Prévue : Ribhu MISRA

Jury

Abstract

This thesis examines how socio-cognitive and socio-affective dynamics jointly shape coordination in digitally mediated environments. Coordination is conceptualized as an emergent process through which interpretations, actions, and interaction patterns align to enable collective activity under digital mediation. Rather than a structural property of roles or teams, coordination is treated as a higher-order outcome that may be adaptive or maladaptive depending on how interpretive and affective processes unfold relative to task demands and environmental conditions. The thesis is positioned at the intersection of Information Systems and Organizational Behavior. Information Systems research explains how digital infrastructures reshape coordination by structuring visibility, persistence, and traceability of interaction (Treem & Leonardi, 2013). Organizational Behavior provides complementary accounts of how cognition and affect shape meaning construction and engagement in interdependent work (Weick, 1995). Empirically, the thesis is organized across individual, team (meso), and community levels, consistent with a multilevel emergence perspective in which higher-order coordination patterns arise from lower-level interaction processes (Kozlowski & Klein, 2000). These levels specify where constructs manifest analytically rather than representing fixed organizational units. At the individual level, digitally mediated work involves frequent micro-role transitions and overlapping identities, requiring continuous interpretive adjustment. Identity functions as a central mechanism for sensemaking and action coordination (Weick, 1995; Stryker & Burke, 2000), but becomes more demanding under identity multiplicity and ambiguity. Socio-affective responses to identity strain further shape interpretive stability and role enactment (Ashkanasy & Dorris, 2017), influencing coordination at higher levels. At the team level, coordination under role ambiguity is primarily sustained through collective sensemaking rather than stable role structures (Okhuysen & Bechky, 2009). Team interaction enables the negotiation of shared understanding, particularly in digitally mediated settings where shared mental models are difficult to maintain (Mathieu et al., 2000; Espinosa et al., 2007). Socio-affective conditions such as trust and psychological safety influence the extent to which interpretive differences are surfaced and integrated (Edmondson, 1999). At the community level, coordination emerges within broader interaction fields characterized by fluid participation and persistent digital traces (Faraj et al., 2016). Psychological safety represents an adaptive coordination trajectory, enabling participation and learning under uncertainty (Edmondson, 1999), whereas collective rumination represents a maladaptive trajectory in which negative interpretations and affect become recursively reinforced over time (Knipfer & Kump, 2022). Across levels, coordination is conceptualized as a recursive process in which individual interpretations shape, and are shaped by, meso- and macro-level interaction patterns. Digital infrastructures intensify this by making interaction traces persistent and reconfigurable, thereby influencing ongoing sensemaking and affective responses (Treem & Leonardi, 2013). Adaptive coordination arises when socio-cognitive and socio-affective processes jointly sustain flexible interpretive coherence; maladaptive coordination emerges when these processes become self-reinforcing and reduce adaptability. The high-level research question guiding the thesis is: how do socio-cognitive and socio-affective dynamics shape coordination in digitally mediated work in both adaptive and maladaptive forms? Overall, the thesis advances a processual account of coordination as an emergent outcome of coupled cognitive and affective dynamics operating across levels of analysis, embedded in digitally mediated interaction environments.