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Fifth of seven lectures on organizations and social media.
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Social media and the structuration of organizational communication
Dr James (Jim) Slevin
on organizations and social media
Lecture 5 of 7
Reading for this week
• Albano, R. et al. (2010) The relevance of Giddens' structuration theory for
organizational research. TAO Digital Library.
• DeSanctis, D. and Poole, M.S. (1994) Capturing the complexity in advanced
technology use: Adaptive structuration theory. Organization Science, 5-2,
121-147.
• Orlikowski, W.J. (1992) The duality of technology: Rethinking the concept of
technology in organizations. Organization Science, 3-3, 398-427.
• Van Osch, W. and Coursaris, C.K., (2012) The Duality of Social Media:
Structuration and Socialization through Organizational Communication.
SIGHCI 2012 Proceedings. Paper 12.
We have already seen an attempt at this in Kietzmann et al. (Cf. the first lecture in this series):
Drawing together the threads of social, technological and organizational change is highly challenging
Their model places ‘social media functionalities’ and their ‘implications’ in a honeycomb structure.
How about doing the same but with snow flakes?
... or with basalt blocks?
The problem is that it would just not really matter. This way of understanding the logic of organizations and social
media is completely arbitrary, static, and it has no explanatory power.
In contrast, I shall argue that Stucturation Theory provides us with a far richer understanding of these challenges
Anthony Giddens
Structuration Theory is a social theory concerned with the abstract characteristics of social practices ordered across time and space
It has entered into the study of organizational communication through the work of:
Wanda Orlikowski Gerardine DeSanctis
Roberto Albano et al.
overview
Wietske Van Osch et al.
social media
Analogies have often been used to emphasize the structures that underpin organizations
Some notable examples:
Organization as an organism
Organization as a machine
The world as a ‘space of flows’
Some of Giddens’ objections to such understandings of the way organizations order time-space
• Organizational features do not come about, persist or disappear because organizations need them to do so.
• Organizations only exist in and through their performing over time.
• No recognition of the role of knowledgeable human agents in organizational reproduction.
• They treat structure as having a rigid, contraining presence.
• They unable to help us understand organizational change.
In contrast, social practice theories draw attention to action and interaction in organizations
Some notable examples:
Erving Goffman
• Presentation of the self in interaction with others• Verbal and non-verbal
communication.
Harold Garfinkel
• ‘Ethnomethodology’• Organizational rationality
as a local accomplishment.
Some of Giddens’ objections to such understandings of the way social practices are ordered across time and space
• Emphasizes the practical and knowledgeable involvement of human agents but treats organizational properties as a backdrop.
• Strong on intentionality and purpose of human agency but weak on its unintended consequences.
Structuration theory involves an approach with very different qualities and dimensions
strategic action andinteraction in co-presence
institutional/organizationalsystems across time-space
structural rules and resourcesas system properties
An example:language
Grammer and vocabulary etc.
Language speaking
community
Language used in
communicative practice
Duality ofstructure
• Structure is both enabling and constraining.
• Structuration depends on the active involvement of knowledgeable human agents.
• Human knowledgeability is bounded.
structure
strategic action
institutional/organizational
communication
interpretive scheme
orders of signification
orders of domination
facility
power
orders of legitimation
norm
sanction
The dimensions of the duality of structure according to Giddens differ considerably from a ‘honeycomb’
dimensions of the duality of structure
(rules and resources)
(system integration)
(social integration)
Giddens’ ‘stratification model of strategic action’ connects action to structure
reflexive monitoring of action
• rationalization of action• motivation of action
unintended consequences of action
unacknowledged conditions of action
stratification model of strategic action
For Giddens, three types of consciousness relate to the process of agency and structuration
discursive consciousness
practical consciousness
unconscious motives/cognition=
types of consciousness
Wanda Orlikowski applies the duality of structure to communication technology
technological imperative model strategic choice model
technology triggered structural change model technology desgn & use model
Orlikowski offers a critique of several ‘prior views of technology’
Orlikowski’s conceptualization of a structurational model of technology
a) technology as a product of human action.b) technology as a medium of human action.c) institutional conditions of interaction with technology.d) institutional consequences of interaction with technology.
Wietske Van Osch et al. attempt to devise a structurational model of social media use in organizations and its enabling role for organizational communication
“social media can be simultaneously the cause, mediator and/or effect (e.g. choice to use social media) vis-à-vis the four factors of the model, namely the organizational actor, action, entity, and culture”
• It makes but scant use of Giddens’ Theory of Structuration.
• ‘The situation of society’ is not a work by Giddens.
• Social media in themselves are not the cause of anything.
• No attempt to demonstrate the explanatory power of their model.
• Adopts Jürgen Habermas’ Theory of Communicative Action with no consideration of its limitations for the study of social media, today (Cf. the seventh lecture in this series).
A constructive critique of the Van Osch et al. project
Habermas’ conversational model is problematic when applied to (social) media
the ‘ideal’ of a 17th century coffee-house
Lots needs to be done, but it’s obnoxious to suggest in world in which people are
increasingly reflexively engaged, that we can understand the outcome of social
media development and use as something akin to bees building their nests.
Study questions
• What is the theory of structuration and what do its proponents hope to
achieve by using it?
• Using Orlikowski’s work, critically sketch traditional conceptions of
communication technology and the way it is embroiled in organizations.
• How might we understand the interaction of social media with
organizations as a duality? What advantages does this bring in regard to
the earlier conceptions?
• Demonstrate the explanatory power of structuration theoretical insights
by applying them to an example of social media use of your own.
Social media and the structuration of organizational communication
Dr James (Jim) Slevin
on organizations and social media
Lecture 5 of 7
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