Dual Control

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Dual control is an integrative concept derived from lean production and information systems literatures. The dual control idea melds the governance and information processing requirements of organizations and networks. Organizations impose and manage hierarchical structures to support their missions, direct the activities of their people, and manage their resources. Networks are largely voluntary, integrative collections of people, concepts, and things that are directly responsive to the perceived realities of the market place, communities of study and practice, and collective opportunities and threats that face their members. While organizations exert organizational control to the extent of their relative legitimacy, networks provide deliverables based on critical processes based on self-organizing efforts of organizations and of people. The dual control challenge from an information processing standpoint is to support at one time the needs of organizations and of social networks without compromising the missions and resources of the organizations while supporting and not stifling the self-organizing, voluntary contributions of social networks and supply networks.

 

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