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The Silo Lives! Analyzing Coordination and Communication in Multiunit Companie... - The Diigo Meta page

hbswk.hbs.edu/6011.html - Cached - Annotated View

Bertrand Duperrin's personal annotations on this page

bertrandduperrin
Bertrandduperrin bookmarked on 2008-09-23 communication silos email management network interactions

Although many companies aspire to promote easy interaction and coordination across departments, office locations, and pay scales, the "boundaryless" organization—like the paperless office—hasn't materialized.

The corporate silo is alive and well.

  • "We were surprised by how little interaction occurs across three major boundaries: the strategic business unit, the organizational function, and the geographic office location," Stuart says.
  • In other words, people talk to the very same people they e-mail. As electronic collaboration technologies further develop, this may change. For now, e-mail interactions seem to reinforce human relations.
  • Our analysis indicates that two people who are in the same SBU, function, and office interact about 1,000 times more frequently than two people at the company who are in different business units, functions, and offices, but are otherwise similar. Practically speaking, this means that there is very little interaction across these boundaries.
  • We think this work will give insight into how individuals can plot the course for more successful careers and how firms can guide the career paths of their employees to create a better-connected social structure that will be better able to implement their strategies.

This link has been bookmarked by 7 people . It was first bookmarked on 23 Sep 2008, by Bertrand Duperrin.

  • 15 Oct 09
  • 08 Jan 09
    stiangd
    Stian Danenbarger

    A new Harvard Business School working paper looks inside the communications "black box" of a large company to understand who talks to whom, and finds the corporate silo as impenetrable as ever.

    collaboration communication silo information enterprise Harvard

  • 20 Oct 08
  • 09 Oct 08
    hutchcarpenter
    Hutch Carpenter

    Although many companies aspire to promote easy interaction and coordination across departments, office locations, and pay scales, the "boundaryless" organization—like the paperless office—hasn't materialized.

    The corporate silo is alive and well.

    enterprise 2.0 enterprise2.0 adoption silos

  • myszenka
    Gosia Stergios

    Although many companies aspire to promote easy interaction and coordination across departments, office locations, and pay scales, the "boundaryless" organization—like the paperless office—hasn't materialized.

    collaboration innovation

  • 28 Sep 08
    cristo
    Cristiano Siri

    Risultati di un indagine sulla comunicazione online in un'azienda di 100.00 dipendenti. Emersione di veri e propri compartimenti stagni (silos, boundaries) e indicazioni di chi è maggiormente propenso al bridging (women, junior executives, sales forces)

    intranet collaboration email

    • how little interaction occurs across three major boundaries: the strategic business unit, the organizational function, and the geographic office location.
    • If we were to randomly remove an employee from this company's communication network, the odds that this action would cause a communication breakdown between two units of the company are higher if the employee happened to be female rather than male. Women are more likely than men to link otherwise non-communicating groups of people.
    • 2 more annotations...
  • 23 Sep 08
    bertrandduperrin
    Bertrand Duperrin

    Although many companies aspire to promote easy interaction and coordination across departments, office locations, and pay scales, the "boundaryless" organization—like the paperless office—hasn't materialized.

    The corporate silo is alive and well.

    communication silos email management network interactions

    • "We were surprised by how little interaction occurs across three major boundaries: the strategic business unit, the organizational function, and the geographic office location," Stuart says.
    • In other words, people talk to the very same people they e-mail. As electronic collaboration technologies further develop, this may change. For now, e-mail interactions seem to reinforce human relations.
    • 2 more annotations...