Institutional Citizenship: Supporting Successful Technology Initiatives
Ray Henry, Washington State University Libraries
Preprint. Submitted to The Journal of Academic Librarianship February 2015 - doi:10.1016/j.acalib.2015.02.015
Many librarians have been a part of technology initiatives that have gone astray. Missed go-live
deadlines, products delivered much earlier in their development phase than advertised, and projects
that begin well, but end up degrading rather than improving the user experience are a few examples of
projects like these. Though derailments or outright failures can occur at many points of the process, one
place where academic libraries appear to be specifically positioned to struggle is with the personnel
involved in and impacted by technology projects. Understanding what barriers exist and how to
overcome them, especially where institutional structures, administrative expectations, and individual
responsibilities intersect, is key to shifting from struggle to success. And core to overcoming those
identified barriers is the idea that academic library personnel are potential institutional citizens, or
employees whose individual responsibilities could include coming to this work as engaged and fully
participating in it.
Institutional structures as barriers
Many academic libraries have an institutional organizational structure that makes transparent
communication and collaborative effort a challenge. After even a cursory review of organizational
charts, it is unusual to find a library that isn’t organized into a reporting structure of broad functional
areas like technical services, library systems, access services, and instruction (among others). These
areas are already physically and functionally separated, but as fiscal pressures intensify, they are
increasingly likely to separate further, focusing inwardly to manage increased core responsibilities with
fewer resources. This siloed environment can contribute to library systems or technology departments
“owning” projects almost too exclusively, as department members also turn inward to focus on this core
work, neglecting potential cross-functional partnership opportunities. Another consequence of that
ownership is decreased motivation for those departments to provide visible, open channels for external
input and feedback, as those communication processes tend to begin and end internally.
That retreat inward (and its related closed communication pathway) can only bolster the impression
that project stakeholders outside the department are also outside the project and its associated
decision-making. As Nardi and O’Day (1999) described it, when asked to share their concerns,
technology project stakeholders outside the implementing department or without key implementation
roles reported “ill will aroused by their perception that they were being left out of the process” (p. 180).
Additionally, clear understanding of core information like the specific impact of the project was likely to
have on their own work was lacking, as “there was no systematic and thorough effort to inform the staff
of the benefits and features of the technology and to involve them in decisions about its use” (Nardi &
O'Day, 1999, p. 183).
Administrative expectations as barriers
However, functional silos are not the only barrier to collaboration and engagement. At larger institutions
actively hiring faculty and staff, a different kind of inward focus can hamper collaborative efforts. While
new employees typically bring more diversity in perspectives to the table, adding positions often means
narrowing or increased specialization of roles and job functions. As one example, from a human
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resources, supervisory, or administrative standpoint, a web services librarian’s roles and responsibilities
shouldn't overlap with those of a digital initiative librarian’s. This clear division of responsibilities can
make it easier to recognize an employee’s success at meeting professional development goals in a team
environment. But if a new technology initiative overlaps with both of these example roles, it can be very
difficult for those employees to understand and negotiate their individual responsibilities to the project.
This specialization can act to create an “islands inside silos” effect, where the desire to collaborate is
tacitly devalued as solo contributions gain value, as those solo contributions are more directly related to
position-specific performance standards. In those cases it can be easier for employees to take a position
of “it’s not my job” in order to focus on addressing their own job requirements. Institutional emphasis
on these narrowed expectations for employees can result in individual professional successes, but will
likely also lead those same employees to avoid opportunities for collaboration that may not directly
support individual recognition.
These barriers to collaboration can persist even after explicit steps to remove them have taken place,
especially when institutional culture reinforces the conditions for their construction (and
reconstruction). If left unchecked, a cycle of building and rebuilding these barriers can significantly
hamper a library’s ability not only to successfully implement technology projects, but also to iterate and
improve on them.
Removing barriers by creating cross-functional teams
A frequent administrative or strategic approach to removing these boundaries is to have crossfunctional, project-based teams. These teams are typically composed of members of diverse stakeholder
groups, and can have responsibilities ranging from directly managing a project through to completion
(like a website redesign), to acting in an advisory capacity to project implementers. Despite having
project-based origins, over time many of these teams shift into a more permanent status. User
experience teams, for example, may be developed as part of a website redesign, but often continue with
that work after the initial project has been completed and an ongoing need for that work has been
established.
But does identifying a project’s stakeholders and assembling representatives from those groups into a
team always result in success? In other words, by explicitly removing barriers between functional areas
or job roles and building and expectation of work in a collaborative environment, are the conditions for
breaking that cycle of barrier-building met? Sometimes the answer is a resounding and emphatic yes.
One way this can happen is for the team to have three resources Pennell, Sommerville, and Rodriguez
(2013) have described as essential for the Triangle Research Libraries Network’s (TRLN’s) Shared Record
Program to be successful: “clear charges with well-defined goals,” “broad representation” helping to
build “wide support,” and “a deep trust” shared by project members (pp. 237-238).
External and internal factors for project team success
It can be helpful to think of both having a clear team charge and broad stakeholder representation as
external factors acting on the members of a team – a convening body (or an administrator) forms the
group intentionally, ideally ensuring representation is diverse and appropriate. That convener also
typically gives the team its charge, which is hopefully clear and includes the aforementioned welldefined goals. Because these factors are external, members may have the least amount of influence, if
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they have any influence at all, over them. However the third factor, shared trust, is developed by the
team members individually, and is the area where they have the most direct influence, control, and
responsibility.
Certainly if any one of those three factors is missing or impaired, the success of a project is significantly
compromised. For example, while it is possible to make progress on a project as a team without clear
goals, that progress will inevitably be slow and unfocused. Similarly, it is possible to push projects to
completion without buy-in or support, though in most organizational cultures it would be unusual to
have those counted as successes. But project teams trying to accomplish their work without shared trust
tear themselves and their projects apart while simultaneously rebuilding the boundaries and silo walls
As Vangen and Huxam (2003) had it reported to them, “Some [respondents] have argued that trust
building is dependent on discouragement of ‘touchiness about each others’ territories.’” (p. 14).
Authentic trust relationships among project team members are key to working through the issues and
requirements of a project. Trust relationships are not ordinarily created at the same instant the team is,
but instead “trust builds on itself incrementally, over time, in a virtuous circle” (Vangen & Huxam, 2003,
p.8). In order to begin trust-building, team members need to become institutional citizens. As Sturm
(2013) clarifies, “Institutional citizenship connotes a strong conception of full participation, mutual
responsibilities, and shared benefits” (p. 413). This institutional citizen identity creates a “necessary
condition for trust […] that expectations can be formed on one hand and fulfilled on the other” (Vangen
& Huxam, 2003, p. 10).
The institutional citizen
Examining Sturm's three related concepts of institutional citizenship more closely in the light of trust
relationships, full participation or engagement from each project team member indicates a willingness
to be an active collaborator, to both form and fulfill expectations as owners of the outcomes. Mutual
responsibilities can be expanded in this environment to specifically include: a vested interest in
understanding issues from multiple perspectives, including seeking out and integrating traditionally
underrepresented or silenced voices; an open approach to problem solving; a professional responsibility
to address personal knowledge gaps to make better-informed decisions; and a commitment to open and
clear communication, both internally and externally. Finally, the shared benefits of institutional
citizenship can be seen in reciprocated organizational value (Smith, Organ, & Near, 1983) – team
member-citizens’ contributions are seen as useful and necessary by leadership, and the
organization/institutional culture supports them to continue making those contributions (pp. 654-655).
A professionally responsible and engaged institutional citizenry is a clear antidote to what can be most
generously described as a culture of fiercely patrolled boundaries and barriers, of “not my job” or “it
doesn’t matter what I think,” a self-replicating and sometimes all too pervasive culture that can
effectively sink projects. Successful management of technology projects, then, requires equal measures
of frequent, transparent communication; clarity of responsibilities and goals; building and maintaining
trust relationships; and engaged, responsible team member-citizens.
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Nardi, B., & O'Day, V. (1999). Information ecologies: Using technology with heart. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT
Press.
Pennell, C., Sommerville, N., & Rodriguez, D. A. (2013). Shared resources, shared records: Letting go of
local metadata hosting within a consortium environment. Library Resources & Technical Services, 57(4),
227-238.
Smith, C. A., Organ, D. W., & Near, J. P. (1983). Organizational citizenship behavior: Its nature and
antecedents. Journal of applied psychology, 68(4), 653-663.
Sturm, S. P. (2007). The architecture of inclusion: Interdisciplinary insights on pursuing institutional
citizenship. Harvard Journal of Law and Gender, 30, 409-424.
Vangen, S., & Huxham, C. (2003). Nurturing collaborative relations: Building trust in interorganizational
collaboration. The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 39(1), 5-31.
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