Links as Communicative Materializations of Organizational Memory in Platformed Organizing
(2026)
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- Abstract
- Linking is a way of relating texts and conversations to each other in digital communication environments. While links are inherent to organizing online, they have remained less studied in the context of organizational communication in general and, more specifically, regarding how links tie into the communicative constitution of organizations. This study explores how links are used by members of a semi-professional online community to materialize and remember past events. We argue that this is a case of organizational memory materializing through networks of links connecting past discussions to ongoing ones. This study presents empirical insights from a popular site StackExchange, where the active user community utilizes the platform features originally designed to organize a question and answer community to track and connect past events and mistreatment into discussion threads about the future of the platform. By computationally analyzing the network of discussion threads (N=237) brought up and connected through linking, we examined the complex construction of the shared organizational memory. Additionally, we engaged in qualitative analysis of a sample of messages to uncover more micro-level communicative practices of linking. This study provides a novel typology of linking as communicative practice in connection to the social process of remembering as links are used to replay, reconstruct, and revaluate the past.
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Citations
Lindholm Kaisa, Laaksonen Salla-Maaria, Lambotte, F., Huhtamaki Jukka, & Skenderi Erjon. (2026). Links as Communicative Materializations of Organizational Memory in Platformed Organizing. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/280374