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Abstract Digital innovation is the future of work. The ongoing and interlinked transformation of digital technologies, work, communication, and organizing raises important theoretical questions. Integrating recombination-based innovation theory and institutional theory of communication, this article contributes a novel framework that specifies the theoretical linkages between macro-level institutions and digital innovation: Social actors negotiate tensions arising from multiple institutional logics through (a) attention allocation; (b) sensemaking; and (c) external, boundary-spanning networking. The framework can advance the study of communication by (a) reconciling conflicting and inconclusive empirical findings; (b) targeting research efforts; and (c) responding to critiques of communication scholarship as failing to address social contexts. By focusing on digital innovation and the interplay between societal structures and communicative action in shaping it, this article advances scholarly discussions on the future of work, conceptualizing digital innovation as an institutional as well as communicative accomplishment. 

Abstract The future of work will be measured. The increasing and widespread adoption of analytics, the use of digital inputs and outputs to inform organizational decision making, makes the communication of data central to organizing. This article applies and extends signaling theory to provide a framework for the study of analytics as communication. We report three cases that offer examples of dubious, selective, and ambiguous signaling in the activities of workers seeking to shape the meaning of data within the practice of analytics. The analysis casts the future of work as a game of strategic moves between organizations, seeking to measure behaviors and quantify the performance of work, and workers, altering their behavioral signaling to meet situated goals. The framework developed offers a guide for future examinations of the asymmetric relationship between management and workers as organizations adopt metrics to monitor and evaluate work. 

Struggles over meaning are inherent to knowledge performances – the communicative accomplishment of knowledge. This study analyzes an interdisciplinary team’s communication as they designed a novel information technology. It focuses on hostile knowledge performances, which are comprised of behaviors that steer group knowing by dominating communication. That communication included flooding the interactive space with monologues and interminable emails; correcting and directing, including telling people what to think; and stifling others by interrupting, patronizing, and stonewalling. This study contributes to communication theory and practice by building an account of hostile knowledge performances defined by communication that reflects domination in the communicative accomplishment of knowledge. This research makes clear the difficulties collaborators face responding to hostility and reveals more and less adaptive responses. 

Constant interaction, digital interruptions, and shrinking time to think and act characterize much of present-day communication. The management of time pressures is a key concern for contemporary workers as work responsibilities encroach on each other and other domains of life. This study focuses on how individuals and collectives try to exert control over time through communication. An analysis of observational and interview data ( N = 26) at a health research organization revealed that workers encountered cyclical, pervasive temporal structures marked by commotion: a blur of jarring, immediate tasks that require intense communication. As workers sought to make time for sustained focus, these pervasive temporal structures stymied their efforts. The findings contribute to communication theory by illuminating relationships among organizing, time, and control. This study provides metalanguage that facilitates the description and examination of temporal activity, and it describes a form of temporal control that was evident across hierarchal roles. Power differences explained the efficacy and agency of team members’ choices to manage busy, disrupted, and fast-paced work.