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Workplace is populated with various occupational groups, each asserting control over an area of work through a jurisdictional claim. However, as emerging digital technologies link together occupational groups and generate data and information artifacts that are increasingly shared across groups, the boundaries between groups may become more penetrable and the bases for jurisdictional claims may flounder. We examine how occupational groups might create jurisdiction when the traditional bases for claiming jurisdiction are eroded in the context of emerging digital technologies. Through an ethnographic study, we examine how a new medical image processing group at an academic medical center established and sustained jurisdiction successfully despite sharing data, information artifacts, technologies, and much knowledge with neighboring groups. We show how jurisdiction is enacted through "interlacing practices": practices through which the group intricately crossed nearby groups, shared work artifacts and technologies to improve its own knowledge and work procedures as well as the overall work processes across groups. We discuss how such an enactment view can enrich our theories of organizational jurisdiction and boundary work in the context of emerging digital technologies by suggesting a more synergetic and collaborative understanding of organizing work across porous boundaries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Models used to aid decision-making in work and organizations vary in terms of their formalism, typically interpreted as the extent to which they are expressed precisely in mathematical or logical terms. Understanding where AI models fall along the continuum from informal to highly formal models is important in shedding light on whether they might be accepted by decision makers. However, ambiguity in what is meant by formalism complicates placement of AI models on this continuum. We propose a 2x2 matrix of explicitness of computation versus specificity of relations that may prove a better conceptual device for understanding differences in formalism. Exploration of this matrix suggests that people who routinely work with structured scientific models may be most concerned about opacity in AI models while those who typically employ unspoken mental models might be most willing to accept AI models. We draw upon examples from our study of dairy farms, where sensor data increasingly serve as the input for computer-embedded models that are replacing or augmenting the mental and intuitive models previously employed by farmers. We argue that AI models' computer embeddedness and not the inexplicable logic of their computations will prove the bigger hindrance in their acceptance. AI models share this problem with many other computer-embedded models, a problem that arguably arises when model building shifts from users to computer experts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT Recognizing that current curricula address but a sliver of the wide range of careers pursued by information studies graduates, a team worked collaboratively to design a syllabus for a graduate course dedicated to exploring the societal frames and characteristics of information work. Ultimately comprising 10 modules, the syllabus centers students' awareness of an expanded occupational landscape and evaluation of policies and labor structures impacting information workers. Created over the course of a semester, the syllabus complements an earlier set of empirical studies that revealed areas in which information educators might focus future teaching efforts. This paper articulates the role for iterative and collaborative processes in curriculum development and doctoral study around information work - a research arena requiring macroscopic and future-oriented thinking. We present the topical and pedagogical organization of the new syllabus and suggest paths forward for integrating its key concepts at other graduate and undergraduate levels of information studies coursework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we draw three knowledge distinctions. The first distinction, borrowed from Polanyi (1966, 1969), separates tacit from explicit knowledge, and is based on the codifiability of knowledge. The second distinction, between theoretical and practical knowledge, categorizes knowledge based on its product. The product in theoretical knowledge is an understanding of its object, whereas in practical knowledge it is the manipulation or creation of its object. We argue that practical knowledge enables individuals to creatively fill the gaps between their theoretical knowledge of the world and the world in actuality. Emotions coupled with cognition play a key role in this gap-filling process. The third distinction separates physical knowledge (knowledge of objects) from social knowledge (knowledge of humans). Physical knowledge is universal; social knowledge is essentially communal and normative. We provide examples of the eight kinds of knowledge resulting from the intersections of the three distinctions and show how they have variously, but not systematically, been considered in prior literature. We argue that the use of the three knowledge distinctions would benefit the field of organization studies in the realm of empirical studies of modern occupations, macro considerations of knowledge creation and acquisition, and the extension of organizational theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We argue that what knowledge is about and when it is employed are critical for understanding organizational knowledge and for making sense of knowledge work. In this study of structural engineers, we build a "knowledge profile" that depicts the type and derivation of knowledge employed across phases of project work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we consider the extent to which what we have learned over the years about traditional work teams is applicable to virtual teams. We do so by examining how geographic and temporal virtuality will impact team processes, psychosocial states, and performance. We show that two primary consequences of virtuality--mediated communication and unshared context--serve as conduits for this impact. For several robust variables from prior research, we illustrate how virtuality may challenge our understanding of teams. In particular, we illustrate how team cohesion, conflict, and participation will be different on virtual teams than on traditional teams. The model of virtual team performance formed by our propositions predicts poorer performance for virtual teams as compared to traditional teams, an outcome that is made worse for more interdependent teams. Virtual teams may nonetheless provide certain advantages by, for example, facilitating access to distributed expertise or enabling around-the-clock work. Thus, we discuss how structuring team interdependence may prove instrumental for limiting the negative effects of virtuality so that the benefits of virtual teams might be reaped. We conclude with ideas for future research on virtual teams. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Through an in-depth field study of information and communication technologies for development (ICT4D) initiatives in three South American countries, we investigate how actors' responses to prior discourses about IT innovations prompt variation in how they translate discourse about a current related innovation. Drawing upon Swanson and Ramiller's (1997) theorization of an "organizing vision" resulting from such discourse, and developing their idea that organizing visions may fall in a sequence, we document striking differences among what we term "pathways of enactment" of the ICT4D organizing vision. Construing a pathway of enactment as a series of discourse events, technology choices, and ground-level organizing activities, we show how actors' responses to prior organizing visions placed them in stronger or weaker positions when they encountered the ICT4D one. Actors in the strongest positions were able to participate prominently in the global ICT4D discourse and leverage their prior technological choices and ground-level organizing activities to exploit the potential of the ICT4D discourse while actors in the weakest positions had no voice in the larger ICT4D discourse, but did manage to leverage it into resources that supported modest new IT initiatives. Tracing the sources of variation in pathways of enactment should enable us to build theory about organizing visions (and, more broadly, collective senses of IT) that recognizes linkages across sequential innovations. Specifically, we discuss how scholars can begin to account for the role that prior organizing visions might play in shaping the set of technology choices and ground-level organizing activities that actors undertake with respect to a current one, including recognition that actors within a network may differ in their prior responses and thus be positioned differently upon contact with the current organizing vision. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This symposium showcases recent research projects on the use of new and emerging technologies in professional work. Emerging technologies that build on machine learning, computation, and statistical techniques, as well as rely on large data sets to generate responses, classi?cations, or dynamic predictions are becoming increasingly capable of taking on tasks that were once the exclusive province of human professionals. We will present fresh insights into the use of these new technologies for three purposes: 1) generating expert recommendations, 2) innovative problem solving, and 2) engaging in surveillance of professionals. The contexts in which these phenomena are explored are diverse and include bioinformatics and genomics, academia, industrial R&D, and medical care. Overall, the symposium will address these goals: (1) highlighting new findings and theory on each of these topics, with the goal of contributing to richer understanding of the changing nature of work in professional organizations; (2) comparing and contrasting the implementation challenges in various settings among different kinds of professionals (3) providing a forum for discussion of the challenges and opportunities of implementing these technologies. The Use of Bioinformatics & Genomics into Health Care: An Opportune Context to Study Professional Adaptation Processes Presenter: Forrest Briscoe; Pennsylvania State U. Implementation of Learning Algorithms in a Professional Organization Presenter: Katherine C. Kellogg; Massachusetts Institute of Technology Emerging Audit Cultures: Data, Analytics, and Rising Quantification in Professors' Work Presenter: Diane E Bailey; The U. of Texas at Austin Professional Authority and Knowledge in the Age of Intelligent Technologies Presenter: Paul Leonardi; UC Santa Barbara Using Technology to Augment Professionals, Instead of Replace Them, for Innovative Problem Solving Presenter: Hila Lifshitz-Assaf; New York U. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Technology implementations offer valuable contexts for examining the recursive relationships among institutional forces, organizational structures, and individual practices. Institutional theory provides a useful lens for examining these relationships, but critics note how its most popular concepts underplay the role of agency and portray actors as passive recipients of institutional "scripts." Research on institutional entrepreneurship shows the most promise in addressing these criticisms, but focuses too narrowly on the actions of powerful leaders who have vested interests in changing institutions. In this paper, we argue that other actors also perform work that is critical to institutional change processes, but perhaps lack explicit intentions to change institutions. We provide evidence from the implementation of the Brazilian correspondent banking system, a government-led, information technology-based financial inclusion project. We demonstrates how actors at various levels of the organization ushered in new institutional forms by performing different types of institutional work--administrative, cognitive, and social. Only designers performing administrative work directly aimed to change the institution; however, unintentional institutional work done by actors at lower levels of the organization was equally important to the system's success. We discuss the implications of these findings for future studies of institutional change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Extensive research in three literatures--organizational socialization, communities of practice, and sociology of work--has shown how people learn at work to do their job, to act in their role, and to become a member of their organization, community of practice, or profession. Scholars across these literatures assume that learning occurs among co-located workers. This assumption is increasingly problematic as greater numbers of people work far from their colleagues, thus perhaps challenging established notions of socialization. To explore the socialization of remote workers, we conducted five case studies of organizations, communities of practice, and professions, interviewing 178 remote and centrally co-located workers. Our findings show that working distant from experienced colleagues altered socialization in most cases and often altered the target of workers' identification. Our findings suggest that remote work (a) eschews traditional socialization goals, (b) prompts self-directed learning, and (c) encourages new or different identification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To mediate the transfer of knowledge, brokers must recognize good ideas from sources and sell good ideas to targets. Although skill at recognizing and selling good ideas is critical to brokers' success, the literature leaves largely unexplored the details of how brokers carry out these processes. In a multi- method study that spans eight countries and five years, we show how automotive engineers in India recognized and sold good ideas in the form of engineering procedures. Our qualitative analysis of ethnographic observations and interviews yields three work practices that Indian engineers employed in recognizing good ideas within jobs they received from the automaker's regional engineering centers, three practices that they employed in selling good ideas to engineers in the centers, and two practices that they employed when working with other engineers in India. Through quantitative analyses of survey and archival data on authorships of standard work guidelines - the automaker's organizational memory of good ideas - we find that Indian engineers produced the most authorships when their organization of work balanced the number of engineers dedicated to recognizing good ideas ("consultant" engineers) with the number of engineers dedicated to selling those ideas ("team" engineers). As brokers, the engineers in our study were more than conduits of information; by conducting tests and analyses that determined which engineering procedure among many possibilities was best, the engineers provided proof that validated good ideas in the eyes of targets. Such validations played a significant role in engineers' ability to sell good ideas to other centers. Our findings have theoretical implications for understanding brokers' practices, the organization of brokers' work, brokers' relationship with sources and targets, and the skills that brokerage demands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]