Problematizing speed in and around organizations: struggles over the temporal commons in the British artificial intelligence field
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Date
02/12/2021Author
Baird, Christopher H.F.
Metadata
Abstract
In recent decades, speed has emerged as a significant social scientific concern,
including within the field of management and organisation studies (MOS). However,
the literature on speed in MOS has developed according to several problematic
assumptions and agendas, namely: it assumes speed is predominantly a good thing,
should be evaluated in relation to economic value, prioritises managerial perceptions
of speed, privileges the antecedents to speed, and often treats speed as a general
ontological premise from which to theorise. By contrast, this thesis proposes a set of
alternative assumptions and agendas regarding speed research: taking full stock of
potential speed pathologies, adopting a stakeholder view to evaluate speed,
considering the speed experiences of marginalised voices, studying how speed is
actively resisted, and questioning the perceived omnipresence of speed. To explore
these critical re-conceptualisations of speed, this thesis undertakes an in-depth
empirical investigation of the British Artificial Intelligence (AI) field. Drawing on
Bourdieusian sociology, the British AI field is conceptualised as a structured social
space where various actors with different and often conflicting agendas and power
resources (i.e. capital) struggle over the field’s ‘temporal commons,’ that is, the set of
values, beliefs, practices, and structures regarding time and speed which are
considered ‘appropriate.’ Through an analysis of 33 interviews, micro-ethnographic
observation at 20 AI-events, historical-archival documents, and significant secondary
data, the major lines of conflict and division in the field are theorised under the
temporal parameters of ‘techno-scientific time’ versus ‘deliberative-democratic time’
and ‘machine-instantaneous time’ versus ‘human-reflective time.’ Under each
parameter, a range of speed advantages and speed pathologies are explored and
theorised. The power relations underpinning these struggles are also uncovered and
historicised. This thesis contributes to the theory on time and speed in organisation
studies as well as to more general debates regarding the sociology of speed. It builds
and extends the use of Bourdieu’s conceptual framework in MOS. Finally, it is of value
to the formation of policy and practice in the British AI field that is both empirically- and theoretically-grounded.
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