Performing projects with constant connectivity: interplay of consulting project work practices and smartphone affordances

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/ntwe.12061
• Author: Randa Salamoun,Bijan Azad,Anita Greenhill,Trevor Wood‐Harper
• Date: 01 March 2016
• Published date: 01 March 2016

4 New Technology, Work and Employment © 2016 John Wiley & Sons Ltd

New Technology, Work and Employment 31:1

ISSN 1468-005X

Performing projects with constant

connectivity: interplay of consulting project

work practices and smartphone affordances

Bijan Azad, Randa Salamoun, Anita Greenhill and

Trevor Wood-Harper

The broad view of projectification and the broader perspective

on constant connectivity have produced insights that question

the conventional wisdom. However, how project practices

are mediated by constant connectivity is under- explored and

under- theorized. We conduct a case study of the interplay be-

tween consulting project work practices and constant connec-

tivity to address this gap. Our findings point to three potential

insights. First, we highlight that consulting projects in the fo-

cal context are characterized by clockwork coordination logic.

Second, we show there is affinity between front- stage practices

and synchronous smartphone affordances on the one hand as

well as between backstage practices and asynchronous smart-

phone affordances on the other. Third, we describe how clock-

work coordination and connectivity affordances give rise to

decoupling of legacy timespace from backstage practices while

reinforcing the legacy timespace of the front- stage practices.

Our work extends the literature via a highly nuanced and dif-

ferentiated understanding of the focal phenomena.

Keywords: projects, constant connectivity, practices, affordanc-

es, timespace.

Introduction

Critical studies of project- based organizing and projectification of work embrace

a broad view of project- ness and highlight nuances that are otherwise ‘missed’

by the ‘mainstream’ project literature (e.g., Lindgren and Packendorff, 2006;

Packendorff and Lindgren, 2014). For example, Peticca- Harris et al. (2015) provide

evidence that in building gaming software, projects appear to be both a source

of gratification on the one hand and resistance to the ‘inevitable’ crunch mode

Dr Bijan Azad (ba20@aub.edu.lb), is Associate Professor, also Director of Darwazah Center for Inno-

vation Management & Entrepreneurship, American University of Beirut; his recent contribution on

technology affordances appeared in Materiality and Organizing: Social Interaction in a Technologi-

cal World (2012). Dr Randa Salamoun (rs55@aub.edu.lb) is a lecturer in information systems at the

Olayan School of Business, American University of Beirut. Her research interests are in the fields of

ICT-enabled work, organization studies, socio-technical systems, and ethics, morality and security of

information systems. Dr Anita Greenhill (a.greenhill@mbs.ac.uk) has co-authored/ edited 2 books and

published over 90 academic related publications. Her research interests are in the areas of Digital Usage

of Technology within Community, Organisational and Business settings. Prof. Trevor Wood-Harper’s

(atwh@mbs.ac.uk) main research interests are: Information Systems; Socio-Technical Systems; Sys-

temic Change; Doctoral Education and Action Research. He has published over 200 research articles,

co-authored/edited 20 books and supervised successfully 50 doctoral research studies.

© 2016 John Wiley & Sons Ltd Performing projects with constant connectivity 5

of development on the other hand. In theatre production projects, Lindgren et al.

(2014) highlight how the temporariness of projects and the associated insecurities

are considered trade- offs against the adventure and thrill of the work. There is

a similar stream of work that also adopts a ‘broader view’ of constant connectivity

phenomena, taking issue with the contradictory findings of traditional studies of

how professionals employ connectivity (especially smartphone technology), i.e.,

positive/negative and liberating/dominating. Instead, these broad- view studies

advocate a more fine- grained approach (e.g., Dén- Nagy, 2014). For example, within

this stream of research, Wajcman and Rose (2011) push us to think of ‘interrup-

tion’ as simply too narrow a label for how telecom professionals employ smart-

phones. Similarly, Mazmanian et al. (2013) conclude that lawyers’ use of smartphones

is not simply either autonomy- enhancing or autonomy- limiting. Interestingly, how

constant connectivity of smartphones mediates project- intensive work practices

and outcomes has been relatively under- explored and under- theorized. In our

work we attempt to address this gap.

In particular, the intelligibility of focal practices may no longer be limited to a

specific location and a distinctive time called the work site and work time. Doing

certain things at the office, at home, in the park, in the restaurant, at the airport,

during a visit to the doctor, during the day, during the night, in early morning,

late at night, etc. are all part and parcel of what are now considered work prac-

tices. However, how precisely the appropriation of smartphone technology may

influence the ‘timespace’ of project- based temporary organizing practices remains

somewhat under- explored and under- theorized. As such, a deeper understanding

of these processes and outcomes can be very useful. Therefore, we propose the

following research question: How do smartphone technology affordances interact with

the timespace of project work practices and what outcomes do they contribute to?

To address this research question we focus on a firm’s use of smartphones by

professional management consultants and their supervising managers when they

engage in the development and execution of projects – the firm is a branch of

a world- top- 10 consulting company with regional headquarters in a Mediterranean

country. The management consultants appear to go to great lengths to ensure

their projects are successful and deliver added value to clients. They often ac-

complish these outcomes while being ‘on the road’ for long stretches of time.

The high reach and range that is provided by email- enabled smartphones appears

to underpin the connectivity afforded to consultants’ project work. Therefore, the

context of consulting project work practices in conjunction with a distinctive pat-

tern of smartphone appropriation among professional consultants provides us with

an opportunity to study the focal phenomena with greater cartographic relief.

Our work points to three potential contributions to a deeper understanding of the

interplay between smartphone affordances and the timespace of consulting project

work practices. First, we identify a distinctive pattern of project work associated with

consulting practices, which we characterize as clockwork coordination due to the low-

error- margin nature of focal consulting projects. Second, we highlight how the twin

asynchronous and synchronous connectivity affordances of smartphones aids in the

enactment of clockwork coordination practices. Third, we show how the interplay of

project clockwork coordination and smartphone connectivity affordances gives rise to

a dualistic pattern in the timespace underpinning consulting work practices – rein-

forcing legacy temporality/spatiality versus bringing about a-temporality/a-spatiality.

Theoretical foundations

Work projectification and constant connectivity: an intersection

worthy of study?

Discourse on new forms of organizing and organization of work has underscored

the importance of project work in most industries at a time that has seen the