Bending the pipes

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Anna Plotnikova highlights that organizations’ attention structures are traditionally perceived as stable “pipes and prisms” representing organizational communication and procedural channels.

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Institution: Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

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Anna Plotnikova highlights that organizations’ attention structures are traditionally perceived as stable “pipes and prisms” representing organizational communication and procedural channels.

Image courtesy of interviewee. January 30, 2024

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This video video discusses the concept of communication channels in organizations, specifically within the context of a study on Ericsson, a telecommunications company. It explains how these channels facilitate the flow of information across different levels and departments within an organization and describes how they contribute to the "attention architecture," which influences decision-making focus.

The study examines the significant organizational restructuring at Ericsson in 2007, which affected the communication channels and attention architecture of the strategy group—a central and historically independent team. Following the restructuring, this group lost access to various communication channels and experienced a decline in influence. However, by 2021, they managed to regain their strategic position due to the efforts of the team to adapt their practices.

The findings highlight the dynamic nature of communication channels, challenging the traditional view that they are static. The researchers identify two main practices employed by the strategy professionals to regain their influence: "reinvention" and "renewal." Reinvention involves creating new communication methods based on existing ones, while renewal focuses on reviving old communication channels that had fallen into disuse.

The study emphasizes the importance of agency beyond top management, suggesting that various organizational actors can impact attention structures. It concludes that even unfavorable structural changes can create opportunities for groups to restore their significance within the organization through innovative and adaptive communication strategies. Future research could explore these practices in different contexts and among various professional groups.

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Think of organization

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and all of the meetings, reports, conference call,

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workshops, and any other interactions which,

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take place within organization.

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So all of them, we call communication channels

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or pipes and prisms.

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And their role is basically to regulate

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how information flow across different organizational levels

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and across departments.

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So the combination of all these channels.

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So all these meetings, all these reports,

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all these conferences creates the,

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attention architecture.

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And this attention architecture defines what's,

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its decision maker focus on

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and consider strategically important.

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So in this article, we study at telecommunication

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organization, Ericsson, that in 2007 underwent,

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a significant organizational restructuring with assignment

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of a new CEO and top management team.

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And that led to very substantial changes in their,

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attention architecture.

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So for one of the organizational groups on which we focus in

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this study strategy group,

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this changes were the most substantial

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and pretty much negative.

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So, strategy group was one of the oldest

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and largest groups, strategy teams, in Ericsson.

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And they had a very, central and independent status.

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And after the change, they moved under one

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of the business units and have lost their access

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to multiple communication channels they had,

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had access before.

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So that was very, unfortunate for them.

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However, because we, stay in touch

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with this organization for a con continuous period of time,

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we have noticed that by 2021, they have regained their,

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position and attention of, top management team.

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And so in this paper, we explain how they ma managed,

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to accomplish that.

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Ocasio is the founder of attention based View,

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and very broadly, this theory explains how, social

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economic or some kind

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of cultural structures guide the decisions made

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by organizational leaders.

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So what this theory explains is

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how this various structures shape the focus

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of decision makers on, specific strategic issues.

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And, that very focus will influence how organizations

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identify and respond

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to different strategic challenges or opportunities.

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So attention based uses communication channels,

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which I already kind of explained a little bit about

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as crucial element in this process.

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And, traditionally these communication channels have

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used viewed as relatively static.

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So they're not really, easily, changed

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or they're not very dynamic

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besides usually only top management team seen as those

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who can design those architecture, this attention,

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channels, because they are the one

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who basically configure administrative system

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or set up organizational structures. So what we also

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Identified, that literature already started hinting up

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to the, idea that maybe there is a little bit more,

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agency to the communication channel.

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So one of the perspective we identify is the,

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issue selling literature,

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which basically views organization as a pluralistic market

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of ideas, strategic issues or strategic initiatives.

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So basically middle managers,

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or different, other organizational electors

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can sell those issue initiative

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upwards to the top management team.

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So there, there is somebody beyond, senior managers

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who can influence on the focus of top management teams.

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The other perspective, which also, points out to this,

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dynamism is,

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the most recent dynamic attention based view,

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which basically explains that what we need

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to understand better is the interactions which taken place

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within the communication channels.

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So we shouldn't purely look at communication channels at

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pipes and pri,

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but we should look at communication practices which are

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happening within those pipes and prisms.

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So these both streams, as I already said, they

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indicate some degree of agency of actors

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beyond senior managers.

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Um, so in this research, we focus in on the formal

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communication channels, but we're trying to show more,

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flexibility to attention structure than it's traditionally

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considered, by the attention based view.

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Our case was Ericsson.

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Ericsson is a very, very big,

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telecommunication corporation, which employees, at the time,

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at least at the time of research, it was 95,000 employees.

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And this organization has a global presence,

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in 180 countries.

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Um, so it has a very complex organizational structure,

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which you can probably the best understand as a metrics.

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So they have a number of business units, which,

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produce different products and services,

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and they have a number of market areas which basically sell

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these products and services.

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Uh, they work in Interdependently.

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And then on top of those, entities, there are also,

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a few groups which work for the entire organization.

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So for the corporate level, you can think of, research

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and development teams, marketing teams, legal affairs, HR

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and strategy group, which we are focusing on was one

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of such, corporate level functions.

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So what we've done, for this study,

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we have conducted 35, interviews

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with strategists across organizations,

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so at different organizational levels.

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Also, myself, I spent,

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18 months within this organization simply,

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sitting near those strategies

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and trying to understand their day-to-day work

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and how, the strategy making process

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works to enrich this data.

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We also collected, secondary data,

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so different documents, presentations, reports,

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which describe, strategy process, within,

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Ericsson to analyze the data, we actually used,

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a pro process approach.

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So we started by creating some account of the changes.

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So what happened through interviews

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and through some of the documents become clear that

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before 2017 and

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after 2000, 2017,

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there was a very different attention structures.

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So we documented all the changes

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and, looked, looked at them

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and tried to understand what exactly changed.

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We used four different categories to understand it.

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So we looked at the nature of strategy making process.

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So was it the collaborative or hierarchical?

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So we could see the difference there.

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Uh, who is actually involved in the process?

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So which levels and roles are involved in

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the strategy making process?

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Um, what's the changes to the structural position?

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So, as I already said, the strategy group moved from the

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very central position down into one of the business units

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and also available resources.

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So how many people actually work within those, teams

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before and after the change?

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Then, as I already said, we noticed that despite all this,

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adverse changes for the strategy team, they,

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they keep on going and doing their work despite the fact

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that top management did not ask them to do that.

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So we decide to zoom in into those activities.

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So we really, try to understand

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what are those communication channels they, trying

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to return back and how they trying to do that.

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So we identify, these events, we coded them,

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and then we aggregated them into some kind of,

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categories depending on the purpose

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for which these activities were used.

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So for more detailed, explanation

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of all these different purposes,

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you can actually read the paper just to, you know,

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not take too much time on explaining them.

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I will just, say that we,

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divided them in two biggest groups.

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Although this new architecture, which was, created

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after the change, has

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provided some kind of, communication structures.

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What we found out it, it's not so static

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as we used to think about it.

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So we realized that those,

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strategy professionals within the strategy group on which we

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focused, used two different types of, practices,

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bending practices, we call them, to regain their position.

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So what they basically have done,

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they had two different practices to kind of return

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communication channel, which were available

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to them before the change.

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So the first one we called reinvention, the idea here is

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to produce a new communication channel,

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building on already existing, communication channels

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to make things clearer.

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And maybe to give an example,

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For instance, a strategy group, as one

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of their responsibilities was doing situation analysis.

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Basically, this analysis was about,

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okay, what are the trends, in the industry,

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what our consumers doing, what our competitors are doing?

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Usually this have been done by experts,

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so now they try to do it differently.

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They, employed some crowdsourcing tools

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to involve more people in, developing

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and understanding those trends.

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So they try to sell this new communication channel

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because it's, it's a new, way of how people,

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collaborate and communicate together as a part

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of their old situation analysis.

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So basically, reinvention is very much built on the novelty.

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And the other practice bending practice,

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which they used was renewal.

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Renewal refers to the action when,

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those strategy professionals collectively

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choose the old communication channel

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and try to,

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push it back into the new attention structure.

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So this communication channel was not used for a while,

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and then suddenly, they make sure that it is relevant

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for the new top management team.

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To give an example here, for instance,

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they use a strategy conference.

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It is an event where all the strategy professionals across

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Ericsson would come together.

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This event was not used for two years,

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but through different, collaborations,

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they actually make sure that this event is back on place.

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And of course, they were the one who organized this

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and, coordinated events.

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So they, they in a way came back

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as a central actors within this new communication channel.

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So, I think what is very important to understand here

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that these two,

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bending practices are very different in their Russia now.

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So the reinvention is very much, creative reconstruction

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of existing communication channels.

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So the novelty, plays, a very central role

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as statistic help to attract the

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attention of senior managers.

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Renewal is, basically, based on assumption

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that disrupted attention channels could be selectively

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reused for resolving some new issues.

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So the issues which new, architecture, dealing with.

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So here again, you're trying to, gain attention of,

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top management by, providing them some kind of solution

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or tool to find a solution within the context,

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within the new context they are operating.

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Um, also what's I think very important to emphasize that we,

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our findings explain that these two bending practices,

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are based on different forms of agency, and

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therefore there are different skills

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that are required if you want to enact those type

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of practices, the completed

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Agency.

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And this is characterized by future, oriented

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generation of some alternative, ideas.

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So projective agency very much involves the capacity

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to imagine new possibilities

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and innovate creatively with new practices.

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As I already provide example,

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I think it's quite nicely illustrated, this inness,

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the renewal is completed through iterational agency,

253
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which is in the essence selection of, selection

254
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and reuse of already existing practices from the past.

255
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And although it might seem

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that this iterational agency is much easier

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because you, you reusing something very much familiar

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to you, it's not so easy actually,

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but we found out this iterational agency very much require,

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a lot of interaction with others.

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So, you really need to know organizational context.

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You really need to build collections with others

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who already have position within the New York,

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attention architecture.

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So, they are very different

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and they could actually work in parallel.

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It doesn't mean that it's always happens, one

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or the other can work, but they can also work in parallel.

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The most important, finding

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or conclusion of our study is that we demonstrate

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that actors

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beyond top management team can shape the existing attention

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structures by somehow bending

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or adapting, communication channels

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to their own advantage.

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So they, they can challenge actually the traditional view,

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that only top management is capable of doing that.

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And therefore we, we challenge the view

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that attention based view already, established that,

280
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attention structures are very static, so they actually

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quite plastic so they could be bent.

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It doesn't mean that they are, easily banned.

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So there is a lot of effort needs to be done.

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Uh, but it is possible.

285
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And by providing this rich insights to this interplay

286
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between the attention structure

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and activities of those, strategy professionals, we,

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can, we can see that even when organizational members

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lost their strategic influence,

290
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they still can actually do something about it.

291
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So for organizations, I would say the important takeaway is

292
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that even adverse structural changes can leave, leave space

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for, a group of people to regain their attention by

294
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introducing new pipes or by restoration old ones.

295
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Um, for top management, it's also important to understand

296
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that that might happen,

297
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and actually they also could use this

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processes for their own advantage.

299
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So it's not only for those who below the top level,

300
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but also for top management, important

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to understand those processes.

302
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Um, although our studies actually focused on the strategy

303
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professionals, we also think that similar

304
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Capacities for the agency are likely

305
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to be found in other professional groups.

306
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You can think of marketing, human resource,

307
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again, research and development.

308
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So our, model of attention is not only relevant

309
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for corporate strategy professionals,

310
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but can be seen in other, groups.

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And future research could actually take a look

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how reinvention and renewal,

313
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happens in this different context.

314
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And also I wanted to, I'm not sure

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to which degree it might be interesting to the listeners,

316
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but one of the potential examples in which we could

317
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demonstrate how it is,

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playing out in nowadays environment.

319
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Um, we see that a lot

320
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of professionals now are actually struggling, with adapt

321
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integration or adoption of, artificial intelligence.

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So they actually losing their essential role,

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they're trying to remain relevant.

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So understanding the plasticity of attention channels,

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can help organizational, actors to,

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use this reinvention and renewal practices to perhaps,

327
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better, place themself in this new environment.

328
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So they could either reinvent some communication channels

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by using artificial intelligence,

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or they could renew, existing communication channels

331
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and place them in this new context of, ai

332
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facilitated, interactions within organizations.

Quick Answers

Communication Channels and Organizational Attention Dynamics

00:00:00 - Think of organization and all of the meetings, reports, conference call, workshops, and any other interactions which, take place within organization. So all of them, we call communication channels or pipes and prisms. And their role is basically to regulate how information flow across different organizational levels and across departments. So the combination of all these channels. So all these meetings, all these reports, all these conferences creates the, attention architecture.
00:00:35 - its decision maker focus on and consider strategically important. So in this article, we study at telecommunication organization, Ericsson, that in 2007 underwent, a significant organizational restructuring with assignment of a new CEO and top management team. And that led to very substantial changes in their, attention architecture. So for one of the organizational groups on which we focus in this study strategy group,
00:01:05 - and pretty much negative. So, strategy group was one of the oldest and largest groups, strategy teams, in Ericsson. And they had a very, central and independent status. And after the change, they moved under one of the business units and have lost their access to multiple communication channels they had, had access before. So that was very, unfortunate for them. However, because we, stay in touch
00:01:37 - we have noticed that by 2021, they have regained their, position and attention of, top management team. And so in this paper, we explain how they ma managed, to accomplish that. Ocasio is the founder of attention based View, and very broadly, this theory explains how, social economic or some kind of cultural structures guide the decisions made by organizational leaders.
00:02:06 - how this various structures shape the focus of decision makers on, specific strategic issues. And, that very focus will influence how organizations identify and respond to different strategic challenges or opportunities. So attention based uses communication channels, which I already kind of explained a little bit about as crucial element in this process. And, traditionally these communication channels have used viewed as relatively static.
00:02:40 - or they're not very dynamic besides usually only top management team seen as those who can design those architecture, this attention, channels, because they are the one who basically configure administrative system or set up organizational structures. So what we also Identified, that literature already started hinting up to the, idea that maybe there is a little bit more,

Middle Managers' Influence in Organizational Communication

00:03:09 - So one of the perspective we identify is the, issue selling literature, which basically views organization as a pluralistic market of ideas, strategic issues or strategic initiatives. So basically middle managers, or different, other organizational electors can sell those issue initiative upwards to the top management team. So there, there is somebody beyond, senior managers who can influence on the focus of top management teams.
00:03:43 - dynamism is, the most recent dynamic attention based view, which basically explains that what we need to understand better is the interactions which taken place within the communication channels. So we shouldn't purely look at communication channels at pipes and pri, but we should look at communication practices which are happening within those pipes and prisms. So these both streams, as I already said, they
00:04:15 - beyond senior managers. so in this research, we focus in on the formal communication channels, but we're trying to show more, flexibility to attention structure than it's traditionally considered, by the attention based view. Our case was Ericsson. Ericsson is a very, very big, telecommunication corporation, which employees, at the time, at least at the time of research, it was 95,000 employees.
00:04:48 - in 180 countries. so it has a very complex organizational structure, which you can probably the best understand as a metrics. So they have a number of business units, which, produce different products and services, and they have a number of market areas which basically sell these products and services. they work in Interdependently. And then on top of those, entities, there are also, a few groups which work for the entire organization.
00:05:20 - and development teams, marketing teams, legal affairs, HR and strategy group, which we are focusing on was one of such, corporate level functions. So what we've done, for this study, we have conducted 35, interviews with strategists across organizations, so at different organizational levels. Also, myself, I spent, 18 months within this organization simply, sitting near those strategies
00:05:50 - and how, the strategy making process works to enrich this data. We also collected, secondary data, so different documents, presentations, reports, which describe, strategy process, within, Ericsson to analyze the data, we actually used, a pro process approach. So we started by creating some account of the changes. So what happened through interviews

Changes in Strategy Processes and Communication Channels

00:06:21 - before 2017 and after 2000, 2017, there was a very different attention structures. So we documented all the changes and, looked, looked at them and tried to understand what exactly changed. We used four different categories to understand it. So we looked at the nature of strategy making process. So was it the collaborative or hierarchical? So we could see the difference there. who is actually involved in the process?
00:06:53 - the strategy making process? what's the changes to the structural position? So, as I already said, the strategy group moved from the very central position down into one of the business units and also available resources. So how many people actually work within those, teams before and after the change? Then, as I already said, we noticed that despite all this, adverse changes for the strategy team, they,
00:07:24 - that top management did not ask them to do that. So we decide to zoom in into those activities. So we really, try to understand what are those communication channels they, trying to return back and how they trying to do that. So we identify, these events, we coded them, and then we aggregated them into some kind of, categories depending on the purpose for which these activities were used. So for more detailed, explanation
00:07:53 - you can actually read the paper just to, you know, not take too much time on explaining them. I will just, say that we, divided them in two biggest groups. Although this new architecture, which was, created after the change, has provided some kind of, communication structures. What we found out it, it's not so static as we used to think about it. So we realized that those, strategy professionals within the strategy group on which we
00:08:26 - bending practices, we call them, to regain their position. So what they basically have done, they had two different practices to kind of return communication channel, which were available to them before the change. So the first one we called reinvention, the idea here is to produce a new communication channel, building on already existing, communication channels
00:08:53 - And maybe to give an example, For instance, a strategy group, as one of their responsibilities was doing situation analysis. Basically, this analysis was about, okay, what are the trends, in the industry, what our consumers doing, what our competitors are doing? Usually this have been done by experts, so now they try to do it differently. They, employed some crowdsourcing tools to involve more people in, developing

Reinventing and Renewing Communication Channels

00:09:24 - So they try to sell this new communication channel because it's, it's a new, way of how people, collaborate and communicate together as a part of their old situation analysis. So basically, reinvention is very much built on the novelty. And the other practice bending practice, which they used was renewal. Renewal refers to the action when, those strategy professionals collectively choose the old communication channel
00:09:55 - push it back into the new attention structure. So this communication channel was not used for a while, and then suddenly, they make sure that it is relevant for the new top management team. To give an example here, for instance, they use a strategy conference. It is an event where all the strategy professionals across Ericsson would come together. This event was not used for two years, but through different, collaborations, they actually make sure that this event is back on place.
00:10:29 - and, coordinated events. So they, they in a way came back as a central actors within this new communication channel. So, I think what is very important to understand here that these two, bending practices are very different in their Russia now. So the reinvention is very much, creative reconstruction of existing communication channels. So the novelty, plays, a very central role
00:10:58 - attention of senior managers. Renewal is, basically, based on assumption that disrupted attention channels could be selectively reused for resolving some new issues. So the issues which new, architecture, dealing with. So here again, you're trying to, gain attention of, top management by, providing them some kind of solution or tool to find a solution within the context,
00:11:32 - also what's I think very important to emphasize that we, our findings explain that these two bending practices, are based on different forms of agency, and therefore there are different skills that are required if you want to enact those type of practices, the completed Agency. And this is characterized by future, oriented generation of some alternative, ideas.
00:12:05 - to imagine new possibilities and innovate creatively with new practices. As I already provide example, I think it's quite nicely illustrated, this inness, the renewal is completed through iterational agency, which is in the essence selection of, selection and reuse of already existing practices from the past. And although it might seem that this iterational agency is much easier because you, you reusing something very much familiar

Reinventing Communication in Organizational Attention Structures

00:12:38 - but we found out this iterational agency very much require, a lot of interaction with others. So, you really need to know organizational context. You really need to build collections with others who already have position within the New York, attention architecture. So, they are very different and they could actually work in parallel. It doesn't mean that it's always happens, one or the other can work, but they can also work in parallel.
00:13:08 - or conclusion of our study is that we demonstrate that actors beyond top management team can shape the existing attention structures by somehow bending or adapting, communication channels to their own advantage. So they, they can challenge actually the traditional view, that only top management is capable of doing that. And therefore we, we challenge the view that attention based view already, established that,
00:13:41 - quite plastic so they could be bent. It doesn't mean that they are, easily banned. So there is a lot of effort needs to be done. but it is possible. And by providing this rich insights to this interplay between the attention structure and activities of those, strategy professionals, we, can, we can see that even when organizational members lost their strategic influence,
00:14:13 - So for organizations, I would say the important takeaway is that even adverse structural changes can leave, leave space for, a group of people to regain their attention by introducing new pipes or by restoration old ones. for top management, it's also important to understand that that might happen, and actually they also could use this processes for their own advantage. So it's not only for those who below the top level,
00:14:41 - to understand those processes. although our studies actually focused on the strategy professionals, we also think that similar Capacities for the agency are likely to be found in other professional groups. You can think of marketing, human resource, again, research and development. So our, model of attention is not only relevant for corporate strategy professionals, but can be seen in other, groups.
00:15:12 - how reinvention and renewal, happens in this different context. And also I wanted to, I'm not sure to which degree it might be interesting to the listeners, but one of the potential examples in which we could demonstrate how it is, playing out in nowadays environment. we see that a lot of professionals now are actually struggling, with adapt integration or adoption of, artificial intelligence. So they actually losing their essential role,

Adapting Communication Channels in AI Context

00:15:43 - So understanding the plasticity of attention channels, can help organizational, actors to, use this reinvention and renewal practices to perhaps, better, place themself in this new environment. So they could either reinvent some communication channels by using artificial intelligence, or they could renew, existing communication channels and place them in this new context of, ai
00:16:12 -

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