Crowd-Based Accountability: Examining How Social Media Commentary Reconfigures Organizational Accountability

Organizational accountability is considered critical to organizations’ sustained performance and survival. Prior research examines the structural and rhetorical responses that organizations use to manage accountability pressures from different constituents. With the emergence of social media, accountability pressures shift from the relatively clear and well-specified demands of identifiable stakeholders to the unclear and unspecified concerns of a pseudonymous crowd. This is further exacerbated by the public visibility of social media, materializing as a stream of online commentary for a distributed audience. In such conditions, the established structural and rhetorical responses of organizations become less effective for addressing accountability pressures. We conducted a multisite comparative study to examine how organizations in two service sectors (emergency response and hospitality) respond to accountability pressures manifesting as social media commentary on two platforms (Twitter and TripAdvisor). We find organizations responding online to social media commentary while also enacting changes to their practices that recalibrate risk, redeploy resources, and redefine service. These changes produce a diffractive reactivity that reconfigures the meanings, activities, relations, and outcomes of service work as well as the boundaries of organizational accountability. We synthesize these findings in a model of crowd-based accountability and discuss the contributions of this study to research on accountability and organizing in the social media era.

Agility enhancement through agile manufacturing implementation: a case study

PurposeDynamic business environment has a deep influence on production and management related exercises. In order to remain competitive, organization needs to coordinate with continuous and unpredictable changes taking place in the market. Globalization of markets is posing competitive pressure on firms, which leads them to adopt a new manufacturing paradigm termed agile manufacturing (AM). The purpose of the present case study is to explore the contribution of AM towards agility and productivity enhancements in an Indian manufacturing company.Design/methodology/approachThe study is carried out at forging industry which has been assessed on certain key business performance indicators. The assessment highlighted various issues which had scope for improvement to enhance the agility of the organization. Therefore, a phase-wise implementation of AM is carried to reap the significant benefits as a result of AM implementation in the case study company. The methodology has been applied to decrease the inline rejection, increase the productivity and responsiveness of the organization.FindingsThe results revealed an improvement in performance score from 77.5 to 100. Further, an increase in productivity and reduction in line rejection has been achieved through the systematic implementation of AM.Practical implicationsThe study highlights the contributions of strategic AM implementation to organizational performance and highlights the need for successful management of AM practices for establishing sustained performance of the organization.Originality/valueThe contribution of the present work is the phase-wise implementation of AM in the case studied company.

Planar narrowband Tamm plasmon-based hot-electron photodetectors with double distributed Bragg reflectors

Hot-electron photodetectors (HE PDs) are attracting a great deal of attention from plasmonic community. Many efficient HE PDs with various plasmonic nanostructures have been demonstrated, but their preparations usually rely on complicated and costly fabrication techniques. Planar HE PDs are viewed as potential candidates of cost-effective and large-area applications, but they likely fail in the simultaneous achievement of outstanding optical absorption and hot-electron collection. To reconcile the contradiction between optical and electrical requirements, herein, we propose a planar HE PD based on optical Tamm plasmons (TPs) consisted of an ultrathin gold film (10 nm) sandwiched between two distributed Bragg reflectors (DBRs). Simulated results show that strong optical absorption (>0.95) in the ultrathin Au film is realized. Electrical calculations show that the predicted peak photo-responsivity of proposed HE PD with double DBRs is over two times larger than that of conventional single-DBR HE PD. Moreover, the planar dual-DBR HE PDs exhibit a narrowband photodetection functionality and sustained performance under oblique incidences. The optical nature associated with TP resonance is elaborated.

Digital transformation: why companies resist what they need for sustained performance

Purpose The purpose of this study is to contribute to firms’ capabilities of digital transformation through the identification of strategies for digital decoupling and recoupling. Design/methodology/approach This paper reports from multiple studies using a combination of methods such as case studies and clinical studies. The method of analysis involves the revisiting of vignettes from interactions with practitioners with the purpose of analyzing patterns in responses to digital transformation. Findings The findings consist of four strategies used by organizations and individuals in the decoupling of digital from their existing operations. Digital decoupling affords the organization the possibility of remaining largely unaffected by digital transformation. The authors also present four digital recoupling strategies that are used to succeed with digital transformation. Research limitations/implications This study is limited by the analytical approach of drawing from multiple previous studies. The research implications consist primarily of a contribution to a better understanding of why and how digital transformation is constrained. Practical implications The four strategies of digital decoupling can be used to identify behavior in organizations that limit digital transformation. The four strategies of digital recoupling can be used to instigate a more successful digital transformation. Originality/value According to the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to identify digital decoupling strategies as a micro-foundation for organizational resistance to digital transformation.

Curtailing Job Insecurity and Counterproductive Work Behaviours as Bullying Effects in Pakistani Academia: Work Engagement as a Moderator

Judging from persistent changes, drive for performance and widespread uncertainty that characterize the Pakistani higher education system, this study sought to confirm whether workplace bullying – a by-product of relentless change – triggers job insecurity and counterproductive work behaviours in the bullied faculty, and whether these damaging outcomes are moderated by work engagement. Using convenience sampling, we sought data from 337 faculty members from the higher education sector. Analysis confirmed that bullying triggers job insecurity and counterproductive work behaviours while mixed findings emerged for the hypothesized moderation effects of work engagement. The study mainly stresses infusing work engagement within a work environment where bullying prevails. Managers may design jobs to augment engagement in a pressurized work environment with an aim to curtail job insecurity and counterproductive work behaviours for sustained performance in a changing work environment.

UNSW Face Test: A screening tool for super-recognizers

We present a new test–the UNSW Face Test (www.unswfacetest.com)–that has been specifically designed to screen for super-recognizers in large online cohorts and is available free for scientific use. Super-recognizers are people that demonstrate sustained performance in the very top percentiles in tests of face identification ability. Because they represent a small proportion of the population, screening large online cohorts is an important step in their initial recruitment, before confirmatory testing via standardized measures and more detailed cognitive testing. We provide normative data on the UNSW Face Test from 3 cohorts tested via the internet (combined n = 23,902) and 2 cohorts tested in our lab (combined n = 182). The UNSW Face Test: (i) captures both identification memory and perceptual matching, as confirmed by correlations with existing tests of these abilities; (ii) captures face-specific perceptual and memorial abilities, as confirmed by non-significant correlations with non-face object processing tasks; (iii) enables researchers to apply stricter selection criteria than other available tests, which boosts the average accuracy of the individuals selected in subsequent testing. Together, these properties make the test uniquely suited to screening for super-recognizers in large online cohorts.

What Really Drives Team Effectiveness? (And Getting the Most Out of This Book)

This chapter provides a high-level overview of what really drives team effectiveness—the science of teamwork. It describes what is and is not a team; defines a highly effective team as one that demonstrates sustained performance, team resilience, and vitality; and introduces the seven drivers of team effectiveness. The model contains seven evidence-based drivers: capability, cooperation, coordination, communication, cognition, coaching, and conditions, each of which are explored in detail in their own chapter later in the book. The chapter concludes with advice about how to get the most out of the book, including how to use it as a team leader, team member, senior leader, or consultant.