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Advanced information technologies, and particularly big data, provide new affordances to facilitate inter-organizational collaboration. Rich flows of real-time data provide transparency across organizational boundaries and enable greater automation of inter-organizational routines. Taking stock of the literature and building on observations from the research in an industrial setting, the authors introduce the concept of technological embeddedness as an important characteristic of inter-organizational relationships, denoting the degree of monitoring, control, and optimization of intra- and inter-organizational tasks accomplished through technology at the interface of the inter-organizational relationship. The authors theorize how increasing technological embeddedness created by big data technologies affects the development of inter-organizational trust, mutual adaptation, and temporal structuring of collaboration. The propositions elaborate how greater technological embeddedness enables collaboration, and warn about the potential limiting effects of technological embeddedness on the development of interpersonal trust, strategic learning, and long-term orientation.

Many attempts to integrate technology in Swedish schools have been initiated over the past 30 years with varying success. Although the use of digital tools has increased along with a general technology development, schools have mainly been using IT in administrative support activities. In recent years, school system reforms and developments in the educational technology sector have both required and enabled schools to digitalize. In this chapter, we follow the implementation of two technologies in a benchmark school in order to understand how technology integration is achieved. We suggest four types of embeddedness resulting from different types of activities that are subject to technology integration, as well as the social and material conditions that guide convergence during the postimplementation phase.

This research explores how subsidiary embeddedness in different networks, both internal and external to the firm, contributes to the innovation of the service multinational corporation (MNC). Specifically, the authors analyze the different effects of networks on MNC’s subsidiaries performing competence-creating or competence-exploiting innovation activities, in the context of the service industry. The present study analyzes the data of 178 foreign-owned subsidiaries in the service sector performing innovation in Spain. The results of data analysis at two points in time show that external and internal embeddedness have a positive impact on the subsidiary innovation. Moreover, external embeddedness has a major positive influence on the competence-creating rather than on the competence-exploiting activities, while the internal embeddedness is equally important for both types of innovation. Therefore, this study contributes to further our understanding of how subsidiaries’ linkages affect innovation of the service MNC.

Within the agri-food sectors of Western countries, there is an increasing interest in alternative food, i.e., organic, local and regional food, artisanal food, short-supply chains, slow food etc. Innovation in food processing is a significant element both in alternative food and conventional food strategies. Alternatives are based on competition on qualities rather than price. A main question in this chapter is to address how alternative qualities are embedded into food products? This question is explored using a study of two alternative cases within the dairy sectors of Norway and Wales. A model of the different modes of designed qualities of food is developed and discussed to explore the complex issue of quality. We find space and technology especially relevant as dimensions of qualities. Our conclusion is that there is a need to nuance the discussion about quality and food. Firms may develop as hybrids within a conventional vs. alternative perspective, and a strong emphasis on the conventional and alternative as a dichotomy tends to give a static and restrictive perspective.

How does organizations' embeddedness in social and cultural communities influence their behavior? And how has this changed with recent communication technology advances and globalization trends? In this introductory chapter to Research in the Sociology of Organization's volume on Communities and Organizations we consider how diverse types of communities influence organizations, as well as the associated benefit of developing a richer accounting for community processes in organizational theory. Our goal is to move beyond the focus on social proximity and networks that has characterized existing work on communities. We highlight how the notion of community provides a distinct institutional order that enables actors to tailor community logics that give cultural meaning to and govern specific institutional fields and furthermore how communities can function as an organizational form.

Purpose – Addresses labor control in fields where familiar organizational and occupational controls are weak, notably postindustrial arenas characterized by networks, heterogeneity, and change.Methodology/approach – Proposes that labor control operates via socio-technical networks composed of diverse ties to social actors, technologies, and typifications. Data from an interview-based study of early website production work is used to examine the impact of such a network.Findings – Socio-technical networks constrained web workers#x02019; actions but also offered opportunities for autonomous discretion. Some shifting between networked and hierarchical controls occurred in larger organizations.Research implications/limitations – The role of networks in the labor process is not well understood; this study provides a starting point.Social implications – Socio-technical networks are heterogeneous and lack common status metrics, making inequality among workers difficult to gauge and address. Further, since networked controls are decentralized, their pressures are not easily identified or resisted by workers.Originality/value – This chapter describes a form of labor control that may characterize some postindustrial fields more closely than traditional models. In addition, it contributes new insights on how work is shaped by technical networks and abstract typifications.

One of the most hyped concepts in the manufacturing industry is ‘Industry 4.0’. The ‘Industry 4.0’ concept is grabbing the attention of every manufacturing industry across the globe because of its immense applications. This phenomenon is an advanced version of Industry 3.0, combining manufacturing processes and the latest Internet of Things (IoT) technologies. The main advantage of this paradigm shift is efficiency and efficacy in the manufacturing process with the help of advanced automated technologies. The concept of ‘Industry 4.0’ is contemporary, so it falls under exploratory study. Therefore, the research methodology is thematic narration grounded on secondary data (online) analysis. In this light, this chapter aims to explain ‘Industry 4.0’ in terms of concepts, theories and models based on the Web of Science (WoS) database. The data include research manuscripts, book chapters, blogs, white papers, news items and proceedings. The study details the latest technologies behind the ‘Industry 4.0’ phenomenon, different business intelligence technologies and their practical implications in some manufacturing industries. This chapter mainly elaborates on Industry 4.0 frameworks designed by (1) PwC (2) IBM (3) Frost & Sullivan.