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A talk about the role of technology innovation and forms of organizing as they relate to the Arab Spring
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The Arab Spring and Management Theory
Samer Faraj McGill University
AUB Olayan School of Business
Darwazah Center for Innovation Management & Entrepreneurship March 1, 2012
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Two questions
• The interplay between technology innovation and new forms of organizing during the Arab Spring
• Given these changes, what can we say about the evolution of organizations in the Arab World?
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Is this true?
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Friedman’s 10 Flatteners: how many are IT?
• Berlin Wall • The “Internet” • Workflow Software • Open-Sourcing • Outsourcing • Off-shoring • Supply Chaining • In-sourcing • In-Forming • Steroids
IT Platform
IT-Enabled Processes
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What does it mean?
• emerging economies (e.g., India, China) are able to compete for industries and work because they combine cost advantages, trained workforce, and entrepreneurial impulse
• Knowledge work is now fully global • Technology is transforming our world in
expected and unexpected ways
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Technological influences in the Arab World
• Over the last two decades: over 1000 satellite TV stations were launched o Vast majority are supported by governments/families o But the advertising driven business model is pushing them
toward greater professionalism, creativity, and credibility
• Al-Jazeera is the best example of a successful news channel (35M viewers)
• Other channels are aiming at interactivity around entertainment
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
And vote they did
• Voting for TV stars is highly participative and egalitarian
• leads to lots of discussion and an awareness of “the gap”
• The diversity of news sources allows a whole ecosystem of news sharing to be available
• If you add the impact of the Internet and social media, never before had so many information sources been available
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Explosive growth in Internet usage
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Then when the Arab Spring arrived, governments were not ready
• Focused on: o Foreign threats o Tracking membership-based secret organizations
o Known political/religious movements
o Known activists o Monitoring traditional means of communication
o Street activities
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Internet Censorship
Content Filtering
URL Filtering
DNS Filtering
IP Address Blocking
Most advanced: look at the content of the response packet
Spot keywords in the requested URL, example, although Google.com is not black listed this request will be: hLp://www.google.com/q=arab+spring Black list based on the requested domain name. E.g., reject any request for a web site with “brotherhood” such as www.anywordbrotherhood.com Most basic, black list the IPs of known web sites
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People side--Workarounds
Content Filtering
URL Filtering
DNS Filtering
IP Address Blocking
Encryption: using hLps
Proxy or VPN
Proxy or VPN, use alternative DNS servers such as Google DNS
Proxy or VPN, sending the request to another machine that will provide the response back
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Online arms race
• Tor routes Internet traffic through a worldwide volunteer network of servers in order to conceal a user's location or usage
• By using it you become a part of the network, helping in routing other users requests
ProxySG provides complete control over all your web traffic with robust features that include user authentication, web filtering, data loss prevention, inspection and validation of SSL-‐‑encrypted traffic. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-
NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
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Source: Daily Mail
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How technology affords new ways of interacting
• Given the poverty, the social inequalities, the political repression, the lack of chances for advancement, the corruption, etc. the conditions were ripe
• Technology, a revolution does not make • But it is a powerful enabler for local-global
linkage, for safe coordination and information exchange
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Trigger events
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“We are the People of Facebook”
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Can new forms of organizing trump repression?
• "Our revolution is like Wikipedia, okay? Everyone is contributing content, [but] you don't know the names of the people contributing the content. Revolution 2.0 in Egypt was exactly the same. Everyone contributing small pieces, bits and pieces.” Wael Ghoneim
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Is the internet a force for democracy?
Clay Shirky Evgeny Morozov • The internet is inherently a
force for democracy. • A networked population is
gaining greater access to information, more opportunities to engage in public speech, and an enhanced ability to undertake collective action
• The internet empowers protestors to organize and collaborate on a huge scale
• The internet has the potential to both oppress and liberate. Which side dominates depends on the social and political context in which it is used rather than on some internal "logic" that derives from its architecture or culture
• long-term impact of new technologies on authoritarianism is to boost their attempts at surveillance, propaganda, censorship
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Network forms of organizing vs. bureaucracy
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What does the network form or organizing offer?
• Weak ties: acquaintances, more of them • Strong ties: family and friends, deeper connection • Activism and political organizing require strong ties
o Closed group, hierarchical structure, tight discipline, centralized leadership, coordination via authority, dedicated core, high trust relations, face to face meetings
• Regimes know how to disrupt such organizations o Informants, surveillance, target core members, disinformation
campaigns, infiltration and disruption
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What does the network form of organizing offer?
• Web 2.0 organizing is based on weak ties o Diverse sources of information, information travels fast
• Networks increase participation o increased motivation, lower cost of engagement
• But hard to agree o equal say, loose ties, decentralized leadership, no clear lines of
authority, difficulty in setting goals
• The local-global divide disappears: coordination via external sites
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What about the dominant bureaucratic structure?
• Jurisdiction and duties are clearly specified • organizational roles are held on the basis of
technical competence. • Each lower office is under the control and
supervision of a higher one • Rules and standard operating procedures
govern behavior • Administrative decisions, and rules are
formulated in writing
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Limitation of bureaucracy
• With time, bureaucracy becomes stodgy, unwieldy, unable to respond to new threats and opportunities o Centralized decision making – lower levels cannot deal with
exceptions/novel situations o Actors focus on internal power struggles -- paralysis o Given the rational/egalitarian norm, rules are developed to cover all
eventualities – difficult to implement o Impersonal nature of decision making – lose touch with those
affected
• Organization design is about matching organizational structure with the demands of the environment o Knowledge work requires initiative, judgment and collaboration o Learning organization, fast-response organizing, high reliability
organization
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First mutation: networks of interests
• The mutation: networks of corruption, of ethnic/tribal/family ties, of interests,
• Resistant to change and with goals that are orthogonal to the organization/social good
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Second mutation: neopatriarchy
• A mode of being that is more than culture
• It is both a macrostructure (state, society, economy) and a microstructure (family and individual personality)
• Criticism, synthesis, creativity#vs.
• Tradition, dependency, imitation
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How does a neopatriarchical bureaucracy manifest itself
Mutation • Modernized “exterior” projection • Workplace is a space of “sociability” • Espoused but not followed work routines
• Workarounds are the norm rather than the exception
• Things done via an elaborate network of patronage and personal ties
• Performance goes unrewarded • No link between competence and promotion
• Employees self-‐‑exert only toward egoistical goals and private gain
Ideal type • Takes advantage of the features of bureaucracy: wriLen reports, clear reporting, precise evaluation, formal coordination
• Hard work is valued • Differentiation between work and after-‐‑work
• Aim to achieve repeatable and measurable work routines
• Processes are measured with goal of improvement
• Competence is valued and rewarded • Employee self-‐‑exertion is recognized
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Conclusion: can the Arab Spring lead to organizational innovation? • New forms of technology-enabled organizing
have emerged • There are no technologies of freedom or
technologies of repression, they just mesh with broad social trends
• Innovation can help improve bureaucracy if coupled with a willingness to change
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Questions?
Reaction?
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