«Making Process Visible: Recognizing and Visualizing Action Patterns»
34th EGOS Colloquium in Tallinn, Estonia
Wednesday, July 4, 2018, 09:00-13:00
Convenors:
Katharina Dittrich
University of Zurich, Switzerland
katharina.dittrich@business.uzh.ch
Martha S. Feldman
University of California at Irvine, USA
feldmanm@uci.edu
Brian T. Pentland
Michigan State University, USA
pentland@broad.msu.edu
Purpose
Process theorizing has become increasingly important in capturing and explaining organizational phenomena, processes, practices and routines (Czarniawska, 2008; Langley et al., 2013; Langley & Tsoukas, 2016). Process theorizing is most visible in the turn from nouns to gerunds (-ing), such as Weick's (1979) well-known shift from organization to 'organizing', and it entails far-reaching rhetorical, methodological and theoretical implications. In this PDW, we explore the methodological implications of studying organizational phenomena from a process point of view. In particular, it addresses the difficulties of making process visible and analyzing it. Scholars of organizational routines have long struggled with the challenges of observing and interpreting patterns of actions, and, more generally, process scholars have pointed to the limitations of representing process with models containing boxes and arrows (Czarniawska, 2008; Feldman, 2016; Langley et al., 2013). Pentland (2017) notes that "we are writing about these [processual] phenomena, but we have not made them visible. And because of inherent limitations of grammar, text is probably better at hiding process than revealing it."
This PDW – linked to the EGOS Standing Working Group (SWG) 06 – is exploratory in nature and hands-on, using two techniques for analyzing processual data, that is (1) coding textual data for discovery, and (2) visualizing digital traces of sequences of actions with a software application called ThreadNet (Pentland et al., 2017). We will use these two techniques to discuss the challenges and potential pitfalls of analyzing processual data, for example: What patterns do you see/not see with each technique? What do these patterns mean? How do patterns lead to discovery? And what new questions can we raise for analysis? We will also reflect on how using and iterating between different techniques for analyzing organizational processes advances discovery and theorizing.
Format
We will provide PDW participants with a sample data set and jointly use the two techniques to analyze the data.
· TThe first part of the PDW will focus on coding for discovery. The participants will manually code textual data with a specific focus on discovery and advancing theory (Golden-Biddle et al., in process; Locke et al. 2016).
· The second part of the PDW will focus on analyzing digital traces of sequences of actions. The digitized world is generating data about processual phenomena, in the form of click streams, event logs, video surveillance and more, but these data streams cannot be interpreted at face value (Pentland, 2017). Actions are situated in context and hence require a researcher that understands the context for interpreting the data and identifying patterns of actions.
This PDW is targeted at PhD students and early career scholars and we also welcome more experienced participants. The target audience includes scholars of organizational routines, process scholars from varying backgrounds and qualitative researchers with an interest in process methods.
Application
Please submit – via the EGOS website – by April 9, 2018 a single document of application (.doc, .docx or .pdf file) that includes the following information:
· On the first page: a cover page including full details of name, address (postal address, phone & email), and affiliation;
· Area of research;
· Experience in qualitative data analysis.
We will accept a maximum of 25 participants.