Overview

Work is changing. Speed and flexibility are more in demand than ever before thanks to an accelerating knowledge economy and sophisticated communication networks. These changes have forced a mass rethinking of the way we coordinate, collaborate, and communicate. Instead of projects coming to established teams, teams are increasingly converging around projects. These ""all-edge adhocracies"" are highly collaborative and mostly temporary, their edge coming from the ability to form links both inside and outside an organization. These nimble groups come together around a specific task, recruiting personnel, assigning roles, and establishing objectives. When the work is done they disband their members and take their skills to the next project. Spinuzzi offers for the first time a comprehensive framework for understanding how these new groups function and thrive. His rigorous analysis tackles both the pros and cons of this evolving workflow and is based in case studies of real all-edge adhocracies at work. His provocative results will challenge our long-held assumptions about how we should be doing work.

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9780226236964

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Reviews

In All Edge, Spinuzzi gives us a look at the new workplace, the one we've been told is coming for decades now, in striking and compelling detail. The book is a boundary-crossing work that presents a wealth of much-needed evidence for the claims that our work lives are changing in the twenty-first century. We may still be waiting on jetpacks, but the 'adhocracy' is here. And if you want to understand how to live and work in one, Spinuzzi's book is your guide. (William Hart-Davidson, Michigan State University)

In the midst of the current upheaval of organizational structures and arrangements, All Edge reveals an illuminating picture of how work is experienced by many people today. Spinuzzi offers timely and exciting case studies full of the grit that marks thoughtfully conducted fieldwork and interviews. His analysis proposes and demonstrates the value of new conceptual frameworks for understanding such important, emerging categories as temporary organizational networks, the unrelenting need for innovation, and the rise of co-working arrangements. As a whole, All Edge develops an engaging interplay of theory, field observations, and analysis that is instructive. This volume is essential reading for researchers interested in understanding the organizational structures and experiences of people's work and non-work activities today. Its insights into communication, coordination, and collaboration should not be missed. --Mark Zachry, University of Washington

Author Information

Clay Spinuzzi is professor of rhetoric and writing at the University of Texas at Austin. He is the author of Tracing Genres through Organizations, Network, and Topsight.

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