Beth A Bechky
Biographic Data
| ID | 145931 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Beth A Bechky |
| GIVEN NAMES | Beth A |
| FAMILY NAME | Bechky |
| SIGNATURE | BECHKY B A |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of California, Davis |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-0096-294X |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 14 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 120 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 14 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1994 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Resisting the Algorithmic Management of Science
This essay in honor of ASQ's 70th volume surveys how technology-driven changes in scholarly publishing have introduced algorithmic management to organizational research. The internet greatly reduced the cost of publishing journals and prompted an orders-of-magnitude increase in the number of journals and articles while also foregrounding quantitative metrics for scholarship. Given the academic incentive system of publish or perish, the new online…
Exploring the Digital Undertow
This paper examines generative AI’s broader implications for the social construction of categories. Building on the Orlikowski and Scott’s concept of the ‘digital undertow’, we consider how generative AI’s influence will likely extend beyond immediate technological benefits and lead to deeper shifts in the societal structures and occupational identities constituting conventional categories. We extrapolate from emerging findings that suggest that,…
Blood, Powder, and Residue
Little Shop of Horrors? A Digital Age Startup's Experiment with Radical Transparency
The Changing Nature of Work
"Reclaiming "Anthropology
PurposeThis collection of commentaries on the reprinted 1987 article by Nancy C. Morey and Fred Luthans, "Anthropology: the forgotten behavioral science in management history", aims to reflect on the treatment of the history of anthropological work in organizational studies presented in the original article.Design/methodology/approachThe essays are invited and peer-reviewed contributions from scholars in organizational studies and anthropology.Fi…
Expecting the Unexpected? How SWAT Officers and Film Crews Handle Surprises
Organizations increasingly face surprises with regularity, yet little is known about how they develop the responses to unexpected events that enable their work to continue. We compare ethnographic data from two types of organizations that regularly deal with surprises, a police SWAT team and film production crews. We find that individuals engage in organizational bricolage, restructuring their activities by role shifting, reorganizing routines, a…
Coordination in Organizations
Coordination, the process of interaction that integrates a collective set of interdependent tasks, is a central purpose of organizations. In this review we begin by discussing the origins of interest in coordination, tracing some of the classic perspectives. We present a review of recent literature on coordination in organizations arranged according to the mechanisms that help achieve it. We then go beyond this review to provide a framework to un…
Stretchwork
Changes in employment relationships have diminished the degree to which internal labor markets shape careers. Using comparative field studies, we examine how contract workers try to achieve career progression without the benefit of organizational guidance. Specifically, we examine how contract workers manage the career progression paradox: the problem of finding a job without prior experience. “Stretchwork” bridging from proven competencies to ne…
When Collections of Creatives Become Creative Collectives
This paper introduces a model of collective creativity that explains how the locus of creative problem solving shifts, at times, from the individual to the interactions of a collective. The model is grounded in observations, interviews, informal conversations, and archival data gathered in intensive field studies of work in professional service firms. The evidence suggests that although some creative solutions can be seen as the products of indiv…
Gaffers, Gofers, and Grips
Temporary organizations are known to provide flexibility for industries that rely on them, but we know little about their implications for how work is accomplished and coordinated. In this paper, I propose that common portrayals of temporary organizations as ephemeral and unstable are inaccurate: Temporary organizations are in fact organized around structured role systems whose nuances are negotiated in situ. This paper analyzes one type of tempo…
Sharing Meaning Across Occupational Communities
This paper suggests that knowledge is shared in organizations through the transformation of occupational communities' situated understandings of their work. In this paper, I link the misunderstandings between engineers, technicians, and assemblers on a production floor to their work contexts, and demonstrate how members of these communities overcome such problems by cocreating common ground that transforms their understanding of the product and t…
Object Lessons
While the development and control of professional jurisdictions has been well studied, less is known about the way in which occupational jurisdictions are enacted within organizations. This article suggests that one can gain insight about such dynamics through analyzing occupational communities' use of organizational artifacts. This article describes the ways in which two artifacts—engineering drawings and machines—mediate the relations of engine…
In the Backrooms of Science
This article presents data from an ethnographic study of science technicians. The article proposes a model of the science technician's role as broker in a serially interdependent occupational division of labor and then contextualizes the model by examining how technicians conceptualize and manage troubles that arise in the course of scientific procedures. The data suggest that technicians possess most of a lab's contextual knowledge and skill and…
Object Lessons
While the development and control of professional jurisdictions has been well studied, less is known about the way in which occupational jurisdictions are enacted within organizations. This article suggests that one can gain insight about such dynamics through analyzing occupational communities' use of organizational artifacts. This article describes the ways in which two artifacts—engineering drawings and machines—mediate the relations of engine…
In the Backrooms of Science
This article presents data from an ethnographic study of science technicians. The article proposes a model of the science technician's role as broker in a serially interdependent occupational division of labor and then contextualizes the model by examining how technicians conceptualize and manage troubles that arise in the course of scientific procedures. The data suggest that technicians possess most of a lab's contextual knowledge and skill and…
Little Shop of Horrors? A Digital Age Startup's Experiment with Radical Transparency
"Reclaiming "Anthropology
PurposeThis collection of commentaries on the reprinted 1987 article by Nancy C. Morey and Fred Luthans, "Anthropology: the forgotten behavioral science in management history", aims to reflect on the treatment of the history of anthropological work in organizational studies presented in the original article.Design/methodology/approachThe essays are invited and peer-reviewed contributions from scholars in organizational studies and anthropology.Fi…
In the Backrooms of Science
This article presents data from an ethnographic study of science technicians. The article proposes a model of the science technician's role as broker in a serially interdependent occupational division of labor and then contextualizes the model by examining how technicians conceptualize and manage troubles that arise in the course of scientific procedures. The data suggest that technicians possess most of a lab's contextual knowledge and skill and…
Sharing Meaning Across Occupational Communities
This paper suggests that knowledge is shared in organizations through the transformation of occupational communities' situated understandings of their work. In this paper, I link the misunderstandings between engineers, technicians, and assemblers on a production floor to their work contexts, and demonstrate how members of these communities overcome such problems by cocreating common ground that transforms their understanding of the product and t…
Object Lessons
While the development and control of professional jurisdictions has been well studied, less is known about the way in which occupational jurisdictions are enacted within organizations. This article suggests that one can gain insight about such dynamics through analyzing occupational communities' use of organizational artifacts. This article describes the ways in which two artifacts—engineering drawings and machines—mediate the relations of engine…
Stretchwork
Changes in employment relationships have diminished the degree to which internal labor markets shape careers. Using comparative field studies, we examine how contract workers try to achieve career progression without the benefit of organizational guidance. Specifically, we examine how contract workers manage the career progression paradox: the problem of finding a job without prior experience. “Stretchwork” bridging from proven competencies to ne…
When Collections of Creatives Become Creative Collectives
This paper introduces a model of collective creativity that explains how the locus of creative problem solving shifts, at times, from the individual to the interactions of a collective. The model is grounded in observations, interviews, informal conversations, and archival data gathered in intensive field studies of work in professional service firms. The evidence suggests that although some creative solutions can be seen as the products of indiv…
Gaffers, Gofers, and Grips
Temporary organizations are known to provide flexibility for industries that rely on them, but we know little about their implications for how work is accomplished and coordinated. In this paper, I propose that common portrayals of temporary organizations as ephemeral and unstable are inaccurate: Temporary organizations are in fact organized around structured role systems whose nuances are negotiated in situ. This paper analyzes one type of tempo…
Coordination in Organizations
Coordination, the process of interaction that integrates a collective set of interdependent tasks, is a central purpose of organizations. In this review we begin by discussing the origins of interest in coordination, tracing some of the classic perspectives. We present a review of recent literature on coordination in organizations arranged according to the mechanisms that help achieve it. We then go beyond this review to provide a framework to un…
Expecting the Unexpected? How SWAT Officers and Film Crews Handle Surprises
Organizations increasingly face surprises with regularity, yet little is known about how they develop the responses to unexpected events that enable their work to continue. We compare ethnographic data from two types of organizations that regularly deal with surprises, a police SWAT team and film production crews. We find that individuals engage in organizational bricolage, restructuring their activities by role shifting, reorganizing routines, a…
"Reclaiming "Anthropology
PurposeThis collection of commentaries on the reprinted 1987 article by Nancy C. Morey and Fred Luthans, "Anthropology: the forgotten behavioral science in management history", aims to reflect on the treatment of the history of anthropological work in organizational studies presented in the original article.Design/methodology/approachThe essays are invited and peer-reviewed contributions from scholars in organizational studies and anthropology.Fi…
The Changing Nature of Work
Little Shop of Horrors? A Digital Age Startup's Experiment with Radical Transparency
Blood, Powder, and Residue
Exploring the Digital Undertow
This paper examines generative AI’s broader implications for the social construction of categories. Building on the Orlikowski and Scott’s concept of the ‘digital undertow’, we consider how generative AI’s influence will likely extend beyond immediate technological benefits and lead to deeper shifts in the societal structures and occupational identities constituting conventional categories. We extrapolate from emerging findings that suggest that,…
Resisting the Algorithmic Management of Science
This essay in honor of ASQ's 70th volume surveys how technology-driven changes in scholarly publishing have introduced algorithmic management to organizational research. The internet greatly reduced the cost of publishing journals and prompted an orders-of-magnitude increase in the number of journals and articles while also foregrounding quantitative metrics for scholarship. Given the academic incentive system of publish or perish, the new online…
Computer Science (11 works) · Sociology (10 works) · Political science (9 works) · Engineering (8 works) · Knowledge management (7 works) · Management and Organizational Studies (7 works) · Business (6 works) · Psychology (6 works) · Public relations (6 works) · Work (physics) (6 works)