Exploring and Exploiting Intercultural Knowledge Flows and Organizational Forms

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Exploring and Exploiting Intercultural Knowledge
Flows and Organizational Forms

• W. Richard Scott and Dana A. Gavrieli
• Edge Project Workshop 1
• Stanford University
• 3 December 2004

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Organization Theory Built on a Cleft Rock

• Combine
• Engineering elements (rational system models)
• Social science elements (natural system models)

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Power to the Edge Book

• Primary attention to engineering model to neglect
  of social science models
• Strong focus on military organizations
• Strong focus on organizational studies of the
  military
• Heavy emphasis on individuals as units within
  organizations

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In spite of the fact that

• Many of the issues addressed are common to all
  organizations
• Military organizations are becoming more similar
  to other organizations
• Approaches/structures for dealing with
  complexity/rapid change are farther advanced in
  non-military organizations
• In addition to individuals, groups and teams are
  increasingly meaningful units within (and across)
  organizations

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In attempt to introduce and illustrate the value
of incorporating models from the social science
literature, we briefly describe three clusters of
ideas

• Sensemaking processes
• Trust
• Collaborative networks

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Sensemaking Processes
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Edge Organizations

• Rely on availability of information.
• Challenges
• Individuals must know what information to seek.
• Individuals must know how to interpret
  information.

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Information

• Ambiguous, uncertain, and equivocal.
• EquivocalityOpen to two or more interpretations,
  uncertain.
• Organizations provide schemas and frames to
  interpret equivocal information.

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Sensemaking

• Karl Weick
• Grounded in identity construction, retrospective,
  social, ongoing, and driven by plausibility
  rather than accuracy.
• Information overload, complexity, and
  environmental turbulence increase the need for
  sensemaking and the tendency to try and make
  sense Very likely in Edge Organizations.

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Mann Gulch Fire Disaster

• August 5th, 1949, Helena National Forest, MT.
  Claimed lives of 13 smokejumpers.
• Norman Macleans Young Men and Fire
• Karl Weick, Administrative Science Quarterly,
  1993.
• Cosmology episode
• Vu jade

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Edge Organizations

• What kinds of environmental cues/structures
  contribute to sensemaking in Edge Organizations?
• How do Edge Organizations guard against
  information overload?
• More generally, how can Edge Organizations
  increase their resilience?
• What lessons are learned by the individuals and
  the organization overall? How is knowledge
  encoded and transferred?
• What effects would improvisation have on
  sensemaking in Edge Organizations?
• How do Edge Organizations learn, and how is
  knowledge transferred and stored?

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Trust
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Trust

• The most efficient mechanism for governing
  transactions.
• Essential for the stability of social
  relationships.
• Social systems with high levels of trust enjoy
  increased cooperation, coordination, control, and
  overall effectiveness.

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Trust

• Largely viewed in the literature as
  history-based.
• Intuitive Auditor
• Edge Organizations
• May not have long history to base trust decisions
  on.
• Do not necessarily meet face to face.
• Uncertainty tends to trigger distrust.

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Alternative to history-based view of trust

• Meyerson, Weick, and Kramer, 1996, Swift Trust
• Zucker, 1986

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Edge Organizations

• Does trust exist in dynamic environments, such as
  Edge Organizations?
• If so, what is the form of trust (e.g., swift
  trust)?
• What are the antecedents, correlates, and
  consequences of the presence or absence of that
  trust?

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Collaborative Networks
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Edge Organizations may have wrong connotations

• Suggests being peripheral or marginal
• Suggests presence of clear boundary
• Perhaps a term like border would be preferable
  in times when the spaces between organizations
  can be more significant than the organizations
  themselves.
• Borders imply the necessity of buffering and
  bridging strategies.

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All organizations, including military,
increasingly rely on

• Outsourcing
• Alliances
• Virtual Organizations

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Outsourcing

• Contracting out goods and services to independent
  entities
• Core organization becomes a network coordinator
• Expertise is in recognizing/determining what
  functions to contract out, and in drawing up and
  managing contracts
• When contract employees work alongside regular,
  management faces particular challenges (e.g.,
  Halliburton Iraqi security forces).

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Alliances

• Definition Medium to long-term cooperative
  relation among entities.
• Variety of legal forms and degrees of equity
  sharing.
• Variety of purposes (reduce risk, economies of
  scale, technology transfer, reduce competition,
  evade regulation).
• Challenges to overcome different interests,
  cultures (e.g., UN peacekeeping forces).

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Virtual Organizations

• Not bound by the legal and physical structures
  that define a conventional organization.
• Advanced by IT developments.
• Mix of virtual and tangible aspects varies across
  organizations and over time eliminates mediated
  transactions higher flexibility.
• Example Embedded journalists.
• Often pushes governance issues up to a higher
  level organizations become subunits in larger
  systems.