Location
Hilton Hawaiian Village, Honolulu, Hawaii
Event Website
https://hicss.hawaii.edu/
Start Date
3-1-2024 12:00 AM
End Date
6-1-2024 12:00 AM
Description
Power is key to all organizing. It allows actors to perform actions, make decisions and assign tasks to others. In bureaucratic organizations power is mainly associated with the position that the actor holds. Because actors compete for power, change their position within an organization or leave an organization, power is dynamically changing. We refer to these changes in power as power dynamics. Many New Forms of Organizing, such as Holacracy, claim that individuals have more decision-making capacity, i.e., that power is more equally distributed within the organization. In this paper, we use a unique dataset from a holacratic organization to empirically examine how power dynamics in Holacracy evolve over time. In particular, we use temporal network analysis to reconstruct and contrast two related networks that capture information on how decisions in Holacracy are made. Our findings indicate that also in Holacracy power is not equally distributed, but that few individuals hold most power.
Recommended Citation
Wurm, Bastian; Mendling, Jan; Minaar, Reinald; and Strauss, Erik, "Power to All or Few People? An Exploration of Power Dynamics in Holacracy" (2024). Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences 2024 (HICSS-57). 8.
https://aisel.aisnet.org/hicss-57/os/innovation/8
Power to All or Few People? An Exploration of Power Dynamics in Holacracy
Hilton Hawaiian Village, Honolulu, Hawaii
Power is key to all organizing. It allows actors to perform actions, make decisions and assign tasks to others. In bureaucratic organizations power is mainly associated with the position that the actor holds. Because actors compete for power, change their position within an organization or leave an organization, power is dynamically changing. We refer to these changes in power as power dynamics. Many New Forms of Organizing, such as Holacracy, claim that individuals have more decision-making capacity, i.e., that power is more equally distributed within the organization. In this paper, we use a unique dataset from a holacratic organization to empirically examine how power dynamics in Holacracy evolve over time. In particular, we use temporal network analysis to reconstruct and contrast two related networks that capture information on how decisions in Holacracy are made. Our findings indicate that also in Holacracy power is not equally distributed, but that few individuals hold most power.
https://aisel.aisnet.org/hicss-57/os/innovation/8