***M.Sc. Students, this event can count towards one of the six mandatory Research Seminars Series needed to attend (MHS6991 or MGT6991).***
Jenna Myers, PhD
Research on digital technologies has identified new control mechanisms that reinforce power asymmetries between groups such as managers and workers. Rather than examining the control and resistance of low-powered groups, I focus on the practices of a key third party—the provider of a digital platform—in influencing power asymmetries among its user base. Through a 13- month ethnography of an analytics platform for manufacturers, I examine how developers may use their control over platform design to elevate low-powered users and balance their preferences with those of high-powered users. I show how multiple conflicts underpinned competing preferences for technology alternatives in my setting and how developers leveraged their position to resolve disagreements by engaging in platform brokerage practices. I further find that developers’ approach to brokerage varied with the power differentials between the alters. When brokering across low- and high-powered groups, developers constructed shared interests to elevate low-powered users as legitimate and valued actors in platform activity. When brokering among high-powered groups, developers buffered differences across contexts and siloed high-powered groups who were antagonistic towards developers’ goals. By complicating the platform provider as a powerful broker, this study identifies how low-powered groups can gain influence in the development of platform-based services.
About the Speaker
Jenna Myers is an Assistant Professor at the Centre for Industrial Relations and Human Resources and uses qualitative field methods to study the changing nature of work, institutions, and technology. She currently has two streams of research combining organization theory, industrial and employment relations, and technology/innovation management. In the first stream, she studies the occupational dynamics surrounding worker voice and situated learning during the introduction and use of new technologies in the workplace. In the second stream, she studies the interorganizational relationships among education and labor market institutions for workforce development, with a particular focus on educator-employer partnerships. Her research appears in peer-reviewed journals of management and industrial relations, including Organization Science and ILR Review. Before joining CIRHR, Jenna completed her PhD at the MIT Sloan School of Management. She has additional prior experience working in secondary and postsecondary education in the U.S. context.
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