The Cultureship Blog

It’s still about the human relationships but we must never forget the infrastructure

I was reading a new article on the growing effects of Web 2.0 outside the strict boundaries of technology and it contained some broad statements about the possibilities of its effect on corporate culture.

At first it seemed like one of those sweeping claims that commentators sometimes like to work in just for the sake of making their specific area of interest seemingly more important – claims aiming for grandeur but only reaching hauteur.

And then it struck me that maybe I was being the Luddite, the one dismissing the latest technology, if not for its utility, at least perhaps in its implications and possibilities.

The web has evolved at lightening speed, from an academic communication tool, to a fresh avenue for information media, through a new gold rush to stake out alternative retail territory, to an IT hosting platform and now onwards into………into what?

At a general level, the mish-mash of numerous online communities which aim at businesspeople and organisational members remains pretty messy. But that does not deny either the significance or the potential of people linking in new ways.

Specifically, however, via recruitment hubs, training delivery, online business networking, supplier and buyer relationships, communications channels and everyday chains of command, IT processes are redefining some core organisational ways.

Are these different processes of doing business and relating to one another bringing people closer together, or further apart? Or are they bringing them superficially closer together but further apart in terms of deep, moral community? What are the core changes already here, in the pipeline, or yet to come?

Is the landslide of new communication possibilities increasing the volume of noise but without bringing new light to relationships?

And in a particularly relevant personal way, should any of this be changing the way I am thinking about and working with corporate cultures?

You see, the business environment has been effectively something of a given certainty for quite a long time: factories, offices, plant and equipment have all evolved but have been relatively constant and predictable over long periods of time.

The faster pace of change now underway and the challenges it brings are refreshing the strand of social science methodology known as Actor Network Theory.

ANT is largely the creation of the likes of Bruno Latour, Michael Callon, Stephen Woolgar and John Law. It argues that it is naïve to envisage networks – which is a concept not too far away in some senses from that of organisational culture – without strong reference to the material resources and technical environments of those people involved.  ANT makes this relatively non-contentious point in a rather controversial way.

This key point of the foundational strand of ANT is that the non-human “Actors” (things, resources, technologies etc.) are seen on an equal basis as the human Actors in forming the functioning “Networks” (banks, dance schools, dating site enthusiasts etc.). The network is the central thing, not the human or the non-human.

Critics say that it stretches its core point too far and that its very strong focus on material environments overplays the role of non-human actors.

I would be far from personally alone in feeling that is pushing the argument a little further than making the useful points – BUT it does move the emphasis within Social Construction away from people alone into their interactions with their environment, their technologies, their resources and their various other support mechanisms.

So, whilst I contend that human relationships remain at the heart of corporate culture, it also behoves us to look closely at the changing environments and technologies within which it is located.

I for one will take more persuading that IT is a direct re-shaper of the drivers and dynamics of corporate culture. However, looking through the concept of ANT (and via less demanding claims that infrastructure is a significant influence) highlights how technology-driven corporate reconfigurations underscore the need to anchor Community, Contribution & Recognition at the heart of corporate cultures.

And it gives us more reason than ever to cling on to core human values
and the human enactment of CCR. Perhaps ANT was a little ahead of its time 25 years ago but, perhaps like many useful theories, it has come round to us again with a really thought-provoking vantage point.

Thus Community must retain vibrancy and intimacy, or we risk the magic and power drifting away from human relationships.  Contribution must be structured so that it is not entirely anonymous process. Recognition needs creative and innovate forethought to strike sparks between the givers and the receivers.

We must stay vigilant to threats to CCR – and always alert to the possibilities for its creation and strengthening.