Nalli Sanketh

Bio: Nalli Sanketh is an academic researcher from National Institute of Technology, Karnataka. The author has contributed to research in topics: Optimization problem & Greedy algorithm. The author has an hindex of 1, co-authored 1 publications receiving 681 citations.

Manufacturing consent

Abstract: A scheme for consensus formation is considered wherein the value of a certain variable associated with the nodes of a network is fixed a priori for a prescribed set of K nodes, and allowed to propagate throughout the network through an averaging process that mimics a gossip algorithm. The objective is to find the best choice of these K nodes that will achieve the fastest convergence to consensus. This objective is captured by the Perron-Frobenius eigenvalue of the resultant sub-stochastic matrix, which then is the quantity one seeks to minimize. We propose an algorithm for this optimization problem, as well as a greedy scheme with some performance guarantees for a variant of the problem that seeks to minimize a simpler objective. Some other related formulations are also considered.

The duality of technology: rethinking the concept of technology in organizations

Abstract: This paper develops a new theoretical model with which to examine the interaction between technology and organizations. Early research studies assumed technology to be an objective, external force that would have deterministic impacts on organizational properties such as structure. Later researchers focused on the human aspect of technology, seeing it as the outcome of strategic choice and social action. This paper suggests that either view is incomplete, and proposes a reconceptualization of technology that takes both perspectives into account. A theoretical model—the structurational model of technology—is built on the basis of this new conceptualization, and its workings explored through discussion of a field study of information technology. The paper suggests that the reformulation of the technology concept and the structurational model of technology allow a deeper and more dialectical understanding of the interaction between technology and organizations. This understanding provides insight into the li...

Generating Research Questions Through Problematization

Abstract: It is increasingly recognized that what makes a theory interesting and influential is that it challenges our assumptions in some significant way. However, established ways for arriving at research questions mean spotting or constructing gaps in existing theories rather than challenging their assumptions. We propose problematization as a methodology for identifying and challenging assumptions underlying existing literature and, based on that, formulating research questions that are likely to lead to more influential theories.

Naïve Learning in Social Networks and the Wisdom of Crowds

Abstract: We study learning in a setting where agents receive independent noisy signals about the true value of a variable and then communi cate in a network. They naively update beliefs by repeatedly taking weighted averages of neighbors' opinions. We show that all opinions in a large society converge to the truth if and only if the influence of the most influential agent vanishes as the society grows. We also identify obstructions to this, including prominent groups, and pro vide structural conditions on the network ensuring efficient learn ing. Whether agents converge to the truth is unrelated to how quickly consensus is approached. (JEL D83, D85, Z13)

The Discipline of Rankings: Tight Coupling and Organizational Change.

Abstract: This article demonstrates the value of Foucault's conception of discipline for understanding organizational responses to rankings. Using a case study of law schools, we explain why rankings have pe...

Bourdieu and organizational analysis

Abstract: Despite some promising steps in the right direction, organizational analysis has yet to exploit fully the theoretical and empirical possibilities inherent in the writings of Pierre Bourdieu. While certain concepts associated with his thought, such as field and capital, are already widely known in the organizational literature, the specific ways in which these terms are being used provide ample evidence that the full significance of his relational mode of thought has yet to be sufficiently apprehended. Moreover, the almost complete inattention to habitus, the third of Bourdieu’s major concepts, without which the concepts of field and capital (at least as he deployed them) make no sense, further attests to the misappropriation of his ideas and to the lack of appreciation of their potential usefulness. It is our aim in this paper, by contrast, to set forth a more informed and comprehensive account of what a relational – and, in particular, a Bourdieu-inspired – agenda for organizational research might look like. Accordingly, we examine the implications of his theoretical framework for interorganizational relations, as well as for organizations themselves analyzed as fields. The primary advantage of such an approach, we argue, is the central place accorded therein to the social conditions under which inter- and intraorganizational power relations are produced, reproduced, and contested.