In Search of Autonomy: Dancing With Rules

Purpose: Autonomy in organisations cannot exist without rules nor relationships. Yet, previous research tends to elicit understandings of autonomy as freedom from external constraints to enact free individual will. And there are numerous positive effects related to autonomy at work. But research has not kept pace with modern-day organisations that are highly flexible and dynamic. Current understandings of autonomy are static. Autonomy is mainly regarded as something individuals possess, more or less constricted by rules. Our purpose is to contribute a more flexible and practice-oriented concept of autonomy to answer the research question: How is autonomy developed and practiced in relation to formal rules in high-risk organisations?Design: To investigate autonomy as a dynamic and flexible concept, we draw on two case studies comprised of a total of 52 interviews and more than 10 h of observation. The cases include a factory and a hospital unit.Findings: We suggest, based on the data, that autonomy is a relational phenomenon. We suggest four different autonomy-rule dynamics: Passive, loyal, self-promoting, and co-generative learning.Research Implications: Regarding autonomy as relational rather than individual contributes to our understanding of organisations as always in the making. In this, we emphasise the interactive element of autonomy.Practical Implications: Practitioners and managers may use our suggestions to work with autonomy in a different way, spurring creativity and improvisation by constructively using rules.Originality: Little research has paid attention to the concept of autonomy (despite its importance), and arguably, a trend in the available research concerns a commodification of the phenomenon, primarily aligning autonomy with (degrees of) negative freedom and individual decision making. We unpack the concept with attention to interaction – what we have called dancing with rules.

Majority rule dynamics between a double coalition and a third opinion: coalition profit models and majority coalition ties

This article explores the opinion dynamics of a double coalition opinion against a third opinion under majority rule updates on odd fixed size connected groups. For this purpose, coalition benefit criteria and three opinion formation models which extend the 2-state majority rule model on lattices are introduced. The proposed models focus on the coalition profit of its constituent coalition opinions and cover the possible final scenarios from coalition alliance perspective: either minor opinion or major opinion is favored, or dynamics do not favor to any coalition opinion. Opinion exchanges take place on a torus embedded lattice network of a 3-state system having in consideration tie configurations and two rules to break them: either by random choice or leaving ties unaltered. Models were analyzed in the statistical mechanics spirit through Monte Carlo simulations without node replacement. Estimations for coalition benefits, the growth of coalition ties, and consensus probabilities are reported. The loss of coalition strengths due to coalition ties and its indecision is indicated. In particular, the logistic decay of consensus probability is due to the logistic adaptive growth of coalition ties. Scaling behaviors for consensus time and coalition ties in terms of network size are suggested. The results of numerical simulations are discussed in the context of social influence and social dynamics.

Numerical Simulation of Rock-Breaking Process by Disc Cutter in Tunnel Boring Machine

The force load research of disc cutter can be used in the design of disc cutter, in order to improve the working life, determine when to change another cutter. Based on the working platform of ABAQUS finite element analysis module, single disc cutter rock-breaking of the simulation model is established, and according to the theory of rocks plastic rule, dynamics analysis and dynamic simulation are done when the cutter is in rock-breaking process by which, the added force can be got when the disc cutter and rocks contact each other in different wear conditions of contact force in the process of the dynamic contact each other. The results show that with the cutter damage increasing, the added force is increased and cutters maximum instantaneous stress load is 1.5 ~ 2.5 times than the average stress load, which has a negative influence on working efficiency. To have a clear understand of cutters design and working life and when to change another cutter in working time, the results also offer an engineering parameters for researching the load state of TBM tunneling.

ERRORLESS DESCRIPTION WITH TWO RULES OF CELLULAR AUTOMATA FOR DIGITAL SOUND DATA

We investigate errorless and perfectly reproducible coding of real sound data by means of one-dimensional cellular automata with two states and three neighbors related with the viewpoint of "rule dynamics". In our previous studies, we have shown that only two rules in 1-2-3 CA are sufficient to generate all the patterns consisting of 16 bits. Moreover, it was shown that the digital data of several spoken words and music can be reproduced perfectly. However, the reason why two-rules set of 1-2-3 CA can generate errorless coding for digital sound data has been unknown. In addition, the potentiality of the description method, data compressibility and description ability, has been unknown. In the present paper, therefore, we present the proof that the two-rules set can generate arbitrary bit-pattern sequences. From computer experiments, the two-rules set of (#90, #180) is practical in realizing compressive coding for digital spoken-words and music data without reproducing errors.