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Crisis as opportunity, disruption and exposure: Exploring emergent responses to crisis through digital technology
Abstract
We live in a technologically advanced era with a recent and marked dependence on digital technologies while also facing increasingly frequent extreme and global crises. Crises, like the COVID-19 pandemic, are significantly impacting our societies, organizations and individuals and dramatically shifting the use of, and dependence on, digital technology. The way digital technology is used to cope with crises is novel and not well understood theoretically. To explore the varied uses and impact of digital technologies during crises, we propose to view crisis as (1) opportunity, (2) disruption, and (3) exposure. Examining crisis as opportunity reveals how digital technologies enable experimentation and accelerate innovation while raising coordination challenges and risky implementation. Viewing crisis as disruption highlights how digital technologies enable the rapid shifting of organizational and occupational practices to new digital spaces, allowing work continuity, yet potentially distorting work practices and raising challenges of over-dependence. Finally, crisis exposes the societal implications in making visible and exposing digital inequalities and producing moral dilemmas for us all. We use these three perspectives to shed light on the varied uses of digital technologies in the COVID-19 crisis and suggest new avenues for research on crises more broadly.
... The application of digital technologies for BMI purposes turned out to be particularly valuable in facing the threats and disruptive changes experienced with the advent of the Covid-19 pandemic (Priyono et al., 2020;Coskun and Tanrikulu, 2021;Kronblad and Pregmark, 2021;Mostaghel et al., 2022). In fact, as a result of what is considered the worst crisis since World War, 1 organizations rethought and redesigned their BMs (Seetharaman, 2020;Martinez et al., 2021;Martínez-Velasco and Terán-Bustamante, 2022), both in the short and long run, also exploiting the strategic opportunities incorporated in digital technologies (Kraus et al., 2020;Hazaa et al., 2021;Gkeredakis et al., 2021;Buck et al., 2022) to gain business continuity, resilience, and competitiveness (Akpan et al., 2020;Gregurec et al., 2021;Corvello et al., 2022). In this sense, the pandemic triggered and accelerated the use of digital technologies by organizations to innovate BMs, also overcoming the resistance encountered in no crisis times for this practice (IBM Institute for Business Value, 2020; Chakraborty et al., 2020;Jacobides and Reeves, 2020). ...
... As a result, digital BMI has been studied and implemented for gaining revenue growth, competitive advantage, and performance improvement (Zhang et al., 2016;Parida et al., 2019;Correani et al., 2020;Tavoletti et al., 2021 survival in crisis times. In fact, during these times, uncertainties about the direction of technological change, demand conditions, and new market opportunities (Archibugi et al., 2013) limit the amount of time available to respond and solve problems without incurring disastrous consequences (Ardito et al., 2021;Gkeredakis et al., 2021). Thus, to respond the crisis, fast growing and dynamic firms are pushed to increase their innovative activities and explorative strategies in product and market domains (Archibugi et al., 2013), both using digital technologies and BMs changes to accelerate innovation (Ritter and Pedersen, 2020;Gkeredakis et al., 2021). ...
... In fact, during these times, uncertainties about the direction of technological change, demand conditions, and new market opportunities (Archibugi et al., 2013) limit the amount of time available to respond and solve problems without incurring disastrous consequences (Ardito et al., 2021;Gkeredakis et al., 2021). Thus, to respond the crisis, fast growing and dynamic firms are pushed to increase their innovative activities and explorative strategies in product and market domains (Archibugi et al., 2013), both using digital technologies and BMs changes to accelerate innovation (Ritter and Pedersen, 2020;Gkeredakis et al., 2021). At this regard, scholars have emphasized how digital technologies are able to amplify the beneficial potential of non-digital BMI to cope with disruptive environmental changes (Priyono et al., 2020), generating firm survival and long-term performance (Grewal and Tansuhaj, 2001;Lindgart et al., 2009;George and Bock, 2011;Cucculelli and Peruzzi, 2020) through modification and formulation of new value creation and capture mechanisms (Amit and Zott, 2010;Breier et al., 2021). ...
This paper investigates the phenomenon of business models innovation (BMI) empowered by digital technologies and activated as a response to Covid-19 crisis. In fact, during the crisis numerous digital redesigns of businesses occurred to pursue both continuity and competitive advantage. Among these, the food retail sector has undergone under the pressure of the crisis intense digital changes, which, however, have not yet been investigated under the theoretical lens of BMI. To fill this gap, the paper analyzes the digital actions taken during the pandemic crisis by two large food retailers, namely Walmart and Carrefour. Covering a wide temporal interval of the pandemic evolution and reviewing multiple geographical markets, the authors interpreted the grocer's digital responses to the crisis in terms of innovation in value creation and capture mechanisms. As a result, three phases of digital BMI have been reconstructed, each characterized by specific mechanisms of value creation and capture experienced by the two grocers during the pandemic. Leveraging these findings, the paper proposes a model capable of defining how digital BMI takes place in response to crises. Results broaden theoretical knowledge and practical suggestions on digital BMI in terms of enabling factors, actionable value mechanisms, and future business opportunities.
... Deterioration in existing mental health and new presentations are likely to contribute to the rising demand for mental health services, including depressive and anxiety disorders, which may stem from the psychological and economic effects of the pandemic linked to factors such as bereavement, restrictions in movement, lack of social interactions, domestic violence, and unemployment [2,3]. In England, as in most parts of the world, the pandemic, especially in the initial phase, severely disrupted health and social care provision, including mental health services [1,4,5]. By April 2021, the demand for mental health services in England was at a record high without a commensurate increase in funding for the sector [6]. ...
... Mental health providers appeared to have responded to this call. Thus, the pandemic has accelerated the rapid rollout of IT in mental health service delivery [1,4,11,15,16]. ...
... Research has highlighted the unprecedented use of remote (digital and telephone) consultations in mental health care during the pandemic [1,4,5,[9][10][11][12][15][16][17][18][19][20]. The greatest benefit was that it enabled providers to respond flexibly to the needs of service users while adjusting to pandemic-enforced challenges and restrictions. ...
Background:
In England, as elsewhere, COVID-19 has significantly affected mental health care and tested the resilience of providers. In many areas, the increased use of information technology has enabled traditional modes of service delivery to be supported or even replaced by remote forms of provision.
Objective:
We assessed the use and impact of information technology (IT), in remote service provision, on the quality and efficiency of mental health care during the pandemic. We drew on socio-technical systems (STS) theory as a conceptual framework to help structure data gathering, analysis and interpretation.
Methods:
We undertook a national scoping survey which involved documentary analysis and semi-structured interviews with six national stakeholders and case studies of four purposefully selected mental health providers in England involving interviews with 53 staff.
Results:
Following the outbreak of COVID-19 mental health providers rapidly adjusted their traditional forms of service delivery, switching to digital and telephone consultations for most services. Informants provided nuanced perspectives on the impact on quality and efficiency of remote service delivery during the pandemic. Notably, it has allowed providers to attend to as many patients as possible in the face of COVID-19 restrictions, to the convenience of both patients and staff. Chief among its negative effects are concerns around the unsuitability of remote consultation for some people with mental health conditions and the potential for widening a digital divide and exacerbating existing inequalities. STS theory was found to be a suitable framework for understanding the range of systemic and sociotechnical factors which influence the use of technology in mental health care delivery in times of crisis and normalcy.
Conclusions:
While the use of IT has boosted mental health care delivery during the pandemic, it has had mixed effects on quality and efficiency. In general, patients have benefited from the convenience of remote consultation when face-to-face contact was impossible. On the other hand, patient choice was often compromised, and patient experience and outcomes might have been affected for some people with mental health conditions for which remote consultation is less suitable. Yet, the full impact of IT on the quality and efficiency of mental health care provision along with the systemic and sociotechnical determinants requires more sustained and longitudinal research.
... This recalls several recent debates. Against the backdrop of the COVID crisis, prior research either celebrated the promise of digital social innovation (e.g., Scheidgen, Gümüsay, Günzel-Jensen, Krlev, & Wolf, 2021) or, as others pointed out, the need to critically reflect on the use of data and digital technologies to tackle a societal challenge (Gkeredakis, Lifshitz-Assaf, & Barrett, 2021;Zilber & Goodman, 2021). Relatedly, there are debates about the potential downsides of relying too heavily on digital technology and data to solve problems; an unwavering belief in the power of digital solutions ('Technological Solutionism') may lead to neglect of other possible solutions or even ultimately, cause more harm than good (Morozov, 2013;Nachtwey & Seidl, 2020;Weinstein, Reich, & Sahami, 2021). ...
Open Social Innovation (OSI) involves the collaboration of multiple stakeholders to generate ideas, and develop and scale solutions to make progress on societal challenges. In an OSI project, stakeholders share data and information, utilize it to better understand a problem, and combine data with digital technologies to create digitally-enabled solutions. Consequently, data gover-nance is essential for orchestrating an OSI project to facilitate the coordination of innovation. Because OSI brings multiple stakeholders together, and each stakeholder participates voluntarily, data governance in OSI has a distributed nature. In this essay we put forward a framework consisting of three dimensions allowing an inquiry into the effectiveness of such distributed data governance: (1) openness (i.e., freely sharing data and information), (2) accountability (i.e., willingness to be held responsible and provide justifications for one's conduct) and (3) power (i.e., resourceful actors' ability to impact other stakeholder's actions). We apply this framework to reflect on the OSI project #WirVsVirus ("We versus virus" in English), to illustrate the challenges in organizing effective distributed data governance, and derive implications for research and practice.
... Whilst studies have highlighted how remote approaches can be operationalised to promote continuity eg: for follow-up or as a convenient alternative to seeing the usual GP in-person (58), the rapid, widespread use of remote consultations brought about by COVID-19 did not allow for strategic implementation nor has there been systematic assessment of its impact. Moreover, the expansion of remote modalities has been part of a wider pandemic-driven shift towards technology-mediated care (eg: websites, national telephone advice lines, and virtual wards) (59), which is likely to have further complicated the picture. ...
Background
The value of continuity in primary care has been demonstrated for multiple positive outcomes. However, little is known about how the expansion of remote and digital care models in primary care have impacted continuity.
Aim
To explore the impact of the expansion of remote and digital care models on continuity in primary care.
Design and setting
A systematic review of continuity in primary care.
Method
A keyword search of Embase, MEDLINE, and CINAHL databases was used along with snowball sampling to identify relevant English-language qualitative and quantitative studies from any country between 2000 and 2022, which explored remote or digital approaches in primary care and continuity. Relevant data were extracted, analysed using GRADE-CERQual, and narratively synthesised.
Results
Fifteen studies were included in the review. The specific impact of remote approaches on continuity was rarely overtly addressed. Some patients expressed a preference for relational continuity depending on circumstance, problem, and context; others prioritised access. Clinicians valued continuity, with some viewing remote consultations more suitable where there was high episodic or relational continuity. With lower continuity, patients and clinicians considered remote consultations harder, higher risk, and poorer quality. Some evidence suggested that remote approaches and/or their implementation risked worsening inequalities and causing harm by reducing continuity where it was valuable. However, if deployed strategically and flexibly, remote approaches could improve continuity.
Conclusion
While the value of continuity in primary care has previously been well demonstrated, the dearth of evidence around continuity in a remote and digital context is troubling. Further research is, therefore, needed to explore the links between the shift to remote care, continuity and equity, using real-world evaluation frameworks to ascertain when and for whom continuity adds most value, and how this can be enabled or maintained.
... Instead, leaders are preferably able to look forward and make a new plan without previous experience ((D'Auria and De Smet, 2020). The crisis can be a starting point for organizations and leaders to make positive changes by seizing the opportunities (Gkeredakis et al., 2021). The concept of leadership in crisis management emphasizes the effort to minimize the harms or impacts of a crisis and to reestablish the system once the crisis has passed (Bundy and Pfarrer, 2015). ...
Organizational transformation is one of the steps leaders can take to survive and adapt to the current situation. Organizations that do not transform in a certain period will be left behind, even collapse, because of the dynamic nature of consumers and markets. Trans- formation is driven by internal factors such as the need for efficiency, revenue enhancement, and increasing employee prosperity. Meanwhile, external factors that trigger transformation include competition with competitors, technological advancement, and demand for adaptation to consumer needs and desires changes. Leaders have many references to adopt for navigating transformation in the normal situation. However, they have few references on navigating transformation in the Covid-19 pandemic situation. The Covid-19 pandemic has implied implementing a remote working system to minimize viral transmission. Such a system poses many challenges to leaders and employees as they have never practiced it. Failure of the leaders to navigate transformation will seriously harm the organization and even lead to collapse. The present study aims to identify some applicable competencies for leaders in navigating organizational transformation during the pandemic. This study used a qualitative method with semi-structured interviews as the data collection technique. The thematic analysis was conducted to analyze responses from interview questions. 14 informants were involved in this study. They consisted of general and senior managers transforming the pandemic situation. The results of this study revealed four major competencies, namely task competencies, human relation competencies, adaptive competencies, and virtual competencies in navigating transformation during the pandemic situation.
... The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic was (among other things) a unique opportunity for digital innovation in the healthcare sector 1 . As described in more detail in our protocol paper 2 , it triggered unprecedented changes in general practice. ...
Background: Accessing and receiving care remotely (by telephone, video or online) became the default option during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, but in-person care has unique benefits in some circumstances. We are studying UK general practices as they try to balance remote and in-person care, with recurrent waves of COVID-19 and various post-pandemic backlogs.
Methods: Mixed-methods (mostly qualitative) case study across 11 general practices. Researchers-in-residence have built relationships with practices and become familiar with their contexts and activities; they are following their progress for two years via staff and patient interviews, documents and ethnography, and supporting improvement efforts through co-design. In this paper, we report baseline data.
Results: Reflecting our maximum-variety sampling strategy, the 11 practices vary in size, setting, ethos, staffing, population demographics and digital maturity, but share common contextual features—notably system-level stressors such as high workload and staff shortages, and UK’s technical and regulatory infrastructure. We have identified both commonalities and differences between practices in terms of how they: 1] manage the ‘digital front door’ (access and triage) and balance demand and capacity; 2] strive for high standards of quality and safety; 3] ensure digital inclusion and mitigate wider inequalities; 4] support and train their staff (clinical and non-clinical), students and trainees; 5] select, install, pilot and use technologies and the digital infrastructure which support them; and 6] involve patients in their improvement efforts.
Conclusions: General practices’ responses to pandemic-induced disruptive innovation appear unique and situated. We anticipate that by focusing on depth and detail, this longitudinal study will throw light on why a solution that works well in one practice does not work at all in another. As the study unfolds, we will explore how practices achieve timely diagnosis of urgent or serious illness and manage continuity of care, long-term conditions and complex needs.
The increasing adoption of digital technologies at the workplace demands lifelong learning for the employees by enhancing their digital competence (DC), impacting their basic psychological needs satisfaction (BPNS). This study aims to assess the effect of employees’ DC on flourishing through BPNS factors among working professionals in service industries by proposing the BPNS framework. A usable sample of 289 professionals working in service industries from North America, Europe, and the United Kingdom was collected to provide empirical support for the proposed model using PLS-SEM. Findings suggest that the employees’ DC positively impacts all three factors of BPNS, impacting flourishing. The sense of community as a moderator significantly affects the relationship between the autonomy factor of BPNS and flourishing. Service firms can design interventions that take care of the service employees’ needs satisfaction, thus making them flourish. The study ends with a note on its limitations and future research directions.
Digital transformation (DT) is typically described as a strategic, top-down initiative where new digital technologies fundamentally disrupt an organisation’s structure, procedures, and processes to enhance its value proposition. We propose a middle-range theory which highlights that DT of professional practices in healthcare follows a different path. To build this theory, we transpose the metaphor of a “fitness landscape” from evolutionary biology to a professional healthcare context to build an intermediate conceptualisation, which is then refined through an empirical study. Our theory highlights that external events, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, changing patient behaviours or the availability of new digital resources, transform the “value landscape” upon which healthcare professionals create and deliver healthcare services to patients. Empowered by their professional autonomy and driven by their service orientation, healthcare professionals search for new paths and peaks for value creation and delivery across a rugged landscape. As digital resources are leveraged, new value propositions in practice emerge, and professional healthcare practices are digitally transformed.
Since Covid-19 emerged from China and started spreading globally with its adverse effect on economies, little research is done to ascertain the kind of strategies used on production floors particularly in Ghana, to survive its devastating effect. Companies were randomly sampled and questionnaires administered to managers on production floors to answer. Data was then analyzed and concluded that changes were largely made on production floors to be able to keep the floor running in line with globally published literature that seeks to give guidance to survive on the production floor in the mist of covid-19 by increasing productivity whiles reducing cost of operations.
Since the advent of the Internet has changed how risk information develops and disseminates, citizens’ risk perception alters correspondingly. Although extant studies have explored the impacts of Internet use on citizens, only a few have focused on citizens’ perception of social safety exclusively. This study examined the effect of Internet use and Internet use frequency on citizens’ perception of social safety with 2017 China Social Survey data. It found that Internet use and Internet use frequency have a significant negative impact on citizens’ social safety perception. Compared to non-users, the probability of perceiving society as very safe decreases significantly by 2.3% for Internet users. Subsequently, this study avoided the endogeneity issues by employing the Bioprobit and CMP methods, and the robustness check adopted propensity score matching methods. In general, it supported results in benchmark regression. The heterogeneity analysis indicated that Internet use had a higher negative impact on citizens in the western region, rural household registration, and middle-aged groups. It suggests that the establishment of a comprehensive mechanism to regulate online information involving governments, Internet industrial organizations, and Internet users may improve governance effectiveness. In addition, education targeting Internet literacy is required to enable a more rational citizen participation on the Internet.
Digital models that simulate the dynamics of a system are increasingly used to make predictions about the future. Although modeling has been central to decision-making under conditions of uncertainty across many industries for many years, the COVID-19 pandemic has made the role that models play in prediction and policymaking real for millions of people around the world. Despite the fact that modeling is a process through which experts use data and statistics to make sophisticated guesses, most consumers expect a model's predictions to be like crystal balls and provide perfect information about what the future will bring. Over the last decade, we have conducted a series of in-depth, longitudinal studies of digital modeling across several industries. From these studies, we share five lessons we have learned about modeling that demonstrate (1) why models are indeed not crystal balls and (2) why, despite their indeterminacy, people tend to treat them as crystal balls anyway. We discuss what each of these lessons can teach us about how to respond to the predictions made by COVID-19 models as well models of other stochastic processes and events about whose futures we wish to know today.
Background
Remote consulting was introduced quickly into UK general practice in March 2020 as an emergency response to COVID-19. In July 2020, ‘remote-first’ became long-term government policy.
Aim
To explore how this change was portrayed in national newspapers and how depictions changed over time.
Design and setting
Thematic analysis of newspaper articles referring to remote GP consultations from two time periods: 2 March–31 May 2020 (period 1) and 30 July–12 August 2020 (period 2).
Method
Articles were identified through, and extracted from, LexisNexis Academic UK. A coding system of themes and narrative devices was developed and applied to the data. The analysis was developed iteratively, amending the coding structure as new data were added.
Results
Remote consulting was widely covered in newspapers. Articles in period 1 depicted it positively, equating digital change with progress and linking novel technological solutions with improved efficiency and safety (for example, infection control) in a service that was overdue for modernisation. Articles in period 2 questioned the persistence of a remote-first service now that the pandemic was waning, emphasising, for example, missed diagnoses, challenges to the therapeutic relationship, and digital inequalities.
Conclusion
As the first wave of the pandemic came and went, media depictions of remote consulting evolved from an ‘efficiency and safety’ narrative to a ‘risks, inequalities, and lack of choice’ narrative. To restore public trust in general practice, public communication should emphasise the wide menu of consulting options now available to patients and measures being taken to assure safety and avoid inequity.
As conditions of crisis disrupt established practices, existing ways of doing things are interrupted and called into question. The suspension of routine sociomaterial enactments produces openings for liminal innovation, a process entailing iterative experimentation and implementation that explores novel or alternative materializations of established work practices. We draw attention to three distinct tensions on the ground that arise in conditions of crisis — pragmatic, tactical, and existential — and show how these may be leveraged to produce liminal innovations in practice. While the process of liminal innovation can be challenging, it can also be generative, creating opportunities for the reconfiguration of digital work in conditions of crisis.
In this paper we ask the question “inequality of what” to examine the multiple inequalities revealed under the covid-19 pandemic. An intersectional perspective is adopted from feminist studies to highlight the intersection and entanglement between digital technology, structural stratifications and the ingrained tendency of ‘othering’ in societies. As part of a future research agenda, we propose that IS research should move beyond simplistic notions of digital divisions to examine digital technology as implicated in complex and intersectional systems of power, and improve our sensitivity to the positionality of individuals and groups within social orders. Implications for practice and policy are also discussed, including moving beyond single-axis analysis of digital exclusion.
The Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic has been a devastating crisis affecting the physical, social, and financial well-being of people the world over. Unlike business-as-usual, crises create unique context conditions in which to study digital innovation. Crises can create widespread suffering. Crises can also trigger the creation of “compassionate ventures” started by emergent entrepreneurs, who, by being themselves victims of adversity, are driven to start ventures to alleviate people's suffering. In this essay, we appropriate the literature from management and entrepreneurship on compassionate venturing to suggest a framework for helping to clarify distinctions in the ways in which digital innovation may emerge during crises.
How do crises shape digital innovation? In this paper we examine the rapid adoption of digital telemedicine technologies in an Israeli hospital with a focus on the role of the institutional logics held by the stakeholders responding to emerging events. With the onset of COVID-19, the need for social distancing and minimal physical contact challenged and interrupted hospital practices. In response, remote audiovisual functionality of digital technologies were appropriated in different ways, as stakeholders-state actors, managers, health professionals, and family members-sought to improvise and enhance the protection of persons concerned. We show how emerging practices were guided by the dominant institutional logics of stakeholders responding to the crisis. Acting for many as a digital form of 'personal protective equipment' (PPE), the technologies enabled diverse action possibilities to become manifest in practices. We add to understanding the role of institutional logics in directing the attention of stakeholders to shape digital innovation in times of crisis.
Drawing on institutional theory and using examples from Israel, we offer a critique of technology's deployment in responses to the coronavirus disease (COVID-19). We distinguish between technologies-in-use (“small ‘t' technologies”), the bundle of artifacts and practices that bring them into being, and “Big ‘T' Technology,” the latter being technology as an institution – shared meanings, structures, and practices that govern thought and action. Using the conceptual tool kit of institutional theory, we make three interrelated arguments. First, the deployment of technologies-in-use in response to the pandemic is embedded in diverse and contradictory institutions, the institution of technology among them. These technologies participate in the very construction of crisis, which fosters the revert to known and established ways of being and doing. Thus, technologies-in-use are not necessarily the most efficient and rational but rather the most legitimate and readily available. Second, putting certain technologies into action has not been happening by itself. Instead, we have witnessed contestations among relevant agents – like politicians and experts – who engage in institutional work to serve their interests. Third, despite its global reach, technology is locally adapted and implemented in specific contexts. All in all, institutional theory helps us to explore further and critique the naïve belief, common in public discourse, in technology as a remedy of all things. Instead, it offers a more critical understanding of the cultural dynamics involved in putting technology to work in the coronavirus crisis. This critical lens carries implications for policymaking and implementation in times of crisis.
Past research has focused on understanding the characteristics of work that are fully virtual or fully collocated. The present study seeks to expand our understanding of team work by studying knowledge workers' experiences as they were suddenly forced to transition to a fully virtual environment. During the height of the US lockdown from April to June 2020, we interviewed 51 knowledge workers employed on teams at the same professional services firm. Drawing from in situ reflections about teams' lived experiences, this paper explores how the shift to virtual work brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic illuminated the fundamental activities that team work requires, facilitated and undermined the performance of team activities, and prompted employees to adapt and reflect on their use of digital technology to perform these activities. Using the shift to virtual work as a unique learning opportunity, our findings demonstrate that team work entails several core activities (task, process, and relationship interactions) that require additional adjustments to successfully enact in the virtual (vs. collocated) environment.
In this paper, we contribute a temporal perspective on work coordination across collaborating occupations. Drawing on an ethnographic study of medical specialists—surgeons, pathologists, oncologists, and radiologists—we examine how their temporal orientations are shaped through the temporal structuring of occupational work. Our findings show that temporal structuring of occupational practices develop in relation to the contingencies and materialities of their work and that this shapes and is shaped by specialists’ temporal orientations. Further, we show that differences in occupations’ temporal orientations have important implications for coordinating work. More specifically, our study reveals how the domination of one temporal orientation can lead to recurrent strain, promoting a competitive trade-off between the different temporal orientations in guiding interaction. This temporal orientation domination is accompanied by a persistent emotional strain and potential conflict. Finally, we suggest that, alternatively, different temporal orientations can be resourced in solving coordination challenges through three interrelated mechanisms, namely juxtaposing, temporal working, and mutual adjusting. In so doing, we show how temporal resourcing can be productive in coordinating work.
This paper examines the possibilities and limits of social accountability, characterized by face-to-face interactions between organizational actors and beneficiary others. We explore how social accountability is produced in and through visibility relations which recognize or may expose the other. We examine the consequences of such changing visibility relations on social accountability in two case studies of acute and chronic refugee crisis in Rwanda. Our study contributes to ongoing debates on accountability and the implications for responsible action towards the other. We argue that social accountability initially presents a way to recognize the other as valid and entitled to assistance, which spurs an important sense of responsibility. Prolonged exposure to social accountability, however, continuously reinforces the other as ‘in need’, which becomes a burden for the exposed as well as for the exposing actor in their response to a situation. We argue that exposure risks organizational actors developing a rather myopic perception of others’ needs, to the extent of becoming irresponsible in their action towards the other. We conclude the paper with reflections on the importance of proper distance for social accountability and outline the potential of our findings to inspire future work on social accountability and visibility relations in other organizational settings.