Making Things Possible

Abend, Gabriel

doi:10.1177/0049124120926204

Cited by 22 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 144 publications

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“…Unlike the Woodwardian view, the latter perspective fails to distill the problem into analytically tractable components on which policy-makers can act. With affordances acting as sufficient conditions (that enable phenomena), a complementary analysis of cannot-affordances as necessary conditions (without which a phenomenon cannot happen) is warranted if we are to truly account for phenomena and not simply describe them using scholarly jargon (Abend, 2020; DeSanctis & Poole, 1994).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Decentralized vs. Distributed Organization: Blockchain, Machine Learning and the Future of the Digital Platform

Vergne

2020

Organization Theory

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The terms decentralized organization and distributed organization are often used interchangeably, despite describing two distinct phenomena. I propose distinguishing decentralization, as the dispersion of organizational communications, from distribution, as the dispersion of organizational decision-making. Organizations can be distributed without being decentralized (and vice versa), and having multiple management layers directly affects only distribution – not decentralization. This proposed distinction has implications for understanding the growth of digital platforms (e.g. amazon.com ), which dominate the global economy in the 21st century. While prominent platforms typically use machine learning as their core technology to transform inputs (e.g. data) into outputs (e.g. matchmaking services), blockchain has emerged as an alternative technological blueprint. I argue that blockchain enables platforms that are both decentralized and distributed (e.g. Bitcoin), whereas machine learning fosters centralized communications and the concentration of decision-making (e.g. Facebook Inc.). This distinction has crucial implications for antitrust policy, which, I contend, should shift both its analysis and its target of action away from the corporate level and focus instead on the data level. Based on this essay’s framework, I make several predictions regarding the future of competition between centralized and decentralized platforms, the evolution of government regulation, and broader implications for managers in the digital economy and for the business schools charged with their education. I conclude with reflections on the opportunity to revive cybernetic thinking for preventing a dystopian future dominated by a handful of platform behemoths.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Decentralized vs. Distributed Organization: Blockchain, Machine Learning and the Future of the Digital Platform

Vergne

2020

Organization Theory

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“…In this section, we focus on the discursive and institutional "enablers" (Abend, 2020), which made it possible for rankings to become a legitimate and an increasingly more used method of publicly comparing higher education institutions in the US. We do not aim to offer a definitive list of enabling conditions.…”

Section: A Discursive Shift In the Understanding Of University Performancementioning

confidence: 99%

“…To trace the emergence of this understanding of performance in higher education, we analyse the historical evolution of university rankings in the twentieth century. Drawing inspiration from the recent work by Abend (2020), we ask the following what-makes-it-possible type of question: which broader historical conditions made the emergence of the rankings-specific idea of performance possible in the higher education context?…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The emergence of university rankings: a historical‑sociological account

Wilbers

Branković

2021

High Educ

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Nowadays, university rankings are a familiar phenomenon in higher education all over the world. But how did rankings achieve this status? To address this question, we bring in a historical-sociological perspective and conceptualize rankings as a phenomenon in history. We focus on the United States and identify the emergence of a specific understanding of organizational performance in the postwar decades. We argue that the advent of this understanding constituted a discursive shift, which was made possible—most notably but not solely—by the rise of functionalism to the status of a dominant intellectual paradigm. The shift crystallized in the rankings of graduate departments, which were commissioned by the National Science Foundation and produced by the American Council on Education (ACE) in 1966 and 1970. Throughout the 1970s, social scientists became increasingly more interested in the methods and merits of ranking higher education institutions, in which they would explicitly refer to the ACE rankings. This was accompanied by a growing recognition, already in the 1970s, that rankings had a place and purpose in the higher education system—a trend that has continued into the present day.

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“…The comparison between chikungunya and SARS 2, for example, provides hypothesis for how we can explain observations about the long-term effects of COVID-19 in some patients. 3 I have argued that if we broaden the range of aims for which comparisons are useful, such as the full range of kinds of explanation (Abbott 2016;Abend 2020;Pickvance 2001), but also description and critique, we can identify forms of comparison that are useful but relatively underused. Here I would like to highlight one type of underused comparison: the asymmetric comparison (Krause 2016).…”

Section: How Do Social Scientists Practice Comparison?mentioning

confidence: 99%

On Sociological Reflexivity

Krause

2021

Sociological Theory

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This article offers a critique of the self-observation of the social sciences practiced in the philosophy of the social sciences and the critique of epistemological orientations. This kind of reflection involves the curious construction of wholes under labels, which are the result of a process of “distillation” or “abstraction” of a “position” somewhat removed from actual research practices and from the concrete claims and findings that researchers produce, share, and debate. In this context, I call for more sociological forms of reflexivity, informed by empirical research on practices in the natural sciences and by sociomaterial approaches in science and technology studies and cultural sociology. I illustrate the use of sociological self-observation for improving sociological research with two examples: I discuss patterns in how comparisons are used in relation to how comparisons could be used, and I discuss how cases are selected in relation to how they could be selected.

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Making Things Possible

Cited by 22 publications

References 144 publications

Decentralized vs. Distributed Organization: Blockchain, Machine Learning and the Future of the Digital Platform

Decentralized vs. Distributed Organization: Blockchain, Machine Learning and the Future of the Digital Platform

The emergence of university rankings: a historical‑sociological account

On Sociological Reflexivity

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