The Changing Nature of Data: Sociality, Relationality, and Implications for Organizing

Abstract

This symposium showcases recent research projects on the changing nature of data and its implications for organizations, online communities, and platforms. The era of “big” data, and the algorithms they feed, is underway. Scholars across the disciplines of information science, human–computer interaction, sociology, communication, legal studies, and computer-supported cooperative work have discussed the implications for society of the new forms of data, the categories they bring about, or the new ways of knowing they enable. Yet significant questions for scholars of work, technology, and organizations remain. We will present fresh insights into three aspects of the changing nature of data — sociality, relationality, and organizing consequences — and discuss the implications of these changes for organizations, online communities, and platforms. The contexts in which we will explore the changing nature of data are diverse and include organizations (high technology firm and hospital), online communities (firm-sponsored open-source software development) and platforms (online music discovery, open science infrastructure). Overall, the symposium will address these goals: (1) highlighting new findings and theory with the goal of contributing to richer understanding of the changing nature of data in organizations and fields; (2) comparing and contrasting the challenges of development and use of data, emerging technologies, and algorithms in various settings among different kinds of actors; (3) providing a forum for discussion of the changing nature of data and its implications for organizations, fields, and society. Governing the Open Science Commons Through Digital Infrastructures Presenter: Paolo Vincenzo Leone; McGill U. Presenter: Samer Faraj; McGill U. Presenter: Arvind Karunakaran; McGill U. Emergent Group Diversity in Open Knowledge Evaluation: Evidence from Online Communities Presenter: Shiko M. Ben-Menahem; ETH Zurich Presenter: Yash Raj Shrestha; ETH Zurich Presenter: Georg von Krogh; ETH Zurich The Data Work of Algorithmic Recommendation Systems Presenter: Katherine C. Kellogg; MIT Basic Objects, Categorization, and Organizing Presenter: Cristina Alaimo; Luiss U. Presenter: Jannis Kallinikos; London School of Economics