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Crowd-based accountability: examining how social media commentary reconfigures organizational accountability

Author

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  • Karunakaran, Arvind
  • Orlikowski, Wanda J.
  • Scott, Susan V.

Abstract

Organizational accountability is considered critical to organizations' sustained performance and survival. Prior research examines the structural and rhetorical responses that organizations use to manage accountability pressures from different constituents. With the emergence of social media, accountability pressures shift from the relatively clear and well-specified demands of identifiable stakeholders to the unclear and unspecified concerns of a pseudonymous crowd. This is further exacerbated by the public visibility of social media, materializing as a stream of online commentary for a distributed audience. In such conditions, the established structural and rhetorical responses of organizations become less effective for addressing accountability pressures. We conducted a multisite comparative study to examine how organizations in two service sectors (emergency response and hospitality) respond to accountability pressures manifesting as social media commentary on two platforms (Twitter and TripAdvisor). We find organizations responding online to social media commentary while also enacting changes to their practices that recalibrate risk, redeploy resources, and redefine service. These changes produce a diffractive reactivity that reconfigures the meanings, activities, relations, and outcomes of service work as well as the boundaries of organizational accountability. We synthesize these findings in a model of crowd-based accountability and discuss the contributions of this study to research on accountability and organizing in the social media era.

Suggested Citation

  • Karunakaran, Arvind & Orlikowski, Wanda J. & Scott, Susan V., 2022. "Crowd-based accountability: examining how social media commentary reconfigures organizational accountability," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 114401, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
  • Handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:114401
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

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    2. Diane E. Bailey, 2022. "Emerging Technologies at Work: Policy Ideas to Address Negative Consequences for Work, Workers, and Society," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 75(3), pages 527-551, May.
    3. Kraude, Richard & Narasimhan, Ram, 2024. "How does the stakeholder exposure of vertical integration influence environmental performance?," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 267(C).
    4. Cordery, Carolyn J. & Goncharenko, Galina & Polzer, Tobias & McConville, Danielle & Belal, Ataur, 2023. "NGOs’ performance, governance, and accountability in the era of digital transformation," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 55(5).
    5. Orlikowski, Wanda J. & Scott, Susan V., 2023. "The digital undertow and institutional displacement: a sociomaterial approach," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 119271, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    digital technology; field study; occupations and professions; organization and management theory; practice; qualitative research; research design and methods; social media;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • R14 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Land Use Patterns
    • J01 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - General - - - Labor Economics: General

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