Socialization of practice in a process world: toward participatory organizations
Abstract
This paper presents a model and our experience of a lateral, participatory approach to creating and sustaining new sociotechnical practices within organizations. Working closely with a user-centered design and project team in a large (US) IT product company, we designed a socialization process as an alternative to institutionalization for new product development, design, and marketing practices. A socialization process accommodates current organizational structures and the agents typically involved as decision makers when introducing a new practice to be deployed as an organizational standard. Socialization promotes practices laterally across established organizational boundaries through a series of informal peer exchanges, which are encounters designed to facilitate participation in the developing practice. Socialization is inherently participatory, and follows an organic model opposing the popular management practice of importing "best practices" from industry leading firms and consultants.
