Network Organizations: Symmetric Cooperation or Multivalent Negotiation?

Ekbia, Hamid R. and Kling, Rob Network Organizations: Symmetric Cooperation or Multivalent Negotiation? The Information Society, 2005, vol. 21, n. 3, pp. 155-168. [Journal article (Paginated)]

[thumbnail of EkbiaKling_NetworkOrgs.pdf]
Preview
 PDF
EkbiaKling_NetworkOrgs.pdf
Download (416kB) | Preview

English abstract

The network model of organization plays a central role in recent sociological accounts of the information economy. This model is also often presented in organization and information and communication technologies (ICT) literature with an air of enthusiasm that underscores its advantages--flexibility, cooperative culture, innovativeness, and knowledge and technology intensity. Such themes are usually based on a "networking logic" that assumes the trustful cooperation of large and small production firms in a rapidly changing economic environment. We believe that both the logic and the themes based upon it are too narrow to be able to explain the complex dimensions of interorganizational networking. Using Enron as a case study, our goal in this article is to enrich the logic just described and to develop an extended model of the network enterprise. We argue that this is only possible by extending the unit of analysis beyond the production firm, to include, among others, subsidiaries, banks, investors, auditors, and government agencies. The proposed extended model allows the broadening of many of the aforementioned themes, making it possible to arrive at a realistic picture of the complexities of the network enterprise. The managerial advantages of the model are also discussed.

Item type: Journal article (Paginated)
Keywords: network organizations ; information society
Subjects: A. Theoretical and general aspects of libraries and information. > AZ. None of these, but in this section.
B. Information use and sociology of information > BD. Information society.
Depositing user: Hamid Ekbia
Date deposited: 01 May 2009
Last modified: 02 Oct 2014 12:14
URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10760/13073

References

Abell, P., and Reyniers, D. 2000. On the Failure of Social Theory. British Journal of Sociology 51(4): 739–750.

Altman, D. 2002. Enron had more than one way to disguise rapid rise in debt. New York Times, February 17.

Baker, W. 1992. The network organization in theory and practice. In Networks & Organizations, eds. N. Nohria and R. Eccles, pp. 142– 162. Basingstoke: Macmillan.

Banerjee, N., Barboza, D., andWarren, A. 2002. At Enron, lavish excess often came before success. New York Times, February 26.

Barboza, D., and Schwartz, J. 2002. The finance wizard behind Enron's deals. New York Times, February 6.

Bell, D. 1973. The coming of postindustrial society: A venture in social forecasting. New York: Basic Books.

Beritano, S. 2002. Enron IT: A tale of excess and chaos. CIO. http://www.cio.com/executive/edit/030502-enron.html (accessed April 2003).

Bilodeau, O. 2002. In eye of Enron storm, a partnership is rocked. Legal Times, February 21.

Bovasso, G. 1992. A structural analysis of the formation of a network organization. Group & Organization Management 17(1): 86–106.

Bryce, R. 2001. Fueling bandwidth trading: How energy companies plan to change telecom. Interactive Week 8(31): 20–23.

Burns, T., and Stalker, G. 1961. The management of innovation. London: Tavistock.

Camuffo, A., Romano, P., and Vinelli, A. 2001. Back to the future: Benetton transforms its global network. MIT Sloan Management Review 43(1): 46–52.

Castells, M. 1996. The rise of the network society. Malden, MA: Blackwell.

Castells, M. 2000. Materials for an explanatory theory of the network society. British Journal of Sociology 51(1): 5–24.

Castells, M. 2001. The Internet galaxy: Reflections on the Internet, business, and society. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

Chaffin, J. 2002. Enron complaint cites "sham" Merrill deal. Financial Times, October 2.

Ching, C., Holsapple, C. W., and Whinston, A. B. 1996. Toward IT support for coordination in network organizations. Information & Management 30: 179–199.

Coffee, J. 2002. Accounting for bad accounting. An interview. http://www.essential.org/monitor/enroncoffee.html (accessed February 2003).

Crabtree, J. 2002. The cult of Castells. Prospect February: 50–54.

Creswell, J. 2002. Banks on the hot seat. Fortune Magazine 146(4): 79– 82.

Cruver, B. 2002. The anatomy of greed: The unshredded truth from an Enron insider. New York: Carroll & Graf.

DeSanctics, G., and Fulk, J. 1999. Shaping organizational form: Communication, connection, and community. Newburg Park, CA: Sage.

Dow Jones News Service. 1998. Power Shock-3: Enron known as sophisticated risk manager. July 9.

Durgin, H. 1994. Natural gas traders inch into computer age. Houston Chronicle, July 31.

Eades, J. 2000. The Information Age book review. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 6(2): 340–341.

Eisenhardt, K. M. 1989. Building theories from case study research. Academy of Management Review 14(4): 532–550.

Ekbia, H. R. 2004. How IT mediates organizations: Enron and the California energy crisis. Journal of Digital Information 5(4). http://jodi.ecs.soton.ac.uk/Articles/v05/i04/Ekbia/.

Foss, N. J. 2001. Selective intervention and internal hybrids: Interpreting and learning from the rise and decline of the Oticon spaghetti organization. DRUID Working Paper No. 01-16. http://econpapers. repec.org/paper/aalabbswp/01=16. htm (accessed June 2003).

Fulk, J. 2001. Global network organizations: Emergence and future prospects. Human Relations 54(1): 91–99.

Gosselin, Peter G. 2002. Enron a Rerun of History. L.A. Times, February 22.

Grandori, A., and Soda, G. 1995. Inter-firm networks: Antecedents, mechanisms and forms. Organization Studies 16(2): 183–214.

Greider, W. 2002. The Enron nine. The Nation, May 13.

Hanssen-Bauer, J., and Snow, C. 1996. Responding to hypercompetition: The structure and processes of a regional learning network organization. Organization Science 7(4): 413–427.

Institute for Policy Studies. 2002. Enron's pawns: How public institutions bankrolled Enron's globalization game. March 22. http://www.seen.org/PDFs/pawns.PDF (accessed September 23).

Ketchen, D. J., Jr. 2003. An interview with Raymond E. Miles and Charles C. Snow. The Academy of Management Executive 17(4): 97– 104.

Kirkpatrick, D. 2000. Enron takes its pipeline to the net. Fortune 141(2): 127–131.

Kling, R., ed. 1997. Computerization and controversy. San Diego, CA: Academic Press.

Kling, R. In press. The Internet Galaxy book review. Unpublished manuscript.

Kling, R., and Lamb, R. 2000. IT and organizational change in digital economics: A socio-technical approach. In Understanding the digital economy—Data, tools and research, ed. B. K. E. Brynjolfsson. pp. 295–324. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Kraak, A. 2000. Debating Castells and Carnoy on the network society. The Gauteng Seminars. http://www.anc.org.za/ancdocs/ pubs/umrabulo/umrabulo9c.html#f1 (accessed in January 2004).

Kranhold, K. 1999. Enron to unveil pact involving RealNetworks. Wall Street Journal, January 21.

Krugman, P. 2002. Everyone is outraged. New York Times, July 2.

Maselli, J. 2001. Information: The most valuable asset. Information Week 852: 32–33.

Mayer, D., and Kenney, M. F. 2002. Economic action does not take place in a vacuum: Understanding Cisco's acquisition and development strategy. BRIE Working Paper 148.

Miles, C. C., and Snow, R. E. 1992. Causes of failure in network organizations. California Management Review 34(4): 53–67.

Miles, C. C., and Snow, R. E. 1995. The new network firm: A spherical structure built on a human investment philosophy. Organizational Dynamics 23(4): 5–20.

Miles, C. C., Snow, R. E., and Coleman, H. J., Jr. 1992. Managing 21st century network organizations. Organizational Dynamics 20(3): 5– 21.

Morgensen, G. 2002. Information sooner, Yes, but make it better, too. New York Times, May 5.

Mulford, C. W., and Comiskey, E. E. 2002. The financial numbers game: Detecting creative accounting practices. New York: John Wiley.

Murray, F., andWilmott, H. 1997. Putting information technology in its place: Towards flexible integration in network age? In Information technology and organization: Strategies, networks, and integration, ed. B. P. Bloomfield, pp. 160–180. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

Nohria, N., and Eccles, R., eds. 1992. Networks and organizations. Boston: Harvard Business Press.

Oppel, R. A., Jr. 2002.Wall Street analysts faulted on Enron. New York Times, February 28.

PBS News Hours, February 8, 2002.

Pearce, J. L. 2003. Former Enron vice president Sherron Watkins on the Enron collapse. Academy of Management Executive 17(4): 119– 125.

Polodny, J. M., and Page, K. L. 1998. Network forms of organization. Annual Review of Sociology 24: 57– 76.

Porter, M. 1998. Clusters and the new economics of competition. Harvard Business Review November– December: 77–90.

Poruban, Steven. 2001. Enron's Lay sees more e-commerce changes for industry. Oil and Gas Journal 99(16): 32–33.

Powell, W. W. 1990. Neither market nor hierarchy: Network forms of organization. In Research in organizational behavior, eds. L. L. Cummints and Barry M. Staw, vol. 12, pp. 295–336. Greenwich, CT: JAI Press.

Powell, W. W. 2000. The capitalist firm in the 21st century: Emerging patterns. In The twenty-first century firm, ed. P. DiMaggio. pp. 33–68. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

PR Newswire. 1997. Enron announces first metering systems using twoway wireless communications and a satellite-enabled network for all electricity consumers. December 15.

Powers' Report. 2002. Report of investigation by the special investigative committee of the board of directors of Enron Corp. http://news. findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/enron/sicreport/ (accessed July 2003).

Ragatz, G. L., Handfield, R. B., and Petersen, K. J. 2002. Benefits associated with supplier integration into new product development under conditions of technology uncertainty. Journal of Business Research 55: 389–400.

Rubenstein, D. 2001. Oil change: At Enron, a decade of transformation. Corporate Legal Times 11(119): 1–4.

Sassen, S. 1998. Globalization and its discontents. New York: New Press.

Sassen, S. 2001. The global city, 2nd ed. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Sennett, R. 1998. The corrosion of character: The personal consequences of work in the new capitalism. New York: W.W. Norton.

Share, J. 1999. Enron executive hopeful over prospects in Africa, Asia. Pipeline & Gas Journal 226(8): 20–24.

Sherman, S. 2002. Enron: Uncovering the uncovered story. Columbia Journalism Review March/April. http://www.cjr.org/year/ 02/2/shreman.asp (accessed August 2003).

Sonnentag, S. 2000.Working in a network context—what are we talking about? Comment on Symon. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology 73(4): 415–418.

Staider, F. 1998. The network paradigm: Social formations in the age of information. The Information Society 14(4): 301–309.

Swartz, M., and Watkins, S. 2003. Power failure: The inside story of the collapse of Enron. New York: Doubleday.

Symon, G. 2000. Information and communication technologies and network organization: A critical analysis. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology 73(4): 398–414.

Van Alstyne, M. 1997. The state of network organization: A survey in three frameworks. Journal of Organizational Computing 7(3): 83– 151.

Wall Street Journal. 2003. While some companies whisper, others crow. June 9.

Wayne, L. 2002. Congress to investigate Wall St.'s ties with Enron. New York Times, February 19.

Wilson, Carol. 1999. Building a better backbone—And business plan. Interactive Week 6(36): 39–42.

Wysham, D. 2002. Enron's empire: How government and international agencies used taxpayers' money to bankroll the energy giant's international investments. http://www.corpwatch.org/issues/ PID.jsp?articleid = 2279 (accessed August 2003).


Downloads

Downloads per month over past year

Actions (login required)

View Item View Item
Contact us
Send email Sponsors
Sponsor: AIMS Sponsor: D&P Sponsor: UniNa CAB Get connected
Facebook Facebook Twitter Twitter Linkedin LinkedIn RSS RSS