Invisible Iterations: How Formal and Informal Organization Shape Knowledge Networks for Coordination
通过调查数据和指数随机图模型，揭示了知识工作者在正式与非正式组织中分享隐性及显性知识的模式，并识别出两种协调机制：“看不见的迭代”和“请出大人物”。
Abstract This study takes a network approach to investigate coordination among knowledge workers as grounded in both formal and informal organization. We first derive hypotheses regarding patterns of knowledge‐sharing relationships by which workers pass on and exchange tacit and codified knowledge within and across organizational hierarchies to address the challenges that underpin contemporary knowledge work. We use survey data and apply exponential random graph models to test our hypotheses. We then extend the quantitative network analysis with insights from qualitative interviews and demonstrate that the identified knowledge‐sharing patterns are the micro‐foundational traces of collective coordination resulting from two underlying coordination mechanisms which we label ‘invisible iterations’ and ‘bringing in the big guns’. These mechanisms and, by extension, the associated knowledge‐sharing patterns enable knowledge workers to perform in a setting that is characterized by complexity, uncertainty and ambiguity. Our research contributes to theory on the interplay between formal and informal organization for coordination by showing how self‐directed, informal action is supported by the formal organizational hierarchy. In doing so, it also extends understanding of the role that hierarchy plays for knowledge‐intensive work. Finally, it establishes the collective need to coordinate work as a previously overlooked driver of knowledge network relationships and network patterns.