Weaving Organizational Rule Tapestry: How Discovery of Relevance Shapes Rule Network Tie Formation

• In Event: 413 - Section on Organizations, Occupations and Work Refereed Roundtable Session. Table 01. Culture and Organizations
  In Refereed Roundtable 100min: Table 03. Governance

Abstract

Rules are not isolated pieces of text; rather, they often become interconnected with one another, forming an increasingly tight rule tapestry that shapes action and actors in organizations and societies. In this study, we aim to understand the processes that drive the weaving of organizational rule tapestry – the formation of rule network ties. We take a relevance discovery perspective to examine what makes rules become cited by others in the rule population. We argue that tie formation is the product of organizational relevance discovery processes. Rules become cited when they come to be regarded as relevant to the operations of other rules. In that view, citation tie formation should reflect the discovery of relevance of a focal rule to other rules. We develop a theoretical model of rule relevance discovery and derive hypotheses that connect the dynamics of the rule system and of individual rules to the rate of citation arrival of the focal rules. We test our hypotheses with a longitudinal data of 802 clinical practice guidelines in a Canadian regional healthcare organization that were in force between April 1989 and December 2010. Our results support the general perspective that rule network formation is shaped by relevance discovery processes.

Authors

• Martin Schulz

• Kejia Zhu