Social media and the structuration of organizational communication

Dr James (Jim) Slevin

on organizations and social media

Lecture 5 of 7

Reading for this week

• Albano, R. et al. (2010) The relevance of Giddens' structuration theory for

organizational research. TAO Digital Library.

• DeSanctis, D. and Poole, M.S. (1994) Capturing the complexity in advanced

technology use: Adaptive structuration theory. Organization Science, 5-2,

121-147.

• Orlikowski, W.J. (1992) The duality of technology: Rethinking the concept of

technology in organizations. Organization Science, 3-3, 398-427.

• Van Osch, W. and Coursaris, C.K., (2012) The Duality of Social Media:

Structuration and Socialization through Organizational Communication.

SIGHCI 2012 Proceedings. Paper 12.

We have already seen an attempt at this in Kietzmann et al. (Cf. the first lecture in this series):

Drawing together the threads of social, technological and organizational change is highly challenging

Their model places ‘social media functionalities’ and their ‘implications’ in a honeycomb structure.

How about doing the same but with snow flakes?

... or with basalt blocks?

The problem is that it would just not really matter. This way of understanding the logic of organizations and social

media is completely arbitrary, static, and it has no explanatory power.

In contrast, I shall argue that Stucturation Theory provides us with a far richer understanding of these challenges

Anthony Giddens

Structuration Theory is a social theory concerned with the abstract characteristics of social practices ordered across time and space

It has entered into the study of organizational communication through the work of:

Wanda Orlikowski Gerardine DeSanctis

Roberto Albano et al.

overview

Wietske Van Osch et al.

social media

Analogies have often been used to emphasize the structures that underpin organizations

Some notable examples:

Organization as an organism

Organization as a machine

The world as a ‘space of flows’

Some of Giddens’ objections to such understandings of the way organizations order time-space

• Organizational features do not come about, persist or disappear because organizations need them to do so.

• Organizations only exist in and through their performing over time.

• No recognition of the role of knowledgeable human agents in organizational reproduction.

• They treat structure as having a rigid, contraining presence.

• They unable to help us understand organizational change.

In contrast, social practice theories draw attention to action and interaction in organizations

Some notable examples:

Erving Goffman

• Presentation of the self in interaction with others• Verbal and non-verbal

communication.

Harold Garfinkel

• ‘Ethnomethodology’• Organizational rationality

as a local accomplishment.

Some of Giddens’ objections to such understandings of the way social practices are ordered across time and space

• Emphasizes the practical and knowledgeable involvement of human agents but treats organizational properties as a backdrop.

• Strong on intentionality and purpose of human agency but weak on its unintended consequences.

Structuration theory involves an approach with very different qualities and dimensions

strategic action andinteraction in co-presence

institutional/organizationalsystems across time-space

structural rules and resourcesas system properties

An example:language

Grammer and vocabulary etc.

Language speaking

community

Language used in

communicative practice

Duality ofstructure

• Structure is both enabling and constraining.

• Structuration depends on the active involvement of knowledgeable human agents.

• Human knowledgeability is bounded.

structure

strategic action

institutional/organizational

communication

interpretive scheme

orders of signification

orders of domination

facility

power

orders of legitimation

norm

sanction

The dimensions of the duality of structure according to Giddens differ considerably from a ‘honeycomb’

dimensions of the duality of structure

(rules and resources)

(system integration)

(social integration)

Giddens’ ‘stratification model of strategic action’ connects action to structure

reflexive monitoring of action

• rationalization of action• motivation of action

unintended consequences of action

unacknowledged conditions of action

stratification model of strategic action

For Giddens, three types of consciousness relate to the process of agency and structuration

discursive consciousness

practical consciousness

unconscious motives/cognition=

types of consciousness

Wanda Orlikowski applies the duality of structure to communication technology

technological imperative model strategic choice model

technology triggered structural change model technology desgn & use model

Orlikowski offers a critique of several ‘prior views of technology’

Orlikowski’s conceptualization of a structurational model of technology

a) technology as a product of human action.b) technology as a medium of human action.c) institutional conditions of interaction with technology.d) institutional consequences of interaction with technology.

Wietske Van Osch et al. attempt to devise a structurational model of social media use in organizations and its enabling role for organizational communication

“social media can be simultaneously the cause, mediator and/or effect (e.g. choice to use social media) vis-à-vis the four factors of the model, namely the organizational actor, action, entity, and culture”

• It makes but scant use of Giddens’ Theory of Structuration.

• ‘The situation of society’ is not a work by Giddens.

• Social media in themselves are not the cause of anything.

• No attempt to demonstrate the explanatory power of their model.

• Adopts Jürgen Habermas’ Theory of Communicative Action with no consideration of its limitations for the study of social media, today (Cf. the seventh lecture in this series).

A constructive critique of the Van Osch et al. project

Habermas’ conversational model is problematic when applied to (social) media

the ‘ideal’ of a 17th century coffee-house

Lots needs to be done, but it’s obnoxious to suggest in world in which people are

increasingly reflexively engaged, that we can understand the outcome of social

media development and use as something akin to bees building their nests.

Study questions

• What is the theory of structuration and what do its proponents hope to

achieve by using it?

• Using Orlikowski’s work, critically sketch traditional conceptions of

communication technology and the way it is embroiled in organizations.

• How might we understand the interaction of social media with

organizations as a duality? What advantages does this bring in regard to

the earlier conceptions?

• Demonstrate the explanatory power of structuration theoretical insights

by applying them to an example of social media use of your own.

Social media and the structuration of organizational communication

Dr James (Jim) Slevin

on organizations and social media

Lecture 5 of 7