Finding 1a: Increasing the dynamism of interactions enhances the ability of

message sender

Evidence in interviews 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 12, 13

For a system to be classed as complex, ‘the elements have to interact, and this

interaction must be dynamic…[T]he interactions do not have to be physical, they can also be thought of as information’ (Cilliers, 2000, p.3 - emphasis in original). The emergent properties of a complex system can be understood as properties that manifest through interaction between elements of the system, even though the individual elements themselves do not possess such properties (Johnson, 2002). The

dynamic nature of technology-mediated interactions between CX professionals can be understood as emergent in as much as they cause new insights and ideas to emerge through the sharing of information. Nearly all interviewees described situations in which increasing the dynamism of interactions increased their ability to identify and obtain relevant information and knowledge from these interactions. Interviewees 1, 2, 6, 7, 12, and 13 described how they preferred engaging in real-time interaction via video-conferencing to asynchronous forms of communication. Interviewees 3, 5, 8, and 10 described how the use of more ‘social’ platforms such as Yammer, blogs, and Basecamp increased the visibility of ideas and information emerging through

interactions beyond what would have been possible through email exchanges.

Viewed through the CCO perspective of organisational communication, these interactions and conversations generate and are generated by the metaconversations that constitute an organisation (J. R. Taylor & Giroux, 2005). The effectiveness with which CX professionals can differentiate information from noise to comprehend the intended meaning of a message (M. C. Taylor, 2001) will influence the way in which they subsequently report this activity by constructing a ‘text’ (Nicotera, 2013). While a text-based tool such as email may be suitable for sending a simple message, the effective communication of a more complex message may well benefit from the use of a tool that affords a better representation of the original signal – what Cham (2007) refers to as the process of ‘making the mark’. Exchanging information using email may therefore lead to greater divergence of emergent meaning than speaking on the phone or via video-conference.

easier to understand the ‘signified’ (or attendant mental concept), and therefore the intended meaning, than in a written interaction. Although Derrida’s revision of de Saussure’s theory argues that the meaning of a sign is always detached from its subject, a spoken message makes it easier for both parties to close the gap between intended and received meaning and enables an organisation to function more

effectively as a CAS (Espejo, 2003). By removing the need to encode and represent a message in symbolic form as text, less reconstruction is required by the recipient making it easier to decipher information from noise.

It can therefore be argued that the usefulness of emergent meaning resulting from an interaction is determined by the ability for participants in the interaction to determine information from noise (M.C. Taylor, 2001). While emergent meaning will be

produced during every interaction, the greater the effort required to decipher the signal, the less likely it will be that the emergent meaning is relevant to the

interaction. This reflects the logic of Compensatory Adaption Theory (Kock, 2007) discussed in Section 2.3.3, which highlights the responsibility of a message sender to encode a message in such a way as to minimise the compensatory decoding effort required by the receiver. Following this logic, while a primarily text-based tool such as email is a convenient way of exchanging information in an organisation, it could also hinder the organisation’s ability to learn as greater effort is required to identify and decipher the intended meaning of messages. Several examples of this

phenomenon occurred in the data, with interviewees 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, and 13 explaining that, where possible, they would always try and speak to someone in real-time in person or via phone or video conference rather than rely solely on written communication to explore an issue.

‘So of course, the information is stored in drives, and previous presentations, and emails, and archives. But the efficiency of going to another human being and getting the answer quickly and with context, yeah – that’s where the value is.’ Interviewee 12

Merali and Allen (2011) state that successful organisations ‘require underlying mechanisms that continuously create internal micro-diversity of ideas, practices, schemata and routines…so that they may be discussed, possibly tried out and either retained or rejected’ (p.46). An example of this was provided by Interviewee 10 who explained how an internal blogging platform provided a forum for individuals and teams to share articles of interest. Employees from across the organisation would then comment on the articles, and new insights emerging from the discussion would then be incorporated and used to adapt projects in response to the feedback received:

‘So in [organisation name] they have something called [name of platform] which is like the online news…. I don’t know what you call it, but I’ve actually seen this in most organisations now over the last ten years. I saw it a lot when I was a consultant as well. So it’s basically the main channel of communication. So every single day there are a number of articles that go on there – it’s almost like a newspaper – and then people can comment, and so there’s collaboration then across the Group. So across all of [name of organisation] Group… people can go on and comment on it, and what it means for them, and their feelings on it. And there are people on there who are moderating that, and are responding, and reading what goes on. But it’s quite a good collaboration tool. I mean I’ll go on to it every morning just to see what articles have gone on there because it’s news about our business.’ Interviewee 10

If technology-mediated interaction in an organisation influences the individual and collective behaviour of its employees, the dynamism of their interactions can therefore influence the emergent potential arising from their interactions.

5.1.3 Finding 1b: The lack of a clear etiquette for identifying appropriate digital