Organizational attention networks link multiple organizational problems to potential solutions carried by multiple organizational participants. I propose a mechanism-oriented theory to explain how the structure of organizational attention networks emerges from time-ordered sequences of interdependent acts of attention allocation. The theory posits that the observed structure of organizational attention networks is generated by the concatenation of four interdependent micro- mechanisms regulating how organizational participants allocate their attention across multiple problems over time: Focusing, Reinforcing, Mixing, and Clustering. These mechanisms are defined exclusively in terms of time-ordered sequences of attention allocation events. I specify and estimate statistical models where these mechanisms interact to shape a fluid attention network that changes in continuous time as participants join and leave the organizational arena, and problems emerge, disappear and, as the case may be, reappear. In an analysis of attention networks in a large open source software project I find evidence that the mechanisms postulated by the theory are consistent with the evolutionary dynamics of the observed network associating organizational problems (software “bugs”) and organizational participants (software “developers”). Accounting for characteristics of problems, differences among participants, and the hierarchical ordering of problems implied by formal organizational design enriches the contextual interpretation of my core theoretical claims, but does not affect the main results of the analysis. The study contributes to a renewed theoretical understanding of organizing as a process structured by contingent, context-dependent micro- mechanisms of attention allocation connecting people, problems, and solutions within organizations.
Alessandro Lomi is a Professor in the faculty of Economics of the University of Italian Switzerland, Lugano. He is a Life Member of Clare Hall College, University of Cambridge, and an Honorary Senior Fellow in the School of Psychological Sciences at the University of Melbourne. Since 2022, he has been an Associate Editor of the Journal of the Royal Statistical Society (Series A). Until 2021, he was Distinguished Research Professor at the University of Exeter. In 2017-18 he was a visiting professor at the Annenberg School of Communication and Journalism, University of Southern California, Los Angeles. In 2016-17, he was Visiting Scientist at the ETH Zurich. Between 2008-16, he was Conseiller a la Recherche in the Human and Social Sciences Division of the Conseil national de la recherche Suisse (Swiss NSF), where he also served as vice-Chairperson of the Interdisciplinary Research Commission. In 2011 he was Banco Santander Cátedra de Excelencia Professor at the Universidad Carlos III, Madrid. In 2008, he was Jemolo Fellow at Nuffield College, University of Oxford. In 2002-03 he was NATO Senior Research Fellow at the Santa Fe Institute (New Mexico) where he previously worked as Research associate (2001-02). In the less recent past, he was a Professor of Management in the faculty of economics at the University of Bologna, and an Assistant Professor at the London Business School (UK). He was a Visiting Professor at the Haas School of Business (University of California, Berkeley); NATO Advanced Science Fellow at Syracuse University (New York), and NATO Junior Research Fellow at New York University (New York). He holds a BA in Economics from the University of Bologna, and a MS and PhD degree from Cornell University (Ithaca, New York).
The seminar will be held in English.
Major information: Francesco Maria Barbini (francesco.barbini@unibo.it)