Deadline: February 14, 2023,
***M.Sc. Students, this event can count towards one of the six mandatory Research Seminars Series needed to attend (MHS6991 or MGT6991).***
The introduction of algorithms into organizational fields has the potential to effect significant disruption, as has been seen in fields from advertising to policing, and trigger institutional custodianship intended to maintain valued features of fields. Inspired by research on distributed custodianship, we explore how custodial work protects fields threatened by disruptive algorithms. We examine this issue in the context of the rise of high-frequency trading in the United States between 2000 and 2016. By using algorithms, high-frequency trading disrupted the field of U.S. securities trading. Our inductive analysis shows that high-frequency trading was brought under control through three linked types of custodial work (rhetorical work by guardians, technical work by reformers, enforcement work by regulators), each of which updated a key element of the field of U.S. securities trading (values, governance, practices). Integrating our findings with the concept of “envelopment” from robotics, we develop a theoretical model of how these three types of custodial work can—by orienting, architecting, and enacting an envelope—jointly envelop disruptive algorithms. Our study contributes to organizational research on algorithms and research on institutional custodianship.
Thomas B. Lawrence is a Professor of Strategy at the Saïd Business School, University of Oxford. Tom's areas of expertise