Close encounters of the conceptual kind: Disambiguating social structure from text

Despite its empirical prominence, there is very little extant organizational research on Big Data. However, there is reason to believe this is changing as organizational theory scholars are beginning to embrace new methods and data sources. In this essay, I present a view that suggests there are sev...

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Main Author: Timothy Hannigan
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: SAGE Publishing 2015-11-01
Series:Big Data & Society
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1177/2053951715608655
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author Timothy Hannigan
author_facet Timothy Hannigan
author_sort Timothy Hannigan
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description Despite its empirical prominence, there is very little extant organizational research on Big Data. However, there is reason to believe this is changing as organizational theory scholars are beginning to embrace new methods and data sources. In this essay, I present a view that suggests there are several latent opportunities, many of which have been simmering unattended for some time. This research approach is not without its challenges, as the ontological terrain of Big Data is untested and potentially disruptive. However, we are observing a renewal of approaches to text and content analysis. By opening up the toolkit of computational linguistics methods for text analysis, Big Data may bring about fresh synthesis and reshape classic debates around social structure.
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spelling doaj.art-936c0a4e23764286bdfc5bc388fb6f4f2022-12-21T20:08:01ZengSAGE PublishingBig Data & Society2053-95172015-11-01210.1177/205395171560865510.1177_2053951715608655Close encounters of the conceptual kind: Disambiguating social structure from textTimothy HanniganDespite its empirical prominence, there is very little extant organizational research on Big Data. However, there is reason to believe this is changing as organizational theory scholars are beginning to embrace new methods and data sources. In this essay, I present a view that suggests there are several latent opportunities, many of which have been simmering unattended for some time. This research approach is not without its challenges, as the ontological terrain of Big Data is untested and potentially disruptive. However, we are observing a renewal of approaches to text and content analysis. By opening up the toolkit of computational linguistics methods for text analysis, Big Data may bring about fresh synthesis and reshape classic debates around social structure.https://doi.org/10.1177/2053951715608655
spellingShingle Timothy Hannigan
Close encounters of the conceptual kind: Disambiguating social structure from text
Big Data & Society
title Close encounters of the conceptual kind: Disambiguating social structure from text
title_full Close encounters of the conceptual kind: Disambiguating social structure from text
title_fullStr Close encounters of the conceptual kind: Disambiguating social structure from text
title_full_unstemmed Close encounters of the conceptual kind: Disambiguating social structure from text
title_short Close encounters of the conceptual kind: Disambiguating social structure from text
title_sort close encounters of the conceptual kind disambiguating social structure from text
url https://doi.org/10.1177/2053951715608655
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