This link has been bookmarked by 3 people . It was first bookmarked on 26 Mar 2009, by Bertrand Duperrin.
An overview of research on the relationship between hierarchies and reality of social tools disrupting those structures
enterprise2.0 silos hierarchy disruption social software networks
In an organisation built upon traditional management structures with departments and the like, rigid reporting lines often make for poor communication channels and awkward cross department interactions. Those very structures designed to provide human resource control actually prevent humans from doing what humans do best – connecting. How on Earth does one quickly & easily connect to the right person in another area of the company for help when constrained into following hierarchical chains of reporting? This has been long recognised and working groups, committees and project focussed groups containing staff from across a number of departments or skill bases are commonplace nowadays.
Dr Karen Stephenson, a corporate anthropologist and lauded as a pioneer and "leader in the growing field of social-network business consultants” (Business 2.0 2006), and her company NetForm have been publishing work on social network (think social graph web peoples) analysis for years which quite clearly shows that no matter how one tries to enforce structure on people informal networks of people will emerge – normally based around a specific context. Yet the structure, the hierarchy prevails
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