2023 SSHRC Insight Grants awarded

The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) is the federal research funding agency that promotes and supports research and training in the humanities and social sciences.

Samer Faraj, Professor of Strategy & Organization, named a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada

Professor Samer Faraj has been named a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada’s Academy of Social Sciences. This honour is conferred upon Professor Faraj in recognition of his outstanding research and scholarly achievement.

Desautels researchers celebrated at Bravo 2023

McGill University hosted its annual Bravo gala on Thursday March 30, which honours its researchers and scholars who have won special awards, memberships and prizes over the past year.

Paolo Leone and Profs Mantere and Faraj's paper is Best Article Finalist

Congratulations to Paolo V. Leone, Saku Mantere and Samer Faraj, whose paper “Open Theorizing in Management and Organization Studies” has been named Best Article Finalist by the Academy of Management (AOM).

Prof. Faraj named CTO 2022 Distinguished Scholar

Congratulations to Samer Faraj, Professor in Strategy and Organization, who has been named CTO 2022 Distinguished Scholar by the Communication, Digital Technology and Organization - CTO (A Division of the Academy of Management - AOM).

Open Theorizing in Management and Organization Studies

Authors: Paolo V. Leone, Saku Mantere and Samer Faraj

Publication: Academy of Management Review, Volume 46, Issue 4, October 2021, Pages 725–749.

Abstract:

Beyond Uberization: The co-constitution of technology and organizing

Authors: Samer Faraj, and S. Pachidi Publication: Organization Theory, Volume 2, Issue 1, March 2021, Pages 1-14. Abstract:

Make Way for the Algorithms: Symbolic Actions and Change in a Regime of Knowing

Authors: S. Pachidi, H. Berends, Samer Faraj, and M. Huysman Publication: Organization Science, Volume 32, Issue 1, January 2021, Pages 18-41.

Losing Touch: An Embodiment Perspective on Coordination in Robotic Surgery

Authors: A.V. Sergeeva, Samer Faraj, and M. Huysman Publication: Organization Science, Volume 31, Issue 5, October 2020, Pages 1248-1271. Abstract:

Because new technologies allow new performances, mediations, representations, and information flows, they are often associated with changes in how coordination is achieved. Current coordination research emphasizes its situated and emergent nature, but seldom accounts for the role of embodied action. Building on a 25-month field study of the da Vinci robot, an endoscopic system for minimally invasive surgery, we bring to the fore the role of the body in how coordination was reconfigured in response to a change in technological mediation. Using the robot, surgeons experienced both an augmentation and a reduction of what they can do with their bodies in terms of haptic, visual, and auditory perception and manipulative dexterity. These bodily augmentations and reductions affected joint task performance and led to coordinative adaptations (e.g., spatial relocating, redistributing tasks, accommodating novel perceptual dependencies, and mounting novel responses) that, over time, resulted in reconfiguration of roles, including expanded occupational knowledge, emergence of new specializations, and shifts in status and boundaries. By emphasizing the importance of the body in coordination, this paper suggests that an embodiment perspective is important for explaining how and why coordination evolves following the introduction of a new technology.

Karla Sayegh Receives Best Student Paper Award for her Thesis Work at OBHC Conference

Karla Sayegh, PhD Student in Strategy & Organization, received the best student paper award for her thesis work at the 11th International Organizational Behaviour in Health Care (OBHC) Conference held in Montreal from May 13 –16, 2018.  

A Configural Approach to Coordinating Expertise in Software Development Teams

Authors: Srinivas Kuduravalli, Samer Faraj and Steven L. Johnson

Publication: MIS Quarterly, Vol. 41, No. 1, March 2017

Abstract:

Despite the recognition of how important expertise coordination is to the performance of software development teams, understanding of how expertise is coordinated in practice is limited. We adopt a configural approach to develop a theoretical model of expertise coordination that differentiates between design collaboration and technical collaboration. We propose that neither a strictly centralized, top-down model nor a largely decentralized approach is superior. Our model is tested in a field study of 71 software development teams. We conclude that because design work addresses ill-structured problems with diverse potential solutions, decentralization of design collaboration can lead to greater coordination success and reduced team conflict. Conversely, technical work benefits from centralized collaboration. We find that task knowledge tacitness strengthens these relationships between collaboration configuration and coordination outcomes and that team conflict mediates the relationships. Our findings underline the need to differentiate between technical and design collaboration and point to the importance of certain configurations in reducing team conflict and increasing coordination success in software development teams. This paper opens up new research avenues to explore the collaborative mechanisms underlying knowledge team performance.

Read full article: MIS Quarterly

Special Section Introduction—Online Community as Space for Knowledge Flows

Authors: Faraj, S., Krogh, G., Monteiro, E., Lakhani, K.R.

Publication: Information Systems Research 

Abstract: 

Professor Samer Faraj and Dr Hani Safadi, PhD’14, awarded Best Published Paper 2016

Congratulations to Professor Samer Faraj and Dr Hani Safadi, PhD’14, on being awarded Best Published Paper 2016 by Organizational Communication & Information Systems (OCIS) for “The Emergence of Online Community Leadership". 

Read more about the winners 

Shots Fired! Switching Between Practices in Police Work

Authors: Schakel, J.K,  Fenema, P.C, Faraj, S. 

Publications: Organization Science

Organizational knowledge generation: lessons from online communities

Authors: Zablith, F., Faraj, S., Azad, B.

Publication: Business Process Management Journal

Abstract: