Data-Induced Rationality and Unitary Spaces in Interfirm Collaboration
通过对五个长期合作关系的案例研究，分析了数据密集型技术如何促使企业将数字活动委托给专门部门，形成数据驱动的思维和互动，进而创造出暂时搁置结构冲突、专注于短期协作利益的“统一空间”。
The real-time data transfer between collaborating companies allows them to represent and control activities across firm boundaries, providing new ways to organize collaborative efforts. We conducted an inductive multiple case study of five long-term relationships to examine the effects of data-intensive technologies on the organization and management of collaborative relationships in industrial companies. Our analysis shows how the delegation of digital activities into specialized digital units fostered data-driven mindsets and data-driven interactions that jointly formed a holistic data-induced rationality for managing the relationship. Together, the compartmentalization of digital collaboration and the data-induced rationalities turned these units into “unitary spaces,” organizational enclosures where structural tensions and competing demands were temporarily suspended to foster single-minded pursuit of collaborative short-term benefits for the partner company. Funding: The authors are grateful for the financial support from the Academy of Finland [Grant 274536].