine to create opportunities and challenges for contemporary organizations and draw upon currently emerging challenges to suggest enduring tensions and trade-offs for connectivity research in the future. 

 

Articles included within the collection address a wide range of topics, from behavioral visibility in an age of datafication, developing interpersonal connectivity efficacy in emergency settings, opening and protecting professional boundaries for high-performance, social media usage to support diversity within and beyond organizations, and the implications of anywhere/anytime work as career challenge/barrier for those required to work across time zones. 

 

Darl Kolb, Marleen Huysman, Kristine Dery and Anca Metiu (Guest Editors), Organization Studies Special Issue: ‘Connectivity in and around Organizations,’ Volume 41, Number 12, December 2020. 

 

https://journals.sagepub.com/toc/ossa/current

 

#Marleen Huysman, #Kristine Dery, #Anca Metiu

Introduction to Special Issue:

'Connectivity in and around Organizations: Waves, tensions and trade-offs'

Organization Studies 2020, Vol. 41(12) 1589–1599

DOI: 10.1177/0170840620973666

© The Author(s) 2020

Darl G. Kolb, University of Auckland Business School, New Zealand

Kristine Dery, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, USA

Marleen Huysman, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Anca Metiu, ESSEC Business School, France

Abstract

Connectivity has become the foundation for organizing as it increasingly underpins and defines the way we live and work. Notwithstanding all the advances in connectivity within organizations, there are even more pervasive changes between and around organizations. In a digital world, more and more of us are working anytime, anyplace, and companies deliver value by better connecting with customers and external partners within digital ecosystems. In this introduction to the Special Issue, we summarize four waves of connectivity – globalization, socialization, personalization and datafication – that combine to create opportunities and challenges for contemporary organizations. We then introduce the papers in the special issue and discuss their contributions to theory and practice. Finally, we draw upon currently emerging challenges to suggest enduring tensions and trade-offs for connectivity research in the future.

Keywords

connectivity, datafication, digital communication, globalization, remote work, waves

Introduction

Connectivity is incorporated into our day-to-day life from the moment we awake to the end of our

day. From shared photos taken moments after birth to digitally extended funerals, we have come to

accept and expect digital connections throughout our lives. We use our smartphones and other mobile devices to inform, entertain and guide us (literally) from one place to the next. We consume

and create media, which have become ‘social’ through the interactivity afforded by the Internet.

Understanding digital connectivity is central to our ability to understand human social behaviours.

Moreover, connectivity has become the core infrastructure of globalization. Even as globalization

comes under threat, it is difficult to imagine a world without pervasive connectivity.

Early connectivity studies initiated discussions of its attributes, dimensions and duality (Kolb,

2008), states of connectivity (Kolb, Caza, & Collins, 2012; Kolb, Collins, & Lind, 2008; Wajcman

& Rose, 2011), paradoxes of proximity (Wilson, O’Leary, Metiu, & Jett, 2008) and autonomy

(Mazmanian, Orlikowski, & Yates, 2013), as well as studies of connectivity in practice, including

mobile phones (Dery, Kolb, & MacCormick, 2014; MacCormick, Dery, & Kolb, 2012) and enterprise

social media (Leonardi, Huysman, & Steinfield, 2013). But much has changed in the realm

of technical innovations, such as sensor technology, artificial intelligence, machine learning and

robotics. And the number of ways in which organizations and societies around the globe have

embraced and embedded digital communication has grown at astounding rates. We consequently

felt the time was ripe for new conceptualizations and investigations into connectivity in and around

organizations.

The call for papers for this special issue anticipated contributions reflecting advances in connective

technologies, the uptake and pervasiveness of social media as it pertains to organizations and

work, the volume and impact of data on organizational processes, and social issues associated with

technology, such as equity, diversity and ethical dilemmas. We nonetheless underestimated the

changes that would occur in those spheres since the call went out. In particular, as we introduce this

special issue, we cannot ignore the profound historical context in which this collection is presented,

namely the Covid-19 pandemic and its dramatic impact on organizational life and life in

general. While we acknowledge the significant impact of this global health crisis on organizational

connectivity, we are not able yet to fully account for the role that digital technologies have played

to transform work during and after the crisis. We will leave that task for others. The papers in this

special issue may nonetheless provide insights and lessons that help us re-imagine a post-Covid

world.

In this introduction to the special issue, we begin with a brief description of four waves of connectivity

that have reshaped the social and technical landscape in which we live and work. We then

go on to describe and discuss the papers in this issue, including some of their contributions to our

thinking. From there, we identify several tensions and trade-offs for future connectivity studies.

Our intent is to stimulate interest in and attention to connectivity in and around organizations – and

to set new waves of research in motion.