Challenges and Opportunities in the Ecosystem of Work and Organization

The workplace is rapidly transforming, powered by digitalization leading to new concepts of work, talent, and employment relationships both within and outside the organization. Work is increasingly organized beyond the boundaries of individual organizations (Ashford, Caza, & Reid, 2018; Snell & Morris, 2019). The challenge for human resource management (HRM) is significant, if not paradigm-shifting.

We see an emerging ecosystem of work and organization, characterized by complexity, variety, and continuous adaptation, rather than that characterized by traditional views of organizations as stable hierarchies. And this new paradigm is rapidly supplanting the old.

To support this complex and dynamic work ecosystem, organizations are employing new approaches to organizing, utilizing a more diverse composition of workers in multiple work modes, with varied skills and differentiated human capital, and inevitably, establishing different employment relationships and segmented (sub) cultures that are continually shifting. This increased variety – or workforce divergence – is not an obstacle to organizational effectiveness; it may in fact be a requirement for strategic capability in a more complex and adaptive world.

But at the same time, increased variation in the work ecosystem is likely to require a concomitant increase in the integrative – or convergent – properties of the ecosystem as well. Workforce complexity is likely to require deep processes of coordinating and unifying properties, enterprise logic or architectural knowledge that (re)connects differentiated human capital, shared norms, values, and expectations that align different sub-cultures and relationships. And continuous adaptation will require better attention to organizational learning and renewal.

These challenges raise questions around the applicability of current theories of HR and strategy and thus represent opportunities for researchers to develop new approaches to scholarship that gives better insight into complex adaptive ecosystems in order to bridge the theory-practice divide. We would contend that such an approach is not adequately captured in today’s discussions of strategy and HR.

The objective of this Assessment is to develop deeper insights, shape the broader discussion, and support future research as it relates to the “ecosystem of work and organization” in today’s highly complex and changing environment. An ecosystem perspective invites us to rethink our current frameworks to better link theory to practice. It also challenges us to shift our level of analysis from the organization to the ecosystem, asking; how would work be organized and conducted within the complex context?

There is a paradigm shift underway by business leaders (Benioff, 2019; Ulrich & Yeung, 2019; Johnson, 2019) – new business models, new ways of organizing, new concepts of work, and new approaches to HRM – and this is an opportune time to gather together a group of thought leaders to focus on this new ecosystem of work, and help encourage the direction of future.

This should encourage you to work on research to address the ecosystem and today’s realities of work and organization from multiple theories, fields, and analysis levels. We particularly want to ensure that the work we are doing is theoretically rigorous and practically relevant to organizations' challenges. Suggested topics may include the HR implications of:

This focuses on the structure of work organization and includes research on network organizations, digitalization on the design of work, AI, new forms of employment, agile structures and capabilities, workforce composition, diversity, employment modes, social networks, collaboration, etc.

This includes research on the nature of innovation, organizational learning, talent segmentation, dynamic capabilities, shared
cognition, architectural knowledge, etc. It also underpins how knowledge boundaries will be re-drawn within an ecosystem.

This includes research on shared values, sub-cultures, trust and reciprocity, climate, person-organization fit, psychological contracts, etc.

For example, some potential questions from practice that may be useful to address these topics include:

• How does attracting and engaging a global, multigenerational workforce that may include free agents and alliance partners change the organizational culture?

• How do new forms of organizing enable firms to be more agile, and what are the implications for HR?

• As technology gives rise to new ways of working and new work options that may include automation, how is work itself and the form of collaboration continuously reinvented?

• To keep up with perpetual work reinvention and changing skill requirements, how do managers make continuous learning and reskilling a core component of the new employment deal?

• How in the context of an HR ecosystem does the role of AI affect HR and change managers' role?

• What new types of employment relationships are emerging, and what are the consequences for HR?