Anticipatory Work: How the Need to Represent Knowledge Across Boundaries Shapes Work Practices Within Them

William C. Barley ()
Additional contact information
William C. Barley: Department of Communication, University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, Urbana, Illinois 61801

Organization Science, 2015, vol. 26, issue 6, 1612-1628

Abstract: Representations, such as graphs and images, have been shown to help facilitate communication and coordination across knowledge boundaries. Many studies examine representations’ effects during and after interaction, characterizing them as tools that help communicate local understandings with individuals who have differing knowledge. This study explores whether the anticipation of building representations to communicate across knowledge boundaries significantly shapes a community’s work. To explore this question, the study develops a theoretical framework that extends the concept of performativity and then presents ethnographic data from four weather research teams collaborating with different organizations to develop tailored forecasting technologies. Analysis reveals that researchers’ need to represent weather model outputs to their partners shaped the practices they used to produce those models. By uncovering the presence and influence of “anticipatory work,” the findings paint representations not as passive communicators of established knowledge but as catalysts that shape the form of routine work.

Keywords: anticipatory work; data representation; knowledge boundaries; performativity; technology; organizational communication (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Downloads: (external link)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/orsc.2015.1012 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:inm:ororsc:v:26:y:2015:i:6:p:1612-1628

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Organization Science from INFORMS Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Asher ().