Digital Discipline: Theorizing Concertive Control in Online Communities

Concertive control (CC) theory has primarily been applied to traditional offline, work-based, closed membership teams. New organizational forms such as online communities have opened up additional sites in which CC processes may operate. This article makes several contributions to CC theory and research. First, it increases the applicability of CC theory by extending it from offline to online, work to non-work, and closed to open membership contexts. Second, it increases our understanding of CC processes by elaborating on three mechanisms of CC (group autonomy, group identification, and generative discipline) and how they operate differently in online work/non-work and closed/open contexts. Third, it develops propositions about how these mechanisms interact with three prominent media affordances (visibility, persistence and editability) within those contexts. Extending CC theory to online communities helps to explain individuals’ responses to normative group pressures online, which is highly relevant in our increasingly culturally and politically polarized society.

Tożsamość we współczesnej instytucji: zarządzanie poprzez przestrzenie upodmiotowienia

The aim of the article is to reconstruct the emerging patterns of controlling people in contemporary institution which is connected with creating the spaces of empowerment. The management of people is ensured through concertive control the essence of which is related to mutual „watching” of each other by the teams members. At firstsight the concertive control is much less oppressive than in the past direct top to the bottom control. However, in practice it is more effective control as institution aims and values are realized by people which feel to be empowered thanks to lack of direct presence of top managers. In concertive control workers do not seem to be aware that they are only of an instrument of top managers’ power.

Theoretical Notions of Control—A Mobile Tug-of-War

Communication, information, and organizational control are tightly entwined; this chapter explores the theoretical literature that elaborates on these concepts. The early years of car phones and cell phones were a time when people used their devices to reach others. But that changed as smartphones—those with Internet access—started diffusing into organizations and throughout society. Now, people with those same devices could access data and share information in addition to communicating. This chapter focuses on a process perspective on organizational control and links the data from Chapters 1 and 2 to the concepts of agentic, hierarchical, and concertive control. Longitudinal data help illustrate how control is fluid and how these changes resemble a tug-of-war. Control is related to power, so it also discusses different types of power. Often organizations control resources, like mobile information and communication technologies, so power and control might work together in mobile communication.

Meetings as a Site to Negotiate Mobile Control

When mobile devices entered organizational meetings, there was a flurry of responses that sometimes resulted in misunderstandings. Olivia is a manager who’s trying to adapt to her vice president’s strict rule of “no thumbs under the table.” But her direct boss keeps bugging her while she’s in other meetings. Cedric is a mid-level manager in a global advertising firm who is confident his constant BlackBerry use conveys how productive he is; but the president thinks mobile use in his meetings hinders listening. Four key findings emerge: (1) some managers establish meeting ground rules, while others are not so clear; (2) subordinates using their mobiles in meetings are often oblivious as to how they’re being judged; (3) people often multicommunicate in meetings to essentially be two places at once; and (4) concertive control puts a normative pressure on groups that practically forces them to agree to be always reachable.

“The Work Must Go On”

The Netherlands is characterized by extensive national work–life regulations relative to the United States. Yet, Dutch employees do not always take advantage of existing work–life policies. Individual and focus group interviews with employees and managers in three (public and private) Dutch organizations identified how employee and managerial communication contributed to acquired rules concerning work–life policies and the interpretation of allocative and authoritative resources for policy enactment. Analyses revealed differences in employees’ and managers’ resistance to policy, the binds and dilemmas experienced, and the coordination of agreements and actions to complete workloads. There are also differences between public and private contexts in the enactment of national and organizational policies, revealing how national (e.g., gender) and organizational (e.g., concertive control) mechanisms play out in employee and managerial communication that determine the use of work–life policies.

Investigating the Role of Control and Support Mechanisms in Members’ Sense of Virtual Community

Research on online communities has emphasized the individual benefits of social support for members, but less is known about how such communities are regulated through organizing processes of support and control. Drawing on a survey of 214 members of a particular online message board community, we develop and test a model of social support, strength of ties, normative influence, and concertive control and their influence on members’ sense of virtual community (SOVC). We find that all four factors predict SOVC, but that normative influence and concertive control have the strongest effects. Furthermore, social support and concertive control mediate the effects of number of strong ties and normative influence (respectively) on SOVC. Finally, we find no association between SOVC and time-lagged posting frequency. Our findings have important implications for understanding the factors that lead to attachment in online communities, and they suggest that sense of belonging works through tandem communicative processes of support and control.