Jiggsaw Reading: Rainie &v Wellman, Ch. 7 - Networked Worked

I chose this chapter because the title sounded the most intriguing to me. I accepted my current  position as a business analyst with Enterprise Resource Planning, after working for 8 years in higher education academic advisement and success coaching, and have been working in my current role for about 3 years. Many of my campus counterparts felt I switched teams. I went to the "dark-side". Some felt I could really advocate well for them, having worked in their shoes before, knowing the trials, tribulations and struggles they encounter daily.

This chapter begins with an overview of the evolution from "the organizational man" (think life after WWII~ hierarchical structures, single boss, clear lines) to the Networked Work (think global ICT, workers working on multiple teams for multiple goals) , to the Networked Organization (workers could be physically and organizationally widespread).

The authors present five related trends working to network work in network organizations:

1.  Globalization of Work
2. Shift from making things (atoms) in a material economy to selling/ describing/analyzing things (bit work) in information economy.
3. "Bit workers" have more ability to network than "Atom workers". It's easier to collaborate and connect using ICT's.
4. Internet allows us to access shared information remotely (no longer store data on our individual PC's, but in accessible databases).
5. The Mobile Revolution has allowed workers to be productive while away from their desk.

The authors then discuss how Networked Operators Operate. They use an analogy of the traditional organizations functioning more like a "fishbowl", with clearly defined groups... a clear "pecking order"/ organizational hierarchy. Networked organizations are ascribed as a "switchboard", where an individual worker plugs into a specific network using the media that makes the most sense. They describe these organizations as more team-based, laterally organized, and flexible. While somewhat oversimplified, Table 7.2 (pg. 179) does a good job of outlining the differences between traditional versus networked offices. Take a look! This section goes on to describe when certain media are used in which scenarios, using examples from a high-tech company based out of Chicago called KMG. They even discuss office design as it relates to these two ends of the spectrum.

The Rise of Networked Organizations comes next. Emphasis here is that networked organizations can often work with multiple teams on multiple projects, and as networks grow, we develop "glocal" (yes, it does say glocal... I know...), or local interactions with global connectivity- expertise. These networked workers in networked organizations can become "knowledge brokers", more likely to efficiently solve complex problems because of their diverse knowledge and expertise between and amongst teams. Typically, networked organization structures are flatter than traditional organizations. They tend to be more informal, and enforce fewer bureaucratic rules, meaning less top-down supervision, and increasing multiple reporting relationships. With this being said, it becomes increasingly important that the individual workers understand the teams' goals and action items. Essentially, we see a shift from top-down or bottom-up communication, and more coordination necessary to ensure no duplicate effort is going on from multiple individuals or teams.

Networked orgs require a collaborative environment to ensure expertise and knowledge are being shared. Supporters of networked organizations say that the team approach has helped make problem solving more "flexible and nimble". All that being said, many organizations still contain either wholly or in part, some level of traditional hierarchies.

I thought the section on working in multiple teams was interesting. Take a look at Figure 7.1 (pg. 184). The Intel examples provided are also enlightening. One of the statements that stood out from research done on the Intel workers was that "the researchers showed that the spatial spread and different cultures of team members does not lead to lower performance, but using incompatible types of ICT within a team does lower performance".... Interesting! So, it doesn't matter as much where the team members are physically located or whether they share the same cultural values, but the selection of the ICT media amongst the group CAN impact productivity....Hmmm.

Another area of this chapter I found interesting was the Blurring of Home-Work Boundary. This section is full of statistics of full-time versus part-time, bit-workers versus atom workers, home-workers versus in situ workers and their communication frequency with spouses/family. The long and the short of it, is that the more time spent working at home, the more integrated the home and work life becomes. This, obviously, comes with some strengths and challenges. Strengths may include things like less commuting time, and more flexibility in schedule. Drawbacks may be a sense of isolation, prolonged working hours, more distractions. Essentially, the big question here seems to be "Are teleworkers trading flexibility for longer, often uncompensated hours?"

Net and Jet:  This section is formed around the premise you must "travel to trust". While many relationships and connections are made on ICT's, networked orgs MUST have some in-person contact. It's necessary to add the human touch. In many instances, the f2f interaction is where the tacit information comes from; where gaps are filled; where you build the trust to develop a strong networked connection.

The last section of this chapter presents the differences in distributed designs of the 777 and 787 Boeing Airbusses. If you're looking for good examples of human and computer networks gone good, AND gone awry, read pgs 192-193. The lesson conveyed in these two examples is that it "appears that networked work and networked organizations are better at linking ideas (bits), than parts (atoms)"