Reading in organization theory with IT focus - Revision history

Seth at 04:26, 3 November 2009

2009-11-03T04:26:55Z

Seth: Reading in organization theory moved to Reading in organization theory with IT focus

2009-10-17T01:36:54Z

Reading in organization theory moved to Reading in organization theory with IT focus

Seth at 19:55, 25 September 2009

2009-09-25T19:55:20Z

Seth at 19:22, 5 September 2009

2009-09-05T19:22:19Z

New page

Annals of Medicine
==The Checklist==
Atul Gawande
2007/12/10

article about checklists in intensive medicine, and about the importance of system design more generally. Checklists are incredibly effective in providing better care, because even highly trained doctors forget little seemingly non-important things that can have a huge effect on outcomes. This article is one of a few things (the IT article too) that are making me realize that I won't be able to develop an adequate model of institutions without including stigmergy. Well written (its a New Yorker article). The article betrays some cynicism and skepticism that these approaches will ever be recognized enough to be implemented as widely as they should. The argument is that medicien gets a ton of money, but delivery gets almost none.

NEJM
==A Surgical Safety Checklist to Reduce Morbidity and Mortality in a Global Population==
This is a followup, that was most likely assigned as a signal that the above concern is no concern. This article is on a study covering hospitals around the world, appying the checklists above to surgery saftey and reporting effectiveness (though somewhat diminishing returns)

==How IT makes johnny More Productive==
Computerworld
A summary of another article assigned for the class about the role of IT in corporate productivity

The proper article was simultaneously boring and fascinating, it is the kind of basic level research that I am very glad I will never have to do, and am happy to be able to read. Argument is that IT and the appropriate human systems built around them, leads to corporations that decentralie decision making (with all lthe advantages of that) and thereby increase their capacity to survive in This Crazy World.

==What makes a car American==
CNN 12/12/08.
Article about the complexity of car manufacturing and the arbitrariness of Made in America. Toyota has almost more American employees manufacturing American cars than any of the Big Three. They, in turn, do most of their assembly and other parts in Mexico or other countries. Made in America is a sticker that car companies can buy. Big Three have a thinktank that argues against this conclusion with somewhat arcane arguments about R&D and other small points. There is propaganda in Georgia guiltripping people into buying american.

← Older revision		Revision as of 04:26, 3 November 2009
Line 83:		Line 83:
	Organization and Management		Organization and Management
	ACQ		ACQ
		+
		+
		+	==Week 10 reading==
		+	INTERNET TECHNOLOGISTS AS AN
		+	OCCUPATIONAL COMMUNITY:
		+	ETHNOGRAPHIC EVIDENCE
		+	Daniel Marschall
		+	Georgetown University, Washington DC, USA
		+	Abstract
		+	This paper uses qualitative research data, obtained from ethnographic 􏰥eldwork
		+	at a US software development 􏰥rm, to demonstrate that a group of skilled workers
		+	in the Internet economy constitute an ‘occupational community’. A conceptual
		+	framework for identifying occupational communities is described, along with
		+	relevant findings from previous ethnographic research on skilled workers in
		+	computer-related occupations. The Internet technologists at the company share
		+	collaborative work practices, identify closely with one another, adopt a distinctive
		+	use of language, and possess other characteristics indicating their participation in
		+	an occupational community. These 􏰥ndings are part of a longitudinal research
		+	study of the 􏰥rm’s organizational culture.
		+	Keywords
		+	Internet, computer programmers, occupations, corporate
		+	culture
		+	INTRODUCTION
		+
		+	...
		+
		+	The boundaries of such an occupational community are set by the members
		+	themselves, not by outside authority 􏰥gures. If participants in an occupational
		+	community operate within the confines of a single organization, they remain
		+	aware of other members in their community who work elsewhere and are part
		+	of an overall realm of systematic work practices.
		+	Members of an occupational community draw their identities and construct
		+	their self-images from their occupations and the social roles they inhabit in them.
		+	They tend to take pride in their identities, and present themselves to others
		+	in occupational terms. Community members construct distinctive identities in
		+	relation to their positions within the occupation. They exhibit a special use of
		+	language, for example, adopting jargon and technical vocabularies not imme-
		+	diately understandable to outsiders. They also may adopt special codes, including
		+	clothing and the styles of cars they prefer to drive. Members use these codes,
		+	argue Van Maanen and Barley, ‘to construct meaningful interpretations of
		+	persons, events, and objects commonly encountered in the occupational world’
		+	(1984: 300).
		+
		+	early silicon valley white collar coder culture
		+
		+
		+
		+
		+
		+
		+	polioce culture article
		+
		+	another quicvk book review about cops, a littl emore abstract and more typecasty
		+
		+	also, a really abstract one that does factor analysis on a survey on something or other

← Older revision		Revision as of 19:55, 25 September 2009
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	CNN 12/12/08.		CNN 12/12/08.
	Article about the complexity of car manufacturing and the arbitrariness of Made in America. Toyota has almost more American employees manufacturing American cars than any of the Big Three. They, in turn, do most of their assembly and other parts in Mexico or other countries. Made in America is a sticker that car companies can buy. Big Three have a thinktank that argues against this conclusion with somewhat arcane arguments about R&D and other small points. There is propaganda in Georgia guiltripping people into buying american.		Article about the complexity of car manufacturing and the arbitrariness of Made in America. Toyota has almost more American employees manufacturing American cars than any of the Big Three. They, in turn, do most of their assembly and other parts in Mexico or other countries. Made in America is a sticker that car companies can buy. Big Three have a thinktank that argues against this conclusion with somewhat arcane arguments about R&D and other small points. There is propaganda in Georgia guiltripping people into buying american.
		+
		+
		+	==How culture influences IT-enabled organizational change and information systems==
		+	Martinsons, M. G., Davison, R. M., & Martinsons, V. (2009). How culture influences IT-enabled organizational change and information systems. Communications of the ACM, 52(4), 118-123.
		+
		+	Explains itelf except that it was a bit more ambitious than you might expect it to be. They have a 5 dimensional representation of national culture, with axes
		+	#Power Distance
		+	#Uncertainty Avoidance
		+	#Masculinity
		+	#Time Orientation
		+	#Individualism
		+
		+	and they reate many countries relative to each other
		+
		+
		+
		+
		+	==Trusting strangers==
		+	English-Lueck, J. A., Darrah, C. N., & Saveri, A. (2002). Trusting strangers: Work relationships in four high-tech communities. Information, Communication & Society, 5(1), 90-108.
		+	an anthropology paper on work culture in silicon valleys emphasizing the role of trust and relationships across busniesses within an industry, with some emphasis on the contrast of this result to perspectives on convetional business culture. Funded by the NSF and Sloan Foundation.
		+
		+
		+	==Organizational obstacles to interface design and development: Two participant-observer studies==
		+	Poltrock, S.E., & Grudin, J. (1994). Organizational obstacles to interface design and development: Two participant-observer studies. ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction, 1(1), 52-80.
		+	Two interface designers looking at how the structure of a corporation influences it ability to effectively design interfaces. they ananlyze two companies with respect to their ability to effectively meet the four established criteria for effective interface design.
		+
		+
		+
		+	==Organigraphs: Drawing how companies really work==
		+	Mintzberg, H., & Van der Heyden, L. (1999). Organigraphs: Drawing how companies really work. Harvard Business Review, 77(5), 87-94.
		+
		+	mintzbuerg is one of Alice's heroes. This paper, very Harvard Business Review, criticizes conventional org charts and proposes a new strucutre for drawing the "real" structure of a corporation. It starts off very rigorous, with a definition of sets, and introduces a few, progressively more flaky and buzzy structures, and climaxes in adolescent pictures of how awesome diferent corporations are, with, like, sharks and lazers and stuff.
		+
		+
		+
		+	==Foster, I., & Tuecke, T. (2005). Describing the elephant: The different faces of IT as service. ==
		+	Enterprise Distributed Computing, 3(6). Retrieved September 6, 2005, from http://www.acmqueue.com/modules.php
		+	Introduces a lot of the more specific vocabulary of IT
		+
		+	==Hammond, T. H., & Thomas, P. A. (1989). The impossibility of a neutral hierarchy.==
		+	Journal of Law, Economics, & Organization, 5(1), 155-184.
		+	fascinating arcane erudite article making the argument that, through many mechanisms, all organizaitonal structures distort what kind of information they will recieve and be able to act on. The authors claim that they will FORMALLY PROVE that this will happen in any organization, and then they do. Very mathematical. I'm sure that given their assumptions their results hold. I'm not positive about the assumptions but this might be worth a closer look. Though it certainly isn't what I've really been looking for, it is definitely the closest thing that I have found.
		+
		+	==The vulnerable system: An analysis of the Tenerife air disaster==
		+	Weick, K. E. (1990). The vulnerable system: An analysis of the Tenerife air disaster. Journal of Management, 16(3), 571-593.
		+	An interesting article looking at physical, social and human factors behind every aspect of the Tenerife air disaster. The most salient aspect of this article is its truly terrifying appropriation and mass nutchering of diverse concepts from harder sciences. It is like a torture museum, How many ways can you torture how many kinds of people most efficiently? It was like watching a car wreck. Stohl and Redding 1987, re hierarchical constraints in stresful envs, looks interesting.
		+
		+
		+	==Scholars before Researchers Boote Beile 2005==
		+	It says that kids don't write or read anymore, and that that is really important to be good at before you are a doctor of anything.
		+
		+
		+
		+
		+
		+
		+	==Jorunals:==
		+	Information and Organization
		+	Organization and Management
		+	ACQ