Publications – ConJunction

New Article in Information & Organization: »Digital platforms and democratic publics: How social media platforms selectively appropriate and strategically subvert institutional logics«

Cover of the Journal "Information & Organization"

One reason why it is so hard to reign into Big Tech social media platforms is their own contradictions. In a brand new article by Elke Schüßler, Sara Maric and myself, we try to unpack how Big Tech both expand and subvert democratic publics by looking at the case of YouTube – and explore the potentials and challenges of Fediverse alternatives based on decentralized architectures and distributed governance.

The issue is that both is true at the same time: YouTube has expanded our democratic public by lowering barriers for content creation and distribution; and it also has subverted our democratic public by amplifying extremist, emotionalising or propagandistic content.

To give another example, it is YouTube’s monopolistic market dominance is that makes it so strong and valuable as a market place for creators and users alike; at the same time, the proprietary governance by profit-driven algorithms leads to discriminatory practices such as shadow bans without accountability, frustrating both creators and users.

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New Article in Health Policy: »Experiences and social constructions of loneliness in later life: Collaborative focus group discussions in Germany«

Graphical Abstract of the article "Experiences and social constructions of loneliness in later life: Collaborative focus group discussions in Germany" — Graphical abstract of the article

While Aging in Place – the possibility to grow old in one’s own home – is a wide-spread ideal for many people, it comes with an increased risk of loneliness in later life. In a study spearheaded by my PhD student Andrea Kastl and co-authored together with Ulrike Fettke, we empirically explored the perspectives and practices of dealing with loneliness as voiced by older people who want to age in place. The study entitled “Experiences and social constructions of loneliness in later life: Collaborative focus group discussions in Germany” has now been published in the journal Health Policy. Our main conclusions based upon collaborative focus group discussions:

Assessing loneliness requires taking individual perspectives into account, as mere quantification of social contacts is insufficient for evaluation or intervention design. To help cope with loneliness, health professionals are an important social interface and can become a substitute for close relationships. This should be reflected in professional roles and in developing complementary technologies and policies.

The article is available open access over at Health Policy.

New Essay in »Digital Responsibility: Building Bridges Between Organization Theory and Information Systems« in SBUR

In the wake of a workshop on “Digital Responsibility” at the Annual Meeting of the Association of Professors of Business Administration (VHB) at Leuphana University Lüneburg that brought together scholars and perspectives from organization studies (OS) and information systems (IS), the workshop organizers Hannah Trittin-Ulbrich, Markus Zimmer and Stefanie Habersang edited a curated essay collection to be published in Schmalenbach Journal of Business Research (SBUR).

Together with Elke Schüßler and Maren Gierlich-Joas, I contributed one such essay offering “Interdisciplinary Theoretical Reflections On Digital Responsibility”. It is summarized in the introducation as follows:

Essay 1 situates the first and second fault line in OS and IS scholars ongoing discourses on theory. The authors distinguish three views of theorizing that we can find in both disciplines. They highlight that OT and IS scholars often draw on the same theories, which provides a basis for interdisciplinary research into digital responsibility. Offering a vantage point, they present avenues for such research by their three views of theorizing.

The whole essay collection is available open access over at SBUR.

New Article in Journal of Business Ethics: »Parrying Diversity-Hostility and Ethical Dilemmas of Organizing Inclusion«

various covers of journal of business ethics

It is not a coincidence that organizational efforts to support diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) are in the eye of the neofascist storm that is currently devastating US-based institutions and has already begun to reverberate globally. The hostility toward DEI results from the fact that such initiatives not only seek to broaden participation, but also unsettle entrenched hierarchies and cultural privileges. This makes them an obvious target for movements aiming to restore exclusionary orders under the guise of tradition, merit, or freedom of speech. Yet, despite their centrality to current political contestations, organizational approaches to DEI remain ill-prepared to address the growing intensity of diversity-hostile communication.

In the article “Parrying Diversity-Hostility and Ethical Dilemmas of Organizing Inclusion” co-authored by my sister Laura Dobusch, Milena Leybold and me, we explore ‘parrying’ diversity hostility as an increasingly necessary DEI practice (in addition to traditional orientations of promoting inclusion and preventing discrimination). The case we are looking at is that of the controversy around the so-called ‘Google Diversity Memo’ by James Damore, which eventually led to the author’s dismissal. Check out the abstract below:

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New Article: »Reviewing is Caring! Revaluing a Critical, but Invisibilized, Underappreciated, and Exploited Academic Practice«

How ChatGPT visually summarized the abstract of the paper on “Reviewing is Caring!”.

Together wie Mie Plotnikof (Aarhus University) and Matthias Wenzel (Leuphana University Lüneburg), I have written an essay proposing a care perspective to the way we organize academic peer review. The paper entitled “Reviewing is Caring! Revaluing a Critical, but Invisibilized, Underappreciated, and Exploited Academic Practice” has now been published open access in Organization. Check out the abstract below:

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Neuer Artikel: »Kompetitiv und kooperativ: Zur Neuordnung des Verhältnisses von privaten und öffentlich-rechtlichen Medien im Digitalzeitalter«

Abbildung: Formen kooperativer Beziehungen zwischen öffentlich-rechtlichen und privaten Medien mit Ankerbeispielen — Formen kooperativer Beziehungen zwischen öffentlich-rechtlichen und privaten Medien mit Ankerbeispielen

Das Verhältnis zwischen privaten und öffentlich-rechtlichen Medien wird in Deutschland traditionell als ein wettbewerbsorientiertes Nebeneinander und gegenseitiges Ausbalancieren wahrgenommen und geregelt. Der digitale Wandel und die zunehmende Dominanz von Plattformen stellen diese Sichtweise jedoch zunehmend in Frage.

Als Antwort darauf plädieren Christopher Buschow (Hamburg Media School) und ich in einem im Wirtschaftsdienst erschienen Beitrag für einen Coopetition-Ansatz, bei dem Wettbewerb und Zusammenarbeit nebeneinander bestehen, um demokratische Öffentlichkeiten zu stärken.

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New Handbook Chapter: »Open Strategy as a New Form of Strategizing«

Together with Julia Hautz and Thomas Ortner (both situated at the neighboring department of Strategic Management and Leadership), I had the honor to contribute to the most recent iteration of the Cambridge Handbook of Strategy as Practice with a chapter on “Open Strategy as a New Form of Strategizing”:

[W]e can observe an increasing trend towards more inclusive and transparent strategizing. From a practice perspective, this trend can be described as a shift in the practices of strategy-making. [We] describe the different practices of inclusiveness and transparency and show how they relate to each other. [We] then identify and review distinctive themes of strategy as practice research on Open Strategy. This includes the role of technologies and materiality in enabling openness, the discursive practices and processes underpinning openness, the temporal dynamics of open processes, the difference between controlled and uncontrolled forms of openness and the dialectic relationship between openness and closure.

Check out the article here – and please contact me to receive a personal copy in case your institution does not provide access to the handbook.

New Paper: “‘Your Very Existence Goes Against Our Community Guidelines’: Interrogating norms of contributorship through poetic speech acts on Instagram”

Digital platforms, like Instagram, offer various ways for self-expression, support, and community building, but their content moderation practices reveal deep-rooted biases that affect who gets to participate platform organizing. In our recent paper “‘Your Very Existence Goes Against Our Community Guidelines’: Interrogating norms of contributorship through poetic speech acts on Instagram” in Organization Studies, we – Monica Nadegger, Milena Leybold and Sean Kenney – explore how these platforms enforce norms through content moderation, shaping what contributions are deemed appropriate. Find out more in this blog post and in the full paper.

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New Paper: “Dear vulnerability … writing toget-her to escape and resist the neoliberal university”

I – Ellen, Milena, Monica – wrote toget-her, becoming the Collective I. It is not just a paper. It’s love, pain, struggle, courage, connection and togetherness, navigating the challenges of academic writing as early career scholars. It’s an intimate, personal encounter of my vulnerabilities, embraced in and through a collective letter diary.

And it’s open access, open to all people interested in writing differently toget-her.

You can find it here.