Contact-Tracing Apps as Boundary Objects of Pandemic Governance: The State-by-State Approach to Contain the Spread of COVID-19 in the United States

Digital contact tracing has been claimed as imperative to controlling the spread of COVID19. However, the state-by-state approach in the United States led to divergences in contact tracing. This study analyzed contact-tracing apps as "boundary objects" through which each state worked toward the governance of the pandemic without having a formal consensus. Through media coverage and walkthrough analyses of three digital contacttracing apps in Alabama, California, and New York, we closely investigated both convergences and divergences of the apps. In the process, we located the implications of Google/Apple's Bluetooth-based exposure notification system for digital contact tracing within and beyond state boundaries. Our findings suggest that the development of apps shared the notion of an ideal contact-tracing method-exposure notification-while each state was also situated in their local experiences of the pandemic as reflected in distinct app features. We further discuss the implications of techno-solutionist standardization of such digital contact-tracing apps.

The role of coworking spaces in the changing landscape of future workplace agility: linking boundary organization theory and organizational development models

PurposeThis study aims to illustrate the potential of coworking spaces as one way to achieve optimal workplace arrangements and corporate real estate (CRE) agility, especially for large organizations. The authors suggest understanding coworking spaces from the boundary organization theory and organizational growth model.Design/methodology/approachThis study takes a threefold theoretical approach: conducting a literature review and identifying the gaps in coworking studies for large organizations, applying the organizational boundary theory in tandem with organizational growth models in the context of coworking spaces as a part of the workplace ecology and identifying future research agendas for coworking studies.FindingsThis study proposes a conceptual framework of how coworking spaces can be viewed and used as a boundary object throughout the organizational growth phases. Besides, four major future research areas are proposed: case studies and/or empirical evidence of coworking spaces as CRE buffer zones and boundary objects for organizations, coworking space design and different formats of boundary object-infused collaboration, coworking space design and management for its own agility and flexibility and how coworking affects employees' performance, health and well-being and professional training/mentoring.Practical implicationsFor large organizations, there is a clear pressure to rethink CRE to increase workplace agility, flexibility and resilience, much accelerated with the recent COVID-19 pandemic. Understanding the effective use of coworking spaces as a part of CRE portfolios will help enhance corporates' state and ability to reassess, realign and replan their CRE portfolios.Originality/valueMany existing studies about coworking spaces are based on observations and self-reported justification at an individual level. Whether and how coworking can benefit companies at an organizational level is largely unstudied and worth more attention. This study illustrates a new theoretical understanding of how coworking spaces can be a part of CRE portfolios and bring potential benefits of inter and intraorganizational collaboration throughout the phases of organizational growth.

Managing across boundaries for coordinated local and regional food system policy

As society experiences greater food- and agriculture-related crises, including those related to climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic, it is necessary to rethink conventional silos of hierarchical government. Know Your Farmer Know Your Food (KYF2) was an ambitious collaborative interagency model to address local and regional food system (LRFS) development across a multitude of policies and programs. KYF2, as a public management strategy for implementing public policy, was associated with an investment of more than $1 billion through more than 40,000 LRFS initiatives. Our aim is to document and evaluate the extent to which KYF2 changed the way the USDA implements LRFS policy. Guided by public management, policy implementation, and collaboration literature, we use a mixed methods approach by: 1) conducting a document analysis to determine the internal implementation goals of KYF2, and 2) surveying USDA staff members involved in KYF2 and using statistical and network analysis of survey data to evaluate the evidence about whether KYF2 achieved internal goals. We find that KYF2 legitimized LRFS work within USDA agencies, changed and institutionalized the ways in which daily business is conducted, and elicited new cross-agency collaborations. KYF2, as a cross-boundary innovation, enabled the USDA to coordinate implementation of LRFS policies across 17 agencies, integrating LRFS department-wide and creating policy feedbacks that resulted in legislative change. The development and passage of public policy is often a focus for change, but this study suggests that management strategies to coordinate existing policies can also significantly impact the way in which governments engage in complex, multi-sector issues.

The role of coworking spaces in the changing landscape of future workplace agility: linking boundary organization theory and organizational development models

Purpose: This study aims to illustrate the potential of coworking spaces as one way to achieve optimal workplace arrangements and corporate real estate (CRE) agility, especially for large organizations. The authors suggest understanding coworking spaces from the boundary organization theory and organizational growth model. Design/methodology/approach: This study takes a threefold theoretical approach: conducting a literature review and identifying the gaps in coworking studies for large organizations, applying the organizational boundary theory in tandem with organizational growth models in the context of coworking spaces as a part of the workplace ecology and identifying future research agendas for coworking studies. Findings: This study proposes a conceptual framework of how coworking spaces can be viewed and used as a boundary object throughout the organizational growth phases. Besides, four major future research areas are proposed: case studies and/or empirical evidence of coworking spaces as CRE buffer zones and boundary objects for organizations, coworking space design and different formats of boundary object-infused collaboration, coworking space design and management for its own agility and flexibility and how coworking affects employees’ performance, health and well-being and professional training/mentoring. Practical implications: For large organizations, there is a clear pressure to rethink CRE to increase workplace agility, flexibility and resilience, much accelerated with the recent COVID-19 pandemic. Understanding the effective use of coworking spaces as a part of CRE portfolios will help enhance corporates’ state and ability to reassess, realign and replan their CRE portfolios. Originality/value: Many existing studies about coworking spaces are based on observations and self-reported justification at an individual level. Whether and how coworking can benefit companies at an organizational level is largely unstudied and worth more attention. This study illustrates a new theoretical understanding of how coworking spaces can be a part of CRE portfolios and bring potential benefits of inter and intraorganizational collaboration throughout the phases of organizational growth. © 2022, Emerald Publishing Limited.

In praise of complexity: From gastronomy to gastrology.

The pandemic caused by COVID-19 and the way in which the disease is propagated involves a clear risk for the hospitality industry. This industry, particularly in countries whose economies depend largely on tourism, has been forced into implementing many different kinds of measures to guarantee safety and hygiene. This has involved a great logistical challenge and has radically changed the gastronomic experience, making it more complicated. From a point of view that is less focussed on the resolution of the "urgent", the situation we are experiencing may constitute an opportunity to reconsider the cognitive and institutional framework in which gastronomy has developed until now. This paper proposes a new paradigm called gastrology, which is a departure from the social imaginaries of gastronomy, with its common sense definitions, burdened with normativity. COVID-19 is a challenge to the scales in which we think about the world. The pandemic teaches us that, for example, the micro and the macro -the propagation of the virus in the form of aerosols and the global economic crisis, or the microbiome and climate change-are intimately related. In this multiscale context, gastrology is an attempt to resignify gastronomy as a boundary-object: a convergence of all those scales that range from the planet to our intestine. This paradigm will require the confluence of multiple scientific disciplines that are disposed to abandon their certainties and rethink themselves as a consequence of contact with an object of study that is as complex as gastronomy.

Mathematical models as public troubles in COVID-19 infection control: following the numbers.

Mathematical models are key actors in policy and public responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. The projections from COVID-19 models travel beyond science into policy decisions and social life. Treating models as 'boundary objects', and focusing on media and public communications, we 'follow the numbers' to trace the social life of key projections from prominent mathematical models of COVID-19. Public deliberations and controversies about models and their projections are illuminating. These help trace how projections are 'made multiple' in their enactments as 'public troubles'. We need an approach to evidence-making for policy which is emergent and adaptive, and which treats science as an entangled effect of public concern made in social practices. We offer a rapid sociological response on the social life of science in the emerging COVID-19 pandemic to speculate on how evidence-making might be done differently going forwards.