Performance Measures for Edge Organizations: A Preliminary Report

Abstract

Taking an information-processing view of organizations, we address the need for building a robust set of performance measures for Edge Organizations (EOs). Alberts and Hayes in Power to the Edge: Command, Control in the Information Age conceptualized EOs as information- intensive entities whose performance is directly related to their ability for agile information processing. We ask the question, how can we measure the information-processing capacities of EOs? To this end, in this research-in-progress paper, we examine (1) the technical dimension of information flows, (2) the human-dimension of information flows, and (3) the socio-technical dimensions of information flows. The technical dimension represents movement of information between two machine nodes and can be informed by drawing on performance measures for telecommunications network theory. The social dimension represents the movement of information between two human nodes for which we examine the literature on social networks for performance measures. Finally, the socio-technical dimension represents movement of information between human and technical nodes or vice versa. To develop measures for these information flows we must not only extend, and customize, the performance measures from telecommunications networks and social networks, but also draw on measures in the disciplines of decision sciences, information sciences, and organizational science, among others.