Call for Papers

Organizations and the people and systems within them are increasingly reaching across the globe. When a customer in one country places a call requesting support, she is seamlessly connected to a customer contact center in another country. Teams developing new products secure contributions from experts located in the far corners of the globe. Multinational corporations define processes both local and global through ERP systems that reify particular organizational processes and controls. Global supply chain systems connect different organizations around the globe to distribute physical products to end-customers.

While there are many advantages associated with these world-flattening trends, implementing and operating global systems contributes to the creation of tensions among the different stakeholders involved. In particular, designers, implementers and users of globalizing processes and systems are confronted by tensions, contradictions, and conflicts between the local and global work, and its communication and technology practices (e.g. Baba, Gluesing, Ratner & Wagner, 2004; Carmel & Tjia, 2005). There are language and cultural differences that make it very difficult to communicate with consistent meanings (Beyene, et al., 2007; Gibson & Gibbs, 2006). There are social and business practices in one place that contradict practices elsewhere (Cramton & Hinds, 2007; Mattarelli & Gupta, 2009). There are fears about neo-imperialism and local job losses that cause resistance and power imbalances (Metiu, 2006; Levina & Vaast, 2008;). There are local differences in technology adoption and use and designer – use gaps (e.g., Cramton, 2001; Schultze and Rennecker, 2007; Pozzebon and van Heck, 2006).

This sub-theme seeks to explore these tensions between local and global work and communication and technology practices that people confront and negotiate on a daily basis. Topics relevant to this sub-theme include (but are not restricted to):

• How global teams deal with and leverage different local practices to enable collaboration
• The challenges of providing customer service in different regions from a global customer contact center
• The role of language and culture in the global-local divide
• Local and global conflicts associated with the implementation of single-instance ERP systems globally and the standardization of processes (for Sarbanes Oxley compliance, for instance)
• The role of information technology (often Western developed) in changing global and local practices
• Processes of adaptation and improvisation for overcoming the tensions between local and global processes and practices
• The role of power in determining what is designated "local" vs. "global"
• Understanding local practices in China & India (e.g. as "the world's economic center moves eastward")
• Opportunities and tensions in global online games (e.g., WoW) and virtual worlds (e.g., Second Life).

In order to advance the state of research on these issues and more generally on the management of local-global tensions, we call for original contributions, both empirical and theoretical, that rely on a variety of methods and theories.

References:

Baba, M.L., Gluesing, J., Ratner, H. & Wagner, K.H. (2004). "The contexts of knowing: Natural history of a globally distributed team." Journal of Organizational Behavior, 25, 547–587.
Beyene, T., Hinds, P.J. & Cramton, C.D. (2008). Walking Through Jelly: Language Challenges in Global Work, Working Paper.
Carmel, E. & Tjia, P. (2005). Offshoring information technology: Sourcing and outsourcing to a global workforce. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Chudoba, K.M., Wynn, E., Lu, M. & Watson-Manheim. M.B. (2005). "How virtual are we? Measuring virtuality and understanding its impact in a global organization." Information Systems Journal, 15, 279–306.
Cramton, C.D. (2001). "The mutual knowledge problem and its consequences for dispersed collaboration." Organization Science, 12, 346–371.
Cramton, C.D. & Hinds, P.J. (2007). "Intercultural interaction in distributed teams: Salience of and adaptations to cultural differences." In: G. Salomon (ed.), Proceedings of the Academy of Management Annual Meeting, Best Papers. Philadelphia, PA, August 3–8.
Gibson, C.B. & Gibbs, J.L. (2006). "Unpacking the concept of virtuality: The effects of geographic dispersion, electronic dependence, dynamic structure, and national diversity on team innovation." Administrative Science Quarterly, 51, 451–495.
Mattarelli, E. & Gupta, A. (2009). "Offshore-Onsite Subgroup Dynamics in Globally Distributed Teams." Journal of Information Technology & People, forthcoming.
Metiu, A. (2006). "Owning the code: status closure in distributed groups." Organization Science, 17, 418–436.
Pozzebon, M. & van Heck, E. (2006). "Local Adaptations of Generic Application Systems: The Case of Veiling Holambra in Brazil." Journal of Information Technology, 21, 73–85.
Schulze, U. & Rennecker, J. (2007). "Reframing Online Games: Synthetic Worlds as Media for Organizational Communication." In: K. Crowston, S. Sieber & E. Wynne (eds), Virtuality and Virtualization, IFIP International Federation for Information Processing, 236. Boston: Springer, 335–351.

The convenors of this sub-theme are all members of the OCIS (Organizational Communication and Information Systems) division of the Academy of Management. By organizing this sub-theme we hope to give members of the OCIS community and other researchers in the field of IS and organization studies, additional opportunities to present and dialog about their research.