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Indoctrination is the process by which organizational norms are acquired
(Mintzberg, 1979). This is acquired through multiple sources, such as official
literature of the organization, examples set by key models in the organization, and
directly given instructions by trainer, coach or boss (Schein, 1967). It is thus a
learning process. Simon (1991) states: “
What an individual learns in an organization
is very much dependent on what is already known to (or believed by) other members
of the organization and what kinds of information are present in the organizational
environment
”.
Communication via ICT is often more anonymous than face-to-face contact,
sometimes even concealing level of hierarchy, departmental affiliation, age, and
appearance (Sproull and Kiesler, 1986). Siegel et al. (1985) compared
groups that had
face-to-face communications with groups that communicated electronically, in which
the latter showed more antisocial behavior and made more extreme decisions. This
would suggest that acquiring organizational norms would go in a slower pace than
when employees have face-to-face contact.
On the other hand, Townsend et al. (1998) state that new employees might
benefit from an electronic history of text-based and graphical information, but also
video and audio recordings of team meetings, allowing them to be brought up to
speed on team task, culture, and members’ personalities much quicker than in
traditional face-to-face contact. Latane and Bourgeois (1996) acknowledge that
through e-mail networks group members become more alike and their attitudes and
beliefs become correlated, proving the indoctrinating effect of technologies. Dewett
and Jones (2001) claim that ICT “
facilitates the sharing of beliefs, values and norms
because it allows for the quick and vivid transmission of rich information between
people and subunits
”. Furthermore, Kiddler (1981) claims that “
computerized
communication is embedded in a distinctive subculture of computing which rejects
conventionally and social restrictions
”. There thus seems to be a relationship
between ICT and indoctrination.
However, since indoctrination is strongly related to organizational culture, its
relationship with NWW will be included in the next paragraph, where organizational
culture is elaborated.
Unit
grouping
Unit grouping is concerned with the forming of departments. “
Positions are clustered
into units and units into even more comprehensive units
” (Mintzberg, 1980). It builds the
coordinating mechanism of direct supervision into the structure and can be performed based
on, among others, knowledge, skill, work process, function, time, place, and output
(Mintzberg, 1979). Therefore, direct supervision is most importantly effected in this design
parameter.
No scientific literature has been found on the influence of ICT developments on unit
grouping in organizations. Unit grouping does however have a strong relationship with NWW.
Since an output-oriented style of leadership is important for time and place independence of
work (Locke and Latham, 1990; Cascio, 2000; Jung et al., 2003; Den Hengst et al., 2008; Bijl,
2009), unit grouping based on output is presumed to be the most effective method. In
addition, the ‘when’ and ‘where’ of work is filled in by employees, making unit grouping
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based on time and place less appropriate. Furthermore, with NWW the
privately owned fixed
workplaces in offices are replaced by flexible working arrangements (Kelliher and Anderson,
2008). Floors mostly consist of one big non-territorial area, where the absence of privately
owned offices force employees to work together in a melting pot of different departments.
The physical layout of a building also determines behavior (Graham, 2004) and structure of
social systems and interaction between people in an organization (Nadler et al., 1992; Burrell
and Dale, 2003; Hatch and Cunliffe, 2006). A more open (non-territorial) space planning with
a mixture of departments possibly contributes to a shift from a formal to informal
organization. The changing physical layout caused by NWW might thereby lead to another
way of department forming.
Unit grouping is therefore used in the empirical part of this study as ‘
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