Behavioral Visibility: A new paradigm for organization studies in the age of digitization, digitalization, and datafication

The digitization, digitalization, and datafication of work and communication, coupled with social and technical infrastructures that enable connectivity, are making it increasingly easy for the behaviors of people, collectives, and technological devices to see and be seen. Such digital connectivity...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Organization studies Vol. 41; no. 12; pp. 1601 - 1625
Main Authors: Leonardi, Paul M., Treem, Jeffrey W.
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: London, England SAGE Publications 01.12.2020
Sage Publications Ltd
Subjects:
Artificial intelligence
Behavior
Collectives
Communication
Digital technology
Digitization
Intelligence
Organization studies
Visibility
algorithms
datafication
connectivity
digitization
visibility
artificial intelligence
ISSN:0170-8406, 1741-3044
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:The digitization, digitalization, and datafication of work and communication, coupled with social and technical infrastructures that enable connectivity, are making it increasingly easy for the behaviors of people, collectives, and technological devices to see and be seen. Such digital connectivity gives rise to the important phenomenon of behavioral visibility. We argue that studying the antecedents, processes, and consequences of behavioral visibility should be a central concern for scholars of organizing. We attempt to set the cornerstones for the study of behavioral visibility by considering the social and technological contexts that are enabling behavioral visibility, developing the concept of behavioral visibility by defining its various components, considering the conditions through which it is commonly produced, and outlining potential consequences of behavioral visibility in the form of three paradoxes. We conclude with some conjectures about the kinds of research questions, empirical foci, and methodological strategies that scholars will need to embrace in order to understand how behavioral visibility shapes and is shaped by the process of organizing as we catapult, swiftly, into an era where artificial intelligence, learning algorithms, and social tools are changing the way people work.
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ISSN:0170-8406
1741-3044
DOI:10.1177/0170840620970728