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The Strength of Performative Ties
When a manager in the Stockholm office of a large consulting firm received an unexpected phone call from a large European financial firm, he was eager to win the client, but knew that he faced a challenge. The caller asked for a detailed proposal to advise on the merger of the company with a banking behemoth. The deadline was tight, the expectations high, but the manager had no experience in the area. Lacking the knowledge, he turned to his colleagues and friends, attempting to find someone who could assist him, but none of them had sufficient experience to write a client offer. With no personal knowledge, and no knowledge in his social network, what could he do? Assuming that the knowledge he needed was somewhere in the company, the manager searched the knowledge index of the company, a computer system that indicated who had worked on which cases in the firm. He found that a partner in the Sydney office of the firm had worked on the merger of two financial institutions several years earlier. Although he did not know the partner, and did not even have any common acquaintances, the manager simply picked up the phone and called Australia. The initial conversation led to a series of intensive inter-continental phone calls, in which the Australian consultants took the Swedish ones through the minutes of the case, describing how they had collected the data, created the proposal, and communicated it to the client. After four days of deliberations, the Stockholm team was able to develop a plan for the client, and eventually managed to win the merger case and a windfall in fees for the consulting company. Knowledge is crucial for performance Sheen S. Levine of the Wharton School , currently a visiting scholar at the CBS Center for Knowledge Governance, described a disguised case from his empirical study of a knowledge-intensive corporation. He was particularly interested in understanding how knowledge travels amongst employees, often strangers located far away from each other. "In the setting I investigated, knowledge transfer is paramount" he points out "the firm employs thousands of people all over the world, and the entire business model is based on solving a problem once for one specific client in one office, and then sending the knowledge around the world, customizing it and reselling it for subsequent clients. Employees must be able to create ties to internal experts and recruit their help, even if they have never met them". Design, engineering, pharmaceuticals and research companies, as well as law, banking, accounting, and advertising firms operate in a similar manner. "We do not fully understand these performative ties," says Levine, referring to the ad-hoc links between people who never met. "But those ties solve two fundamental problems: first, how do you search beyond their immediate network of friends and colleagues to find someone who's an expert on a topic? Second, when you find the expert, how do you convince her or him to help you?" In the merger case, the Australian team received no payment, no recognition, and had no further contact with the Swedish team. Moreover, it was not uncommon for someone in need to call past employees of the firm, now employed elsewhere, and ask them for advice. - "It does not fit most of what we assume about exchange relationship" notes Levine - "Usually, we expect that the helper would receive some sort of reward, whether in money, credit, reputation, or the right to receive some favors in the future." But there were no immediate rewards to the Australians, and only slim chances of future contact between the teams. While altruism cannot be ruled out, it is unlikely to explain the daily operations of a global corporation, especially when those involved are highly paid professionals. Bonuses in the firm were based on individual ,and office performance, not on worldwide operations, so helping a colleague in a remote office did not increase one's bonus. Performative ties are links between people Aiming to understand a novel phenomenon, Levine conducted more than 70 interviews with everybody from junior employees to the company's directors, men and women, in Europe and North America. In addition, he spent weeks in several offices, observing employees during their long work days, and analyzed corporate training materials, communications, and client presentations. He found that the pattern was common across geography and hierarchy. "Whenever starting a new case, employees would almost always search for the experts on the topic, even if those have already left the firm, contact them directly, and receive all the advice they needed." Performative ties, he notes, are links between people that occur after a wide search, when the searcher screens hundred of potential experts. Although the two do not know each other, they act as if they were close friends, offering help that is customized and time consuming, without immediate rewards. After the help is granted, there is little or no further contact between the two. What makes performative ties possible? After all, we usually do not just call strangers and ask them to help us. In this context, there are some features that help. Searching widely is possible because of an organizational index, or internal 'yellow pages', which lists present and past employees, their experience and expertise. But in order to receive help from them, the organization should have in place a system of generalized exchange, when employees help each other without expecting to receive reward from the recipient. Rather, they expect to receive back from anyone else in the system. "It's a bit like stopping to help a driver stranded on the side of the road" demonstrates Levine "you do not expect that specific person to help you when you have a flat tire. You help him because you were helped in a similar situation, or because you would like to be helped if it happens to you in the future." Performative ties have significance not only for social scientists and organizational researchers, but also for managers. In fact, notes Levine, any company that relies on knowledge transfer could benefit from performative ties. The challenge, of course, is to make them happen. After showing that such ties can exist, Levine now turns to predict in which situations performative ties are likely to emerge. Early answers indicate that attention to recruitment and promotion plays an important role, as well as the embeddedness of employees in multiple, overlapping networks. "Once, people said that you are what you know," concludes Levine, "then, came the social network researchers, and said that you are who you know. Now, it seems that you are who you can reach." Marie Wildt, ed.
Sidst opdateret by Insights@CBS 01.06.2004 | Maj - 2004, nr. 3 |
