r/place A fruit fly for organization science

Authoritative source, reproduced unchanged. Exact Markdown · Agent copy with resolved links. These instructions govern research runs, not checkpoint interviews.

Stage C3. The model against the literature.

Model: as arm.json sets for this stage (your platform file lists the model and effort). Legs: one per shelf pass (contradicting work; resembling work, with the concept; the four problems), closed at the pass's end or earlier when you choose; every recut the literature forces is logged and snapped when it is made (§6). Fleet: none.

Steps: C3a the contradicting shelf; C3b the resembling shelf; C3c the four problems (§1's claim put to the structure), the handback and the interview. Each leg is named by its step (STANDING §2).

Safe stops: after each logged recut, and after each shelf pass. At a safe stop, check for .pause (ls .pause); if it is there, log where to pick up, your working hypothesis and the next room or item (mem.py log "<hypothesis>; next: <item>" --kind pause), and close with done.sh C3 --pause (STANDING §2).

Startup packet: _head.md, this file, the last five diary entries, validate.py --open C3. First leg: the explanation shelf arrives, its read tier shipped with this stage and its on-request tier listed one line each (mem.py shelf --list, mem.py shelf <name>); prior.md, read before anything else; concept.md; notes-A1.md, opened only at §7.

Reads allowed: every shelf that has arrived (nothing served once is taken away); model/, model.md, structure.md, dimensions.jsonl, fourth/fourth.jsonl, concept.md, findings.jsonl, prior.md; the store through mem.py (where, codes --third, after); rooms by query for a check, and rooms whole through the verbs for an abductive read (§1); quotes through cite.py. Forbidden: rewriting the story (that is C5); opening field/, which arrives at stage C4; renaming a third-order theme after a construct (contract §1); a change from a read of the corpus that is not flagged abductive with the paper that prompted it (§1); the canvas as an undeclared ground (rule 7).

Outputs: literature-C3.md; findings.jsonl lines with literature ids; mapping-C3.jsonl; mechanisms rewritten in model/arrows.jsonl, each a model/history.jsonl line; wherever this stage changes something, model-C3.md, structure-C3.md and concept-C3.md, each a whole file superseding the stage C2 file (rule 18; a file holding only what changed is read downstream as the whole thing), and manifest-C3.txt, one line per stage C2 file saying whether it has a stage C3 successor, which stage C5 reads first; a recut is not a superseding file: the tier file is amended and the superseded line goes to tier_history.jsonl, as stage C2 says; when the third-order tier is recut, scheme_v2.jsonl and assignments_final.jsonl rewritten (mem.py mint, then mem.py reassign, as stage C2 says); notes-C3.md.

1. The sequence, and the log point

Nothing is read against the explanation literature before this stage (contract §4). Within it, read prior.md first, and restate in notes-C3.md what you expected; read after a conclusion has formed, it can no longer tell a finding from a prior. Then, before you open the shelf, re-read METHOD.md's first section and every shelf already held (mem.py shelf): the v35 analyst had forgotten the method shelf by the time the next arrived, and an explanation read on a forgotten foundation is a relabelling waiting to happen.

Record where the read logs stand before you open the shelf: the line counts of _cite_reads-C3.jsonl and _mem_reads-C3.jsonl, in notes-C3.md and logged. Count them yourself; cite.py's sequence counter resets when the tool is constructed. From there on, a read of the rooms prompted by a paper is an abductive read, and it may add or change a theme or an arrow, as Gioia, Corley and Hamilton cycle between the data and the literature. Log it before you read (mem.py log --kind abductive, the paper and what it made you look for). A change it makes carries "abductive": true and "prompted_by": "<author year>" on its model/history.jsonl or tier_history.jsonl line, and is listed in literature-C3.md, so a reader can tell what the rooms showed unprompted from what a paper made you find. A read to check a quote or a count is not abductive and carries no flag. The log records what was served and not why, so it cannot tell a check from an abductive read you did not log; say so in literature-C3.md.

If a work changes what a claim rests on, write a switch record (Günther, Joshi and Constantinides 2026, p. 872; contract §1, two kinds of claim), one paragraph in literature-C3.md per switch: the work and the cue that triggered it; what moved (a claim that rested on the rooms' words now rests on a pattern across rooms, or the reverse; a name that was the participants' now the literature's); which earlier work is redone or rechecked, with the leg that does it; what differs in the output; why the state after the switch serves the claim better; and the findings.jsonl line that supersedes the earlier one (rule 14). A reading that leaves every claim resting where it rested is not a switch and gets no record; this stage's planned reading is the design, never a switch.

Say in notes-C3.md, first, that the literature is read after the model and not through it; it is the design, not a departure, and no departures.jsonl line is written for it. Then say whether the substitution worked: whether knowing the contract's §1 frame and not building with it was a distinction you could hold while writing the scheme and adjudicating its placements.

2. How to cite

Mark every claim about the literature one of two ways: verified, you opened it on the shelf in this session and can quote it; recalled, you are working from what you know, with author, year and the claim you are attributing, so a reader can check it. A work on the on-request tier is recalled until served. Do not invent a reference, a title, a year or a quotation, and do not attach a real author to a claim you are not sure they made. Where you are unsure, write I believe this literature holds X but cannot verify it here and carry on.

3. Leg 1: work that contradicts the model

Work that reports the opposite of what you found, or that explains your phenomenon with something you did not use. For each: the two claims, one sentence each; what in the record decides between them, with a room and a quote through cite.py or a transition; and which of three things is true: the accounts disagree about the world, they disagree about the setting, or they are about different things and one of you has the wrong name for it. Say which. Then whether the disagreement bounds your claim (a condition, rule 16, written into the finding) or the work's (a scope this material falls outside). A contradiction you cannot decide from the record is reported as open, with what would decide it.

4. Leg 2: work that resembles the model

4a. Distant fields, and the mechanisms

This is the pass that supplies mechanisms. Take your model's arrows, particularly the ones whose mechanism you found hardest to write, and ask what other literature describes the same move, going deliberately outside organization studies. For each match: what the distant work holds the mechanism to be, and whether it fits here. For each resembling work: what it names that you named differently (the fourth-order theme or dimension, its declaration updated under §6); what it explains that yours does not, and the reverse.

Where it fits, rewrite that arrow's mechanism in model/arrows.jsonl and in model-C3.md, keep the stage C2 sentence beside it as mechanism_C2, mark the arrow mechanism_source: from-literature with the work named, and write the model/history.jsonl line. Stage C5 takes each mechanism from the arrow that grounds it; one left only in literature-C3.md is invisible downstream. Re-read mechanism_fails_if against the new sentence; a mechanism no observation here could show failing makes the arrow theorised, listed apart.

Where the distant work predicts something here you have not looked for, that is an abductive read (§1), logged before you read. Test it, record the result either way, and say whether it qualified, bounded, added or changed an arrow or a theme. If you decline the read, say why.

4b. The concept

Stage C2 named a concept and guessed at its nearest existing referent from recollection. Test the guess against the shelf, the difference stated so a reader could test it. Three outcomes:

If this pass changes the concept, write concept-C3.md whole and leave concept.md standing.

5. Leg 3: the four problems, put to the structure

The contract's §1 claim is that every group with a goal must solve four problems, task division, task allocation, reward provision and information provision, whether or not anyone says so. The definition assumes a goal; establish from evidence whether each group inherited, negotiated, contested or changed its goal (Felin and Zenger 2016 and 2017 put that gap, the chosen problem, at the centre of strategy). Put the claim to your structure and model as they stand; do not revise them to accommodate it, and be specific enough to be wrong.

The one written operation (contract §1): for every fourth-order theme, which of the four problems it is a way of handling, or none, one line in mapping-C3.jsonl with a clause of why; the mapped set is the match, the unmapped set the remainder, and each mapped problem carries the sentence saying what this material's version of it cannot do. A fourth-order theme that already carries one of the four's names under its declaration answers this pass by construction; say so first, and what the pass asks of it is that sentence, and whether the frame's version would have cut the theme where you did. Treat the remainder as a candidate extension. Test whether it is a different mechanism, a renamed instance, a change of level or an evidence gap. An empty remainder is allowed.

{"fourth": "T4-003", "problem": "division|allocation|reward|information|none",
 "why": "...", "cannot_do": "..."}

Two limits. Your evidence is talk and the claim is about arrangements: a group can allocate work perfectly and never write a word about it, and the contract's §5 holds you to organizing done in public. And there is no denominator: you have the share of coded records that maps onto each problem, confounded as §5 describes, not the share of groups that solved it.

Answer in seven parts, in literature-C3.md:

  1. What you expected, quoted from prior.md rather than remembered: which of those things you found, whether any turned up only where the material was thin, and what prior.md holds that your structure has no room for.
  2. What in your structure speaks to the claim, fourth-order theme by fourth-order theme from the mapping, with counts and rule 5's gate, and for each whether the material put it there or you did.
  3. What your structure carries that the claim has no place for, the remainder, if any. Explain why it extends the framework. Be specific, and quote through cite.py.
  4. Which of the four your structure reaches richly, which thinly, and which not at all, and for each thin or absent one whether the limit is in the material, in the coders' selection, or in your own pruning. Where one comes back nearly empty, take a side: did these rooms not solve that problem, or can your instrument not see it? Say which you think and why. Stage E1's account of what the study cannot say inherits this paragraph directly.
  5. The goal. Where in the structure and the model the making of a goal sits, its contest and its change, and what its setting did to the four problems; a finding, never a premise, and if the structure has no place for it, say so as a finding about the structure.
  6. Whether your material supports the claim, contradicts it, or is silent, with §5's warning on every count: a claim about what is absent here is a claim about small rooms writing in public, and every absence claim is marked weak.
  7. Whether the claim is answerable with this material at all. The structure does not speak to this is a complete answer.

6. Keep the construct declarations current

Where the shelf shows a construct is borrowed or adapted rather than coined, or mistaken for a construct you had not named, amend its construct block (stage C2 §2) and log the event, with the sentence saying what this material's version cannot do wherever the name is borrowed; the third-order themes stay descriptive and do not change here (contract §1). Record what changed in structure-C3.md.

You may recut fourth-order themes and dimensions here, and the third-order tier too, under rule 11 (a third-order recut is written as stage C2 says: scheme_v2.jsonl and mem.py reassign), and stage C2's rule on the dimension tier holds through every recut: no number is set, a fourth-order theme may gather under no dimension, the dimensions hold apart pairwise, and collapsing to one is examined with its candidates and runner-up, never an automatic failure or an answer; a recut that empties the tier is reported the same way. Every findings.jsonl line a recut touches is re-examined in the same act (rule 14). A literature that shows a fourth-order theme holding two things the field keeps apart means the cut was wrong. Amend the rule first, append the event to tier_history.jsonl with its move and one clause of reason, amend the tier file, re-place what the amendment touches yourself under the amended rule, redraw whatever depended on it, and log the move (mem.py log --kind move) and snap it (python3 tools/snap.py C3 move-<move>-<n>) as you make it.

What changes, and what does not. A finding changed by a recut says in findings.jsonl what changed it (rule 13). Nothing in the model is withdrawn because a work says otherwise; it is bounded, or the disagreement is printed beside it.

7. Stage A1's three sentences

Read them now, from notes-A1.md, for the first time since. Say in notes-C3.md which of this stage's conclusions you would have reached anyway and which the material forced.

Moments to log

The log point; each work read and what it did to which claim, verified or recalled; the abductive read, with its paper and what it changed or did not, or its refusal; each switch record, or that none was needed; each mapping line; each declaration amended; each recut by move; the three sentences read.

Final message

The claim (what the literature changed about the model), the room that best supports the model's side, the room that most threatens it, and the condition that separates them. Then: works contradicting and how each resolved; works resembling; the one distant field that supplied a mechanism; findings bounded and changed; declarations updated and names changed; whether the concept survived; how much of prior.md came true; fourth-order themes mapped to each problem and the size of the remainder; files with a stage C3 successor; citations verified and recalled; the log point at which this stage began; the licences exercised and not (METHOD.md).

Close

done.sh C3 at the end of every pass, or earlier when you choose, every recut logged and snapped as it was made; paste the close-check report into notes-C3.md; handback-C3.md; the head; the closing diary line.

Interview point. C3c writes out/interview/C3c.md (under 800 words: what you did, what you found, what surprised you, what you doubt, and the three questions you would most like to be asked) and closes with done.sh C3 --cut interview: the model read against the literature: what it borrowed, what it contradicts, what no paper has. The principal investigator may talk with you here, in a fork of this leg, run in a copy of your folder as it stood at the close (not read-only; nothing done there reaches the run); the run goes on from the cut either way. done.sh files the brief under the leg, the stage, the step and the minute, and refuses the cut without the brief (and, at a stage's end, without the handback).