S15. Transformation-Orgs

Meyronin, B. (2015). La Génération Y, le manager, l’entreprise. PUG.

Snow, C. C., Fjeldstad, Ø. D., & Langer, A. M. (2017). Designing the digital organization. Journal of Organization Design, 6(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s41469-017-0017-y

Extracted Annotations (12/18/2017, 11:47:31 AM)

"Software tools and applications, robots, and a host of other digital technologies "... are doing for mental power - the ability to use our brains to understand and shape our environments - what the steam engine and its descendants did for muscle power" (Brynjolfsson & McAfee, 2014: 7-8)." (Snow et al 2017:1)

"digital organization will be populated with individuals and teams who are facile with technology and who can collaborate both inside and outside the organization to make process improvements and develop new solutions." (Snow et al 2017:2)

"This architecture is "actor" oriented - that is, it places a premium on the ability of organization members to self-organize while performing their work tasks." (Snow et al 2017:2)

"New technologies are seldom "invented" but rather are developed by combining technologies that already exist. Unlike older technologies, which mostly produce fixed physical outputs, digital technologies are generative (Zittrain, 2006) - they can be combined and recombined endlessly for fresh purposes (Arthur, 2009)." (Snow et al 2017:2)

"The domain of digital technology includes computer hardware, software, transmission networks, protocols, programming languages, very large-scale integrated circuits, algorithms, and all the components and practices that belong to these various technologies." (Snow et al 2017:2)

"The essence of the digital revolution has been concisely described by Brynjolfsson and McAfee (2014). They explain that technological progress in the digital era is due to three characteristics of technology: it is exponential, digital, and combinatorial (p. 37)." (Snow et al 2017:2)

"Technological innovations can be incremental or disruptive. Incremental innovations are characterized by small improvements to existing products, services, and processes. Disruptive innovations, on the other hand, may create new markets and business models, and often may displace market leaders (Christensen, 1997; Christensen and Bower, 1996)." (Snow et al 2017:3)

"Digital technologies play a role in all aspects of operating, controlling, and coordinating the activities of organizations (Setia et al. 2013)." (Snow et al 2017:3)

"used for automating and augmenting tasks" (Snow et al 2017:3)

"communicating internally among organization members and externally with customers and partners," (Snow et al 2017:3)

"making among digital and human agents (Davenport and Kirby, 2015; Engelbart 1962; Huber, 1990; Licklider, 1960; Simon, 1973)." (Snow et al 2017:4)

in collaborative decision making among digital and human agents (Davenport and Kirby, 2015; Engelbart 1962;

Huber, 1990; Licklider, 1960; Simon, 1973). (note on p.4)

"Digital technologies are also used for learning, decision-making, and design." (Snow et al 2017:4)

"The system was "trained" by using expertise extracted from human experts and then transformed into work rules. The main difference between normal software and MTR's artificial intelligence is that it contains human knowledge that takes years to acquire through experience (Hodson, 2014)." (Snow et al 2017:4)

"An organization is a goal-directed, boundary-maintaining activity system (Aldrich and Ruef, 2006)." (Snow et al 2017:4)

"With the declining costs of global communication and information processing, hierarchy is being replaced by radically different ways of organizing (Fjeldstad et al., 2012), the digital elements of which include cloud computing, big data analytics, cognitive computing, and collaboration platforms." (Snow et al 2017:4)

"Table 1 Digital applications used in leading digital firms" (Snow et al 2017:5)

"Source: Adapted from Westerman et al. (2014)" (Snow et al 2017:5)

"Digital technology is not only changing how organizations operate but also the way we think about organizing." (Snow et al 2017:5)

"Organizations increasingly include digital and human agents who share means of communication, control, and coordination. A traditional organization is arranged hierarchically - that is, control and coordination are achieved through an authority (reporting) structure in which superiors plan and coordinate the activities of subordinates, allocate resources, and resolve problems and conflicts (Simon, 1962). A hierarchical organization can be effective in stable and predictable environments because the organization does not have to regularly innovate or adapt to change. Many of today's environments, however, are not stable and predictable; they are volatile, uncertain, complex, and even ambiguous (Johansen, 2007; Suhayl & Joshi, 2015). Such environments are characteristic of knowledge-intensive industries like biotechnology, computers, healthcare, professional services, and national defense. Organizations operating in these types of environments rely heavily on the agency of their members. A hierarchical organization inevitably instills a hierarchical mindset among its members. Members understand that they are being paid to do a particular job, and they look to their managers to set goals, develop plans, and approve the quality of their work. As a result, organization members become psychologically as well as economically dependent on the hierarchy. In addition to the friction created by "relay managers" (Drucker, 1988) who merely pass along inform" (Snow et al 2017:5)

"hierarchical management styles tend to reduce intrinsic employee motivation to take initiative. Prior research has proposed an actor-oriented organizational architecture that is appropriate for knowledge-intensive sectors where organizations must continuously learn and adapt (Fjeldstad et al. 2012). Actor-oriented organizations rely on self-organizing, with only minimal use of hierarchical mechanisms to achieve control and coordination. Such organizations are particularly useful for large-scale, multi-party collaboration - a required capability in knowledge-intensive industries (Benkler, 2002; Powell et al. 1996). Collaboration has been shown to reduce risk, speed products to market, decrease the costs of solution development and process improvement, and enable access to new knowledge, technologies, and markets (Eisenhardt and Schoonhoven, 1996; Hagedorn, 1993; Kogut, 1988; Wheelwright and Clark, 1992)." (Snow et al 2017:6)

"The actor-oriented architecture is composed of three elements: (1) actors who have the capabilities and values to self-organize; (2) commons where the actors accumulate and share resources; and (3) protocols, processes, and infrastructures that enable multi-actor collaboration (see Table 2)." (Snow et al 2017:6)

"Actors Actors - whether they are individuals, teams, or firms - must possess the capabilities and values to self-organize. They engage in self-management rather than wait to respond to directions received from the hierarchy." (Snow et al 2017:6)

"Table 2 Elements of an actor-oriented organization" (Snow et al 2017:6)

"Commons Commons refers to resources that are collectively owned and available to actors (members of the organization). One type of commons is a knowledge commons, a repository of knowledge that organization members can both contribute to and use." (Snow et al 2017:7)

"Infrastructures, processes, and protocols Infrastructures connect actors and allow access to the same information, knowledge, and other resources. Actors who have the knowledge, information, tools, and values needed to set goals, and who can assess the consequences of potential actions for the achievement of those goals, can self-organize." (Snow et al 2017:8)

"Applying the actor-oriented scheme to the design of the digital organization Traditional organization design is centered on structural relationships - the boxes on the organization chart and the reporting lines that connect them. Actor-oriented design, by contrast, is centered on shared access to information and other resources as well as the protocols and infrastructures by which actors connect and collaborate." (Snow et al 2017:8)

"Collaborating, self-organizing actors A competent actor is one who possesses the knowledge, skills, and values suited to an actor-oriented system. In building a digital organization, the effective composition and mobilization of a set of competent actors may require a combination of selection, training, mentoring, and replacement of personnel." (Snow et al 2017:8)

"Table 4 Work skills required by an actor-oriented digital organization Sense-making Ability to determine the deeper meaning or significance of what is being expressed Social Intelligence Ability to connect to others in a deep and direct way, to sense and stimulate reactions and desired interactions Cross-cultural Competency Ability to operate in different cultural settings Computational Thinking Ability to translate large amounts of data into abstract concepts and to understand data-based reasoning Media Literacy Ability to critically assess and develop content that uses new media forms and to leverage these media for persuasive communication Trans-disciplinarity Literacy in and ability to understand concepts across multiple disciplines Design Mindset Ability to represent and develop tasks and work processes for desired outcomes Cognitive Load Management Ability to discriminate and filter information for importance, and to understand how to maximize cognitive functioning using a variety of tools and techniques Virtual Collaboration Ability to work productively, drive engagement, and contribute as a member of a virtual team Source: https://www.sfu.ca/career/WCID/iftf_futureworkskills.html" (Snow et al 2017:9)

"Commons that support collaboration Designing commons for a digital organization will be specific to each organization and its needs, but two commons in particular deserve attention: situation awareness and knowledge." (Snow et al 2017:10)

"To be effective, actors need a shared awareness of the resources and activities in their environment." (Snow et al 2017:10)

"A knowledge commons is information and data that is shared by the actors who make up the organization. It is typical to distinguish between declarative and procedural knowledge (Kogut and Zander, 1992). Declarative knowledge is factual whereas procedural knowledge is know-how." (Snow et al 2017:10)

"Protocols, processes, and infrastructures that connect and guide actors Guiding interactions among actors and accessing commons require protocols that reduce ambiguity and increase the effectiveness and efficiency of interaction. There are self-organizing processes associated with each protocol that actors follow in order to achieve control and coordination." (Snow et al 2017:11)

Extracted Annotations (12/18/2017, 12:12:25 PM)

"Much has been written regarding the importance of how companies transform their business from analogue to one that uses digital technologies. Such transformation requires moving from a transactional relationship with customers to one that is more "interactional" (Ernst & Young, 2013)." (Meyronin 2015:1)

"The purpose of this chapter is to explore why Gen Y employees need to be integrated with older employees to effectively enhance the success of digital transformations." (Meyronin 2015:2)

"CapGemini and MIT (2013) research shows that organizations need new operating models to meet the demands of a digital driven era. Digital tools have provided leaders ways to connect at an unprecedented scale. Digital technology has allowed companies to invade other spaces previously protected by a business' "asset specificities" (Tushman & Anderson, 1997) defined as advantages enjoyed by companies because of their location, product access, and delivery capabilities." (Meyronin 2015:2)

"The research also concluded five key indicators that support successful digital transformation in a firm: 1. À company's strategic vision is only as effective as the people behind it. Thus, winning the minds of all levels of the organization is required. 2. To become digital is to be digital, companies must have a "oneteam culture" and raise their employee's digital IQ. 3. A company must address the scarcity of talented resources and look more to using Gen Y individuals because they have a more natural adaptation to take on the challenges of digital transformation. 4. Resistant managers are impediments to progress and can actually stop digital transformation. 5. Digital leadership starts at the top." (Meyronin 2015:2)

"Eisenhardt and Bourgeois (1987) first defined dynamic changing markets as being in "high velocity." Their research showed that high velocity conditions existed in the technology industry during the early 1980's in Silicon Valley in the United States." (Meyronin 2015:2)

"Specifically, they concluded that workers who were capable of dealing with change and less subjected to a centralized totalitarian management structure outperformed those that had more traditional organizational structures." (Meyronin 2015:3)

"Dynamism is defined as a process or mechanism responsible for the development or motion of a system." (Meyronin 2015:3)

"defining "Technology Dynamism" as "the unpredictable and accelerated ways in which technology, specifically, can change organizational behavior and culture" (2010, p. 44)." (Meyronin 2015:3)

"how we might integrate new technologies into the business - a question of what Langer called strategic integration" (Meyronin 2015:3)

"how we assimilate the cultural changes they bring about organizationally - a question of what he called cultural assimilation." (Meyronin 2015:3)

"first step often determines negative or declining productivity as a result of the investment" (Meyronin 2015:5)

"in the second step we experience a lagging of, though eventual return to, productivity." (Meyronin 2015:5)

""factors of multiplicity" - essentially what happens when several new technology opportunities overlap and create a myriad of projects that are in various phases of their developmental life cycle" (Meyronin 2015:5)

"Research on Gen Y (also known as "Millennials") has defined these individuals as "digital natives." Digital natives are those people who are accustomed to the attributes of living in a digital world and are 18-25 years old." (Meyronin 2015:9)

"entrepreneur, a person with technology savvy and creativity, someone who works well in a mobile environment, and is non-conformant enough to drive change in an organization" (Meyronin 2015:10)