Power to all or few People? An Exploration of Power Dynamics in Holocrazy

Wurm, Bastian ; Mendling, Jan ; Minnaar, Reinald and Strauss, E. (January 2024): Power to all or few People? An Exploration of Power Dynamics in Holocrazy. 57th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS 2024), Waikiki, Hawaii, 03-06 Januar 2024. Bui, Tung X. (ed.) : In: Proceedings of the 57th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, Honolulu, Hawaii: Department of IT Management, Shidler College of Business, University of Hawaii. pp. 6240-6249

Abstract

Power is key to all organizing. It allows actors to perform actions, make decisions and assign tasks to others. In bureaucratic organizations power is mainly associated with the position that the actor holds. Because actors compete for power, change their position within an organization or leave an organization, power is dynamically changing. We refer to these changes in power as power dynamics. Many New Forms of Organizing, such as Holacracy, claim that individuals have more decision-making capacity, i.e., that power is more equally distributed within the organization. In this paper, we use a unique dataset from a holacratic organization to empirically examine how power dynamics in Holacracy evolve over time. In particular, we use temporal network analysis to reconstruct and contrast two related networks that capture information on how decisions in Holacracy are made. Our findings indicate that also in Holacracy power is not equally distributed, but that few individuals hold most power.

• Item Type: Conference or Workshop Item (Paper)
• Keywords: Digital Innovation; Transformation and Entrepreneurship; digital trace data; holacracy; new forms of organizing; power dynamics; temporal network analysis
• Faculties: Munich School of Management; Munich School of Management > Institute for Digital Management and New Media; Munich School of Management > Institute for Digital Management and New Media > Process and Algorithmic Management
• Subjects: 300 Social sciences > 330 Economics
• Place of Publication: Honolulu, Hawaii
• Annotation: ISBN 978-0-9981331-7-1
• Language: English