Co-evolution of knowledge networks in 21st century organizational forms

Recent advances in digital technologies invite consideration of organizing as a process that is accomplished by global, flexible, adaptive, and ad hoc networks that can be created, maintained, dissolved, and reconstituted with remarkable alacrity. As these developments continue to reduce logistic barriers to our communication and knowledge network relations, it becomes increasingly important to identify the various social factors that enable or constrain the development of these network linkages. The lecture provides empirical results based on applying a Multi-theoretical Multi-level (MTML) framework (P. Monge & N. Contractor, Theories of Communication Networks, Oxford University Press, 2003) to understand information retrieval and allocation patterns in three dozen government, non-government, and commercial organizations around the world.