Wanda J. Orlikowski | |
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| Alma mater | New York University |
| Known for | Practice lens Sociomateriality |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Information systems Organization Studies |
| Website | mitsloan |
Wanda J. Orlikowski is a US-based organizational theorist and Information Systems researcher, and the Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Information Technologies and Organization Studies at the MIT Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. [1]
Orlikowski received her B.Comm from the University of the Witwatersrand in 1977, an M. Comm from the same university in 1982, and an MPhil and Ph.D. from the New York University Stern School of Business in 1989.[ citation needed ]
She has served as a visiting Centennial Professor of Information Systems at the London School of Economics and Political Science, and a visiting professor at the Judge Business School at the University of Cambridge. She is currently the Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Information Technologies and Organization Studies at MIT's Sloan School of Management. [2]
Orlikowski has served as a senior editor for Organization Science , and currently serves on the editorial boards of Information and Organization and Organization Science . [3]
She is a member of the Academy of Management, the Association for Computing Machinery, the Institute of Management Science, the Society of Information Management, and the Society for Organizational Learning.
Orlikowski was awarded the 2015 Distinguished Scholar Award by the Organizational Communication and Information Systems (OCIS) Division of the Academy of Management. In 2015, she won the Lasting Impact Award from the ACMCSCW conference [4] for her paper Learning from Notes: Organizational issues in groupware implementation. [5] Orlikowski was named a Fellow of Academy of Management in 2019. [6] She was elected a corresponding Fellow of the British Academy in 2021. [7] In 2022, she was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from the Copenhagen Business School. [8] In 2023, she was awarded the CTO [9] Lifetime Service Award. [10]
Orlikowski's research examines relations between technology and organizations over time, with emphases on organizing structures, cultural norms, communication genres, and work practices. She is best known for her work in studying the implementation and use of technologies within organisations by drawing on Giddens' Theory of Structuration. Her 1992 paper "The duality of technology: Rethinking the concept of technology in organizations" has been cited over 6200 times, and her subsequent paper in 2000, "Using technology and constituting structures: A practice lens for studying technology in organizations," has received over 5600 citations. [1]
Orlikowski has written extensively on the use of electronic communication technologies, most notably collaborating with JoAnne Yates, a professor of communications at the MIT Sloan School of Management. She has also written papers on research methodology and her 1991 paper with Jack Baroudi in Information Systems Research is particularly widely cited. Her most recent work examines the sociomaterial practices entailed in social media. Her recent collaborations with Susan V. Scott of the London School of Economics have drawn on Karen Barad's Agential Realism and the inseparability of meaning and matter to argue for the inseparability of (digital) materiality and the social.
Structurational studies of technology and organizations have been highly influenced by the social studies of technology. Initially arguing for a view of the "duality of technology," Orlikowski went on to argue for a practice-based understanding of the recursive interaction between people and technologies over time. Orlikowski (2000) argues that emergent structures offer a more generative view of technology use, suggesting that users do not so much appropriate technologies as they enact particular technologies-in-practice with them. The ongoing enactment of technologies-in-practice either reproduce existing structural conditions or they produce changes that may lead to structural transformation. [11]
Based on a series of empirical studies of collaborative technologies (groupware), Orlikowski identified at least three types of enactment produced within different conditions and producing different consequences associated with humans engagement with technology in practice.
In more recent work, Orlikowski argues that our primary ways of dealing with materiality in organizational research are conceptually problematic and proposes an alternative approach that posits materiality as constitutive of everyday life. This work draws on Karen Barad's agential realism and the notion of sociomateriality as influenced by the work of Lucy Suchman and Annemarie Mol.
In co-authored work, Orlikowski and Susan Scott of the London School of Economics argue for a focus on sociomaterial practices within organizational and information system studies. This recognizes that all practices are always and everywhere sociomaterial, and that this sociomateriality is constitutive of the contours and possibilities of everyday organizing. [12]
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Her publications [13] include:
Collaborative software or groupware is application software designed to help people working on a common task to attain their goals. One of the earliest definitions of groupware is "intentional group processes plus software to support them."
Organizational learning is the process of creating, retaining, and transferring knowledge within an organization. An organization improves over time as it gains experience. From this experience, it is able to create knowledge. This knowledge is broad, covering any topic that could better an organization. Examples may include ways to increase production efficiency or to develop beneficial investor relations. Knowledge is created at four different units: individual, group, organizational, and inter organizational.
An information system (IS) is a formal, sociotechnical, organizational system designed to collect, process, store, and distribute information. From a sociotechnical perspective, information systems are composed by four components: task, people, structure, and technology. Information systems can be defined as an integration of components for collection, storage and processing of data of which the data is used to provide information, contribute to knowledge as well as digital products that facilitate decision making.
Computer-supported cooperative work (CSCW) is the study of how people utilize technology collaboratively, often towards a shared goal. CSCW addresses how computer systems can support collaborative activity and coordination. More specifically, the field of CSCW seeks to analyze and draw connections between currently understood human psychological and social behaviors and available collaborative tools, or groupware. Often the goal of CSCW is to help promote and utilize technology in a collaborative way, and help create new tools to succeed in that goal. These parallels allow CSCW research to inform future design patterns or assist in the development of entirely new tools.
Theories of technological change and innovation attempt to explain the factors that shape technological innovation as well as the impact of technology on society and culture. Some of the most contemporary theories of technological change reject two of the previous views: the linear model of technological innovation and other, the technological determinism. To challenge the linear model, some of today's theories of technological change and innovation point to the history of technology, where they find evidence that technological innovation often gives rise to new scientific fields, and emphasizes the important role that social networks and cultural values play in creating and shaping technological artifacts. To challenge the so-called "technological determinism", today's theories of technological change emphasize the scope of the need of technical choice, which they find to be greater than most laypeople can realize; as scientists in philosophy of science, and further science and technology often like to say about this "It could have been different." For this reason, theorists who take these positions often argue that a greater public involvement in technological decision-making is desired.
The Social Study of Information Systems (SSIS) is interested in people developing and using technology and the "culture" of those people.
A collaborative working environment (CWE) supports people, such as e-professionals, in their individual and cooperative work. Research in CWE involves focusing on organizational, technical, and social issues.
Computer simulation is a prominent method in organizational studies and strategic management. While there are many uses for computer simulation, most academics in the fields of strategic management and organizational studies have used computer simulation to understand how organizations or firms operate. More recently, however, researchers have also started to apply computer simulation to understand organizational behaviour at a more micro-level, focusing on individual and interpersonal cognition and behavior such as team working.
Brand engagement is the process of forming an emotional or rational attachment between a consumer and a brand. It comprises one aspect of brand management. Brand engagement will impact brand attachment and has a positive influence on customer purchase intentions. Brands can form these attachments through different strategies that will promote their brand and overall customer satisfaction.
Knowledge sharing is an activity through which knowledge is exchanged among people, friends, peers, families, communities, or within or between organizations. It bridges the individual and organizational knowledge, improving the absorptive and innovation capacity and thus leading to sustained competitive advantage of companies as well as individuals. Knowledge sharing is part of the knowledge management process.
In sociology and science and technology studies, a boundary object is information, such as specimens, field notes, and maps, used in different ways by different communities for collaborative work through scales. Boundary objects are plastic, interpreted differently across communities but with enough immutable content to maintain integrity.
Paul M. Leonardi was the Duca Family Professor of Technology Management at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He was also the Investment Group of Santa Barbara Founding Director of the Master of Technology Management Program. Leonardi moved to UCSB to found the Technology Management Program and start its Master of Technology Management and Ph.D. programs. Before joining UCSB, Leonardi was a faculty member in the School of Communication, the McCormick School of Engineering, and the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.
Collaborative information seeking (CIS) is a field of research that involves studying situations, motivations, and methods for people working in collaborative groups for information seeking projects, as well as building systems for supporting such activities. Such projects often involve information searching or information retrieval (IR), information gathering, and information sharing. Beyond that, CIS can extend to collaborative information synthesis and collaborative sense-making.
Multi-communicating is the act of managing multiple conversations simultaneously. The term was coined by Reinsch, Turner, and Tinsley, who proposed that simultaneous conversations can be conducted using an array of media, including face-to-face, phone, and email tools for communication. The practice allows individuals to utilize two or more technologies to interact with each other.
JoAnne Yates Sloan Distinguished Professor of Management, Emerita at the MIT Sloan School of Management, has worked at the intersection of organization studies and information technology. She has contributed to a number of fields including organizational theory, rhetoric and writing studies, genre theory, business history, archival studies, history of computing, and standardization.
Cynthia Mathis Beath is an American economist and Professor Emerita at the Department of Information, Risk and Operations Management at the McCombs School of Business,
Sociomateriality is a theory built upon the intersection of technology, work and organization, that attempts to understand "the constitutive entanglement of the social and the material in everyday organizational life." It is the result of considering how human bodies, spatial arrangements, physical objects, and technologies are entangled with language, interaction, and practices in organizing. Specifically, it examines the social and material aspects of technology and organization, but also emphasizes the centrality of materials within the communicative constitution of organizations. It offers a novel way to study technology at the workplace, since it allows researchers to study the social and the material simultaneously.
Linda Argote is an American academic specializing in industrial and organizational psychology. She is Thomas Lord Professor of Organizational Behavior and Theory in the Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon University, where she directs the Center of Organizational Learning, Innovation and Knowledge.
Janet Bercovitz is an American entrepreneurship scholar and the Deming Professor of Entrepreneurship at the Leeds School of Business at the University of Colorado, Boulder in strategy, entrepreneurship, and operations.
Ann Majchrzak is an American academic. She is a Professor of Digital Innovation in the Department of Data Sciences and Operations within the USC Marshall School of Business. Majchrzak holds the USC Associates Chair in Business Administration.
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