The Conversational Firm: Rethinking Bureaucracy in the Age of Social Media

by Catherine J. Turco

Overview

A fast-growing social media marketing company, TechCo encourages all of its employees to speak up. By promoting open dialogue across the corporate hierarchy, the firm has fostered a uniquely engaged workforce and an enviable capacity for change. Yet the path hasn't always been easy. TechCo has confronted a number of challenges, and its experience reveals the essential elements of bureaucracy that remain even when a firm sets out to discard them. Through it all, TechCo serves as a powerful new model for how firms can navigate today's rapidly changing technological and cultural climate.

Catherine J. Turco was embedded within TechCo for ten months. The Conversational Firm is her ethnographic analysis of what worked at the company and what didn't. She offers multiple lessons for anyone curious about the effect of social media on the corporate environment and adds depth to debates over the new generation of employees reared on social media: Millennials who carry their technological habits and expectations into the workplace.

Marshaling insights from cultural and economic sociology, organizational theory, economics, technology studies, and anthropology, The Conversational Firm offers a nuanced analysis of corporate communication, control, and culture in the social media age.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780231178990
Publisher:	Columbia University Press
Publication date:	11/13/2018
Series:	The Middle Range Series
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	272
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.80(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Catherine Turco is an economic sociologist. She is the Michael M. Koerner (1949) Professor of Entrepreneurship and Associate Professor of Technological Innovation, Entrepreneurship, and Strategy at MIT. Turco is a graduate of Harvard University, from which she received her B.A. in Economics, MBA, and Ph.D. in Sociology. She lives in Harvard Square with her husband Philip and their dog, the loveable scamp Winona.

Table of Contents

Preface
Introduction
1. The Social Revolution
2. Open Communication
3. Open Control
4. Openness Controls
5. Open Culture
6. A Conversation About Bureaucracy
7. Conversational Spaces
8. The Conversational Firm: Implications for Theory
9. The Future of the Conversational Firm
Methodological Appendix
Acknowledgments
Notes
References
Index

Editorial Reviews

With a book that is as readable as it is wise, Turco makes a powerful case for the depth of insight that can only come from the best ethnographies—and is unavailable from the 'big data' analyses currently in vogue. Practitioners and scholars alike will come away with their understanding of firm hierarchy, culture, and communication transformed and enriched.

Ezra Zuckerman Sivan

[Turco's] efforts greatly contribute to shaping the academy's understanding of millennial impact on corporate culture. . . . Highly recommended.

Choice

A rare and wonderful empirical example of life in a digital startup.

Contemporary Sociology

The Conversational Firm opens a new chapter in the study of workplace democracy by analyzing how social media enable a new balance between workers' autonomy and productivity in high-tech corporate settings. With a particularly keen ethnographic eye, the author reveals a brave new world in which some of the bars of the bureaucratic iron cage are pried open while others remain in place for the pursuit of corporate goals. While millennials gain a more personalized and empowering work environment in the bargain, business leaders gain fuller access to their inner thoughts and creativity. This book will have a lasting impact on the study of corporate cultures and new organizational forms.

Michèle Lamont

The right book just at the right time in the right place. . . . An excellent ethnographic account of organizational life.

Organization Studies

This book is an excellent addition to the field of publications. . . . Turco accompanies this emotional analysis with rigorous academic context, but this does not impede accessibility.

Isreal Book Review

[A] well-written, insightful ethnographic study.

strategy+business - Theodore Kinni

Will twenty-first-century social media technologies finally liberate organizations from stifling bureaucratic hierarchies? After spending ten months closely observing a software firm, Catherine J. Turco, one of sociology's brightest young stars, surprises with fascinating and nuanced answers. Brimming with vivid examples, The Conversational Firm will not only shape scholarly debate but also engage general readers interested in corporate life.

Viviana A. Zelizer

In The Conversational Firm, Turco argues that organizations can transcend bureaucracy, but still they are held in check by certain workplace demands for reproduction and stability. These checks seem to prevent the organization from becoming complete anarchy. Yet perhaps just as important, The Conversational Firm is a rich and delightful organizational ethnography of how work is being transformed in the era of social media.

Brayden King

With The Conversational Firm, Turco uses the role of social media to challenge our fundamental assumptions about how modern organizations function. In this masterful work, she uncovers a new way of organizing where openness and hierarchy complement, rather than contradict one another. I'm putting this book next to my copies of Weber, Barnard, and Chandler.

Damon Phillips

Turco does an excellent job....In part, this is the result of the method she chose: ethnographic research of a company that is at the forefront of the social media revolution. In part, it is the result of her accessible writing style; last but not least, it is the result of her deep knowledge of organizational theories.

American Journal of Sociology

07/25/2016
Turco, a professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management, spent 10 months studying the pseudonymous social media marketing firm “TechCo,” a 600-person company in an urban area; this thoughtful but ultimately disappointing book-length case study is the result. TechCo knew it needed to undergo some major changes; “The old ways of doing things,” the CEO said, “don’t work anymore.” Turco launched a major study of the company, focusing on its efforts to adopt values popularized by big tech companies (Facebook, Google, etc.) such as openness and transparency. They implemented some of the familiar trappings of an open office—a wiki, an open-plan space—and worked on replicating a digital-native culture in which open communication and employee autonomy were highly valued. Investigating what had worked and what hadn’t, Turco made some unexpected findings: employees pushed back on getting more decision-making responsibilities and had difficulty getting past fear of management reprisal when encouraged to speak honestly about problems. However, she concludes that ongoing, open dialogue is worth striving for—as long as leadership can check its assumptions at the door. This is an interesting case study, but the book is neither entertaining enough to be a story, nor educational enough to be prescriptive. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly

The Conversational Firm opens a new chapter in the study of workplace democracy by analyzing how social media enable a new balance between workers' autonomy and productivity in high-tech corporate settings. With a particularly keen ethnographic eye, the author reveals a brave new world in which some of the bars of the bureaucratic iron cage are pried open while others remain in place for the pursuit of corporate goals. While millennials gain a more personalized and empowering work environment in the bargain, business leaders gain fuller access to their inner thoughts and creativity. This book will have a lasting impact on the study of corporate cultures and new organizational forms.

Michèle Lamont