The Interplay of Enterprise Social Media and Power Dynamics: A Processual Perspective

Abstract

Enterprise social media (ESM) have become imperative technologies in contemporary organizations, in part, due to promised improvements of efficiency and coordination. Given that past studies have primarily focused on the potential merits of these emerging technologies, less is known about the hidden power dynamics involved in the enactment of ESM. In this paper, we present the findings of an ethnographic study at a startup accelerator in which we examined how and why the enactment of ESM shapes and (re)produces power dynamics. Based on our analysis, we develop a process model that theorizes the emergence of autonomy–control tensions in the enactment of ESM through continual drifts of decision-making between the online and offline worlds. As we show, these drifts are produced through non liquets and the emergence of urgency. Furthermore, we demonstrate the consequentiality of these dynamics, which turn ESM into an irreducible part of organizational processes. Our findings contribute to the burgeoning literature at the intersection of emerging technologies and organizing by surfacing power-related, potentially detrimental side effects inherent to organizing through such technologies.