Alessandro Lomi, Stefano Tasselli and Paola Zappa
We study organizational vocabularies as complex social structures emerging from the association between organizational participants and words they use to describe and make sense…
Abstract
We study organizational vocabularies as complex social structures emerging from the association between organizational participants and words they use to describe and make sense of their experiences at work. Using data that we have collected on the association between managers in a multi-unit international company and words they use to describe their organizational units and the overall company, we examine the relational micro-mechanisms underlying the observed network structure of organizational vocabularies. We find that members of the same subsidiary tend to become more similar in terms of the words they use to describe their units. Members of the same subsidiary, however, do not use the same words to describe the corporate group. Consequently, the structure of organizational vocabularies tends to support consistent local interpretations, but reveals the presence of divergent meanings that organizational participants associate with the superordinate corporate group.
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Alessandro Lomi, Guido Conaldi and Marco Tonellato
When considered as organized solutions to problems of provision of public goods, Free/Open Source Software (F/OSS) productions share a number of their defining features with the…
Abstract
When considered as organized solutions to problems of provision of public goods, Free/Open Source Software (F/OSS) productions share a number of their defining features with the organized anarchies described by Cohen, March and Olsen in their “Garbage Can Model” (GCM). The open and voluntary contribution of software developers creates constant fluctuations in levels of attention and an extremely fluid participation. The lack of predefined hierarchical access to organizational problems determines a fundamental uncertainty about how collective goals may be linked to individual activities, and in how responsibilities and tasks may be allocated efficiently within the project. Finally, the complexity involved in the collective production of tens of thousands of lines of computer code without explicit coordination creates a situation of technological ambiguity supported by a radically decentralized activity of organizational problem finding and problem solving. In this paper we take these broad similarities as point of departure to specify an empirical model that captures some of the garbage can properties of organizational problem-solving activities in the context of a specific F/OSS project followed throughout a complete release cycle. We examine the interconnected system of individual decisions emerging from problem-solving activities performed by the 135 contributors involved in the F/OSS project on the 719 software bugs reported during the period of observation. We treat the evolving two-mode network produced by encounters between carriers of organizational solutions (contributors) and organizational problems (software bugs) as a dynamic opportunity structure that constrains and enables organizational decision making. We document how stable local configurations linking problems and solutions are induced by – and at the same time sustain – decentralized problem-solving activities with meaningful self-organizing properties.
Alessandro Lomi and J. Richard Harrison
The papers collected in this volume celebrate the 40th anniversary of “A Garbage Can Model of Organizational Choice” – one of the most influential and sustained attempts to…
Abstract
The papers collected in this volume celebrate the 40th anniversary of “A Garbage Can Model of Organizational Choice” – one of the most influential and sustained attempts to represent organizational decision-making processes in a way that accounts for generally recognized but hard to accept features of organizational life. In our overview of the volume we emphasize ways in which the garbage can model (GCM) differs from more generally accepted models of organizational decision making. We suggest that future progress in linking the GCM to specific empirical settings might be facilitated by attempts to model explicitly the interdependencies connecting participants, problems, solutions, and decision opportunities in organizations. We discuss examples of current work in which this strategy is followed in a way that is consistent with the original spirit of the model. We present the overall organization of the volume and discuss how the various chapters contribute to the further development of organizational research inspired by ideas contained in the original GCM and in some of its more recent variants and critiques.
Alessandro Lomi and Vanina J. Torló
The distinction between network theories and theories of networks is particularly salient in studying social status because social status is both a consequence and an antecedent…
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The distinction between network theories and theories of networks is particularly salient in studying social status because social status is both a consequence and an antecedent of network ties. Status is a consequence of network ties because it is conferred by interdependent acts of deference connecting a sender and a recipient. Status is also an antecedent of network ties because it affects individual preferences for social interaction which produce distinct forms of preferential attachment. A new generation of stochastic actor oriented models (SAOM) for social networks is now available that may help to integrate network theories and theories of networks.
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Alessandro Lomi, Erik R. Larsen and Ann van Ackere
Because clustering of organizational activities in space induces – and at the same time emerges from patterns of imperfect connectivity among interacting agents, the study of…
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Because clustering of organizational activities in space induces – and at the same time emerges from patterns of imperfect connectivity among interacting agents, the study of geography and strategy necessarily hinges on assumptions about how agents are linked. Spatial structure matters for the evolutionary dynamics of organizations because social systems are prime examples of connected systems, i.e. systems whose collective properties emerge from interaction among a large number of component micro-elements. Starting from this proposition, in this paper we explore the value of the claim that a wide range of interesting organizational phenomena can be represented as the outcome of processes that occur in overlapping local neighborhoods embedded in more general network structures. We document how patterns of spatial organization are sensitive to assumptions about the range of local interaction and about expectation formation mechanisms that induce temporal interdependence in agents’ choice. Within the lattice world that we define we discover a concave relation between the sensitivity of individual agents to new information (cognitive inertia) and system-level performance. These results provide experimental evidence in favor of the general claim that the evolutionary dynamics of social systems are directly affected by patterns of spatial organization induced by network-based activities.
This chapter reconstructs the garbage can model (GCM) of organizational choice as an agent-based model. Subsequently, it modifies the original model by establishing behavioral…
Abstract
This chapter reconstructs the garbage can model (GCM) of organizational choice as an agent-based model. Subsequently, it modifies the original model by establishing behavioral rules that regulate processes of organizational founding, growth, and disbanding in an artificial garbage can ecology. This population-level GCM reproduces some of the core features of the original GCM. Furthermore, it produces aggregate regularities that are broadly consistent with the historical trajectories followed by actual organizational populations.
This chapter replaces the fixed access and decision structures of the original garbage can model with the possibility of forming teams based on considerations of the…
Abstract
This chapter replaces the fixed access and decision structures of the original garbage can model with the possibility of forming teams based on considerations of the characteristics of problems and the skills of organizational members. In real organizations, members often solve problems in collaboration, either in parallel or sequentially. In an extension of earlier simulation models, I assume that a task can be accepted by an individual member of an organization who can form a team by attempting to match the skill sets of members with the combination of skills necessary for solving the problem. Analysis of the model examines task performance and the efficient use of skills for individual and team efforts under conditions of varying workloads.
Filippo Carlo Wezel and Alessandro Lomi
Why do nations succeed in particular industries? Why do certain industries prosper in one country, but languish in others? Several recent attempts to address these core questions…
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Why do nations succeed in particular industries? Why do certain industries prosper in one country, but languish in others? Several recent attempts to address these core questions in the study of geography and strategy are based on the notion of domestic rivalry as the essence of the persistence of competitive advantage of nations. Starting from the claim that rivalry between countries typically implies competition among organizational populations across national boundaries, in this paper we make a first attempt to develop empirical connections between a central problem in international business and the conceptual and analytical categories of corporate demography. Relying on information on the founding of 719 independent motorcycle producers operating in Belgium, Italy and Japan during the period 1898–1993, we build on recent results in organizational ecology to link a selected number of essential but underspecified aspects in current theories of international business to observable patterns of competition within and among organizational populations. The results of the analysis invite a new interpretation of the evolutionary forces that shape the competitive advantage of nations.