Browsing by Author "Heimstädt, Maximilian"

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A Pandemic of Prediction. On the Circulation of Contagion Models between Public Health and Public Safety
(2021) Heimstädt, Maximilian; Egbert, Simon; Esposito, Elena
Digital prediction tools increasingly complement or replace other practices of coping with an uncertain future. The current COVID-19 pandemic, it seems, is further accelerating the spread of prediction. The prediction of the pandemic yields a pandemic of prediction. In this paper, we explore this dynamic, focusing on contagion models and their transmission back and forth between two domains of society: public health and public safety. We connect this movement with a fundamental duality in the prevention of contagion risk concerning the two sides of being-at-risk and being-a-risk. Both in the spread of a disease and in the spread of criminal behavior, a person at risk can be a risk to others and vice versa. Based on key examples, from this perspective we observe and interpret a circular movement in three phases. In the past, contagion models have moved from public health to public safety, as in the case of the Strategic Subject List used in the policing activity of the Chicago Police Department. In the present COVID-19 pandemic, the analytic tools of policing wander to the domain of public health – exemplary of this movement is the cooperation between the data infrastructure firm Palantir and the UK government’s public health system NHS. The expectation that in the future the predictive capacities of digital contact tracing apps might spill over from public health to policing is currently shaping the development and use of tools such as the Corona-Warn-App in Germany. In all these cases, the challenge of pandemic governance lies in managing the connections and the exchanges between the two areas of public health and public safety while at the same time keeping the autonomy of each.
A Pragmatic Way to Open Management Research and Education: Playfulness, Ambiguity, and Deterritorialization
(2022) de Vaujany, François-Xavier; Heimstädt, Maximilian
The open science movement has reached management research and education. Around the world, management scholars discuss, probe, and evaluate ways to make their work practices less ‘closed’ and more ‘open.’ However, how exactly such new work practices change management knowledge and teaching depends, to a large extent, on practitioners’ philosophical interpretation of ‘openness.’ Today, openness in management research and education is mainly interpreted as a feature of the input to or output from knowledge work. These interpretations conceive of research and education as relatively stable entities which can be opened at some clearly defined points. Our study aims to unsettle this conception and propose a new and more radical interpretation of openness. We propose to reconsider openness via the processual approach of American Pragmatism and thereby in a sense that dispenses with requiring the predisposition of research and education as stable entities. Via this interpretation of openness, management research and education can be transformed into a co-productive democratic movement which can bring about knowledge commons interwoven with true managerial and societal problems. To offer a first description of openness as a process that can transform management research and education, we analyze ethnographic material from two types of pragmatist experiments, which the first author facilitated between 2016 and 2021. We identify three key dimensions in the process of opening research and education: playfulness, ambiguity, and deterritorialization. Our study advances debates on the question of how management research can be more immediately helpful to management practitioners and students’ concerns.
Clickbait or conspiracy? How Twitter users address the epistemic uncertainty of a controversial preprint
(2023) Bauer, Mareike; Heimstädt, Maximilian; Franzreb, Carlos; Schimmler, Sonja
Many scientists share preprints on social media platforms to gain attention from academic peers, policy-makers, and journalists. In this study we shed light on an unintended but highly consequential effect of sharing preprints: Their contribution to conspiracy theories. Although the scientific community might quickly dismiss a preprint as insubstantial and ‘clickbaity’, its uncertain epistemic status nevertheless allows conspiracy theorists to mobilize the text as scientific support for their own narratives. To better understand the epistemic politics of preprints on social media platforms, we studied the case of a biomedical preprint, which was shared widely and discussed controversially on Twitter in the wake of the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic. Using a combination of social network analysis and qualitative content analysis, we compared the structures of engagement with the preprint and the discursive practices of scientists and conspiracy theorists. We found that despite substantial engagement, scientists were unable to dampen the conspiracy theorists’ enthusiasm for the preprint. We further found that members from both groups not only tried to reduce the preprint's epistemic uncertainty but sometimes deliberately maintained it. The maintenance of epistemic uncertainty helped conspiracy theorists to reinforce their group's identity as skeptics and allowed scientists to express concerns with the state of their profession. Our study contributes to research on the intricate relations between scientific knowledge and conspiracy theories online, as well as the role of social media platforms for new genres of scholarly communication.
Das Öffnen und Teilen von Daten qualitativer Forschung
(Weizenbaum Institute, 2020) Steinhardt, Isabel; Fischer, Caroline; Heimstädt, Maximilian; Hirsbrunner, Simon David; İkiz-Akıncı, Dilek; Kressin, Lisa; Kretzer, Susanne; Möllenkamp, Andreas; Porzelt, Maike; Rahal, Rima-Maria; Schimmler, Sonja; Wilke, René; Wünsche, Hannes
Eine Kartografie des wissenschaftlichen Verlegens
(transcript Verlag, 2022) Heimstädt, Maximilian; Fischer, Georg; Hofhues, Sandra; Schütze, Konstanze
Opening up and Sharing Data from Qualitative Research: A Primer
(Weizenbaum Institute, 2021) Steinhardt, Isabel; Fischer, Caroline; Heimstädt, Maximilian; Hirsbrunner, Simon David; İkiz-Akıncı, Dilek; Kressin, Lisa; Kretzer, Susanne; Möllenkamp, Andreas; Porzelt, Maike; Rahal, Rima-Maria; Schimmler, Sonja; Wilke, René; Wünsche, Hannes
Preprints
(Weizenbaum Institute, 2020-06-07) Friesike, Sascha; Heimstädt, Maximilian; Bartling, Sönke
Die Wissenschaft erlebt in Zeiten der Corona-Pandemie einen Bedeutungszuwachs. Angesichts von hunderttausenden Toten weltweit warten Politik und Öffentlichkeit ungeduldig auf neuste Forschungserkenntnisse zur Bekämpfung des Virus. Doch die Wissenschaft ist nicht für Schnelligkeit bekannt. Bis eine Studie in einer Fachzeitschrift veröffentlicht wird, muss sie erst ein langwieriges Begutachtungsverfahren, das sogenannte Peer Review, durchlaufen. Das kann mitunter Jahre dauern – zu lange in einer Zeit der weltweiten Krise. Deshalb veröffentlichen Wissenschaftler*innen ihre Studien zunehmend auf Preprint-Servern – ohne Peer-Review-Verfahren. Wie hat sich die Art und Weise des wissenschaftlichen Publizierens in der Corona-Pandemie verändert? Welche Bedeutung kommt dabei Preprint-Servern zu? Welche Chancen und Gefahren bieten diese Plattformen? Diese und weitere Fragen diskutiert Weizenbaum-Direktor Sascha Friesike mit dem Organisationsforscher Maximilian Heimstädt und dem Radiologen Sönke Bartling.
Riskante Retweets: „Predictive Risk Intelligence“ und Interessenvertretung in globalen Wertschöpfungsnetzwerken
(2021) Heimstädt, Maximilian; Dobusch, Leonhard
Soziale Medien spielen eine paradoxe Rolle für Interessenvertretung in globalen Wertschöpfungsnetzwerken. Zum einen bieten Social-Media-Plattformen Arbeitnehmer*innen und Gewerkschaften die Möglichkeit der Mobilisierung über geografische und institutionelle Distanzen hinweg. Zum anderen lassen diese Plattformen aber auch zu, dass Dritte die digitalen Spuren dieser Kommunikation über Interessenvertretung (z. B. Tweets) extrahieren und verarbeiten. Ziel dieses Beitrages ist es, eine Form dieser Verarbeitung – „Predictive Risk Intelligence“ – als neuen Forschungsgegenstand einzuführen. Anbieter von Predictive Risk Intelligence erstellen, basierend auf Social-Media-Daten, Vorhersagen über Ereignisse wie Streiks und Proteste. Diese Vorhersagen stellen sie anderen Akteuren – beispielsweise Unternehmen – als Dienstleistung zur Verfügung. In diesem Beitrag nähern wir uns dem neuen Forschungsgegenstand über eine Fallstudie zu einem Anbieter dieser Dienstleistung. Ausgehend von der Fallstudie entwickeln wir eine Reihe an Forschungsfragen in Bezug auf etablierte und neue Akteure der Interessenvertretung in Wertschöpfungsnetz- werken. Abschließend diskutieren wir Lösungsansätze für methodische Herausforderungen des neuen Forschungsgegenstandes.
»Schöne neue Lieferkettenwelt«: Workers’ Voice und Arbeitsstandards in Zeiten algorithmischer Vorhersage
(transcript Verlag, 2023) Klausner, Lukas Daniel; Heimstädt, Maximilian; Dobusch, Leonhard; Haipeter, Thomas; Helfen, Markus; Kirsch, Anja; Rosenbohm, Sophie
The odd couple. Contrasting openness in innovation and science
(2021) Heimstädt, Maximilian; Friesike, Sascha
Over the last few decades, two domains have undergone seemingly similar transformations: Closed innovation turned into open innovation, closed science into open science. In this essay we engage critically with recent calls for a close coupling of the two domains based on their apparent commonality: openness. Comparing the historically-specific ways in which openness has been defined and mobilised, we find substantial differences between open innovation and open science. While openness in innovation was developed as an analytic concept and redefined quite flexibly over time, openness in science was created as a programmatic concept and its initial definition has been preserved rather rigidly. Contrasting openness in innovation and science helps anticipate some of the unintended consequences that a close coupling of these domains might yield. A close coupling might alienate advocates for change within the academic community, marginalise maintenanceoriented collaborations between science and practice, and increase the dependence of science on profit-oriented platforms. Reflecting upon these unintended consequences can help policy-makers and researchers to fine-tune their concepts for new forms of engagement across the science-practice divide.
The structural transformation of the scientific public sphere: Constitution and consequences of the path towards open access
(2023) Dobusch, Leonhard; Heimstädt, Maximilian
We are currently witnessing a fundamental structural transformation of the scientific public sphere, characterized by processes of specialization, metrification, internationalization, platformization and visibilization. In contrast to explanations of this structural transformation that invoke a technological determinism, we demonstrate its historical contingency by drawing on analytic concepts from organization theory and the case of the Open Access transformation in Germany. The digitization of academic journals has not broadened access to scientific output but narrowed it down even further in the course of the ‘serials crisis’. For a long time, research institutions were not able to convince large academic publishers to adopt less restrictive forms of access to academic journals. It was only through the emergence of new and in part illegal actors (shadow libraries and preprint servers) that the existing path could be broken, and an Open Access path constituted. Following this analysis, we discuss consequences of the Open Access transformation for the public spheres of science and democracy. We conclude that Open Access publishing can only help to transform both communicative spaces towards the normative ideal of a public sphere when complemented by systematic support for non- profit publication infrastructures.
The Structural Transformation of the Scientific Public Sphere: Constitution and consequences of the path towards Open Access
(Weizenbaum Institute, 2021) Dobusch, Leonhard; Heimstädt, Maximilian
We are currently witnessing a fundamental structural transformation of the scientific public sphere, characterized by processes of specialization, metrification, internationalization, platformization, and visibilization. In contrast to explanations of this structural transformation that invoke a technological determinism, we demonstrate its historical contingency by drawing on analytic concepts from organization theory and the case of the Open Access transformation in Germany. The digitization of academic journals has not broadened access to scientific output but narrowed it down even further in the course of the “serials crisis”. For a long time, research institutions were not able to convince large academic publishers to adopt less restrictive forms of access to academic journals. It was only through the emergence of new and in part illegal actors (shadow libraries and preprint servers) that the existing path could be broken, and an Open Access path constituted. Following this analysis, we discuss consequences of the Open Access transformation for the public spheres of science and democracy. We conclude that Open Access publishing can only help to transform both communicative spaces towards the normative ideal of a public sphere when complemented by systematic support for non-profit publication infrastructures.
Transparency and Accountability. Causal, Critical and Constructive Perspectives
(2020) Heimstädt, Maximilian; Dobusch, Leonhard
Given the excessive power of Google and other large technology firms, transparency and accountability have turned into matters of great concern for organization scholars. So far, most studies adopt either a causal or critical perspective on the relationship between the two concepts. These perspectives are pitted against each other but share some basic assumptions – a fact which limits organization theory’s ability to fully grasp the management of (digital) visibilities. To address these limitations, we therefore propose a third, constructive perspective on these concepts. A constructive perspective turns transparency and accountability from analytic resources into topics of inquiry, allowing organization scholars to study how people in and around organizations put them to work and with what consequences. We introduce sites of ethical contestation as a new methodological strategy to conduct surprising and unintuitive empirical research from a constructive perspective.