Emerging technologies such as sensors, drones, robots, digital platforms, artificial intelligence, and virtual reality increasingly operate as interlinked components in large technological suites ...that carry out novel functions. In this article, the author outlines potential negative consequences for work, workers, and society that use of these emerging technologies pose and offers policy ideas for a proactive, strategic response. Resonating across these policy ideas is a call for government to hold corporations accountable. In addition, workers and others who tend to our social fabric, built environment, and governing institutions must participate in the process of technology development, selection, design, implementation, and use. Given the potential for the use of emerging technologies to transform work and society radically and quickly, it falls upon all of us, not just a powerful few, to make choices that support positive outcomes.
The Lure of the Virtual Bailey, Diane E.; Leonardi, Paul M.; Barley, Stephen R.
Organization science (Providence, R.I.),
09/2012, Letnik:
23, Številka:
5
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Although organizational scholars have begun to study virtual work, they have yet to fully grapple with its diversity. We draw on semiotics to distinguish among three types of virtual work (virtual ...teams, remote control, and simulations) based on what it is that a technology makes virtual and whether work is done
with or
on
,
through
, or
within
representations. Of the three types, simulations have been least studied, yet they have the greatest potential to change work's historically tight coupling to physical objects. Through a case study of an automobile manufacturer, we show how digital simulation technologies prompted a shift from symbolic to iconic representation of vehicle performance. The increasing verisimilitude of iconic simulation models altered workers' dependence on each other and on physical objects, leading management to confound operating
within
representations with operating
with or
on
representations. With this mistaken understanding, and lured by the virtual, managers organized simulation work in virtual teams, thereby distancing workers from the physical referents of their models and making it difficult to empirically validate models. From this case study, we draw implications for the study of virtual work by examining how changes to work organization vary by type of virtual work.
The bulk of our understanding of teams is based on traditional teams in which all members are collocated and communicate face to face. However, geographically distributed teams, whose members are not ...collocated and must often communicate via technology, are growing in prevalence. Studies from the field are beginning to suggest that geographically distributed teams operate differently and experience different outcomes than traditional teams. For example, empirical studies suggest that distributed teams experience high levels of conflict. These empirical studies offer rich and valuable descriptions of this conflict, but they do not systematically identify the mechanisms by which conflict is engendered in distributed teams. In this paper, we develop a theory-based explanation of how geographical distribution provokes team-level conflict. We do so by considering the two characteristics that distinguish distributed teams from traditional ones: Namely, we examine how being distant from one's team members and relying on technology to mediate communication and collaborative work impacts team members. Our analysis identifies antecedents to conflict that are unique to distributed teams. We predict that conflict of all types (task, affective, and process) will be detrimental to the performance of distributed teams, a result that is contrary to much research on traditional teams. We also investigate conflict as a dynamic process to determine how teams might mitigate these negative impacts over time.
Studies have shown the knowledge transfer problems that arise when communication and storage technologies are employed to accomplish work across time and space. Much less is known about knowledge ...transfer problems associated with transformational technologies, which afford the creation, modification, and manipulation of digital artifacts. Yet, these technologies play a critical role in offshoring by allowing the distribution of work at the task level, what we call task-based offshoring. For example, computer-aided engineering applications transform input like physical dimensions, location coordinates, and material properties into computational models that can be shared electronically among engineers around the world as they work together on analysis tasks. Digital artifacts created via transformational technologies often embody implicit knowledge that must be correctly interpreted to successfully act upon the artifacts. To explore what problems might arise in interpreting this implicit knowledge across time and space, and how individuals might remedy these problems, we studied a firm that sent engineering tasks from home sites in Mexico and the United States to an offshore site in India. Despite having proper formal education and ample tool skills, the Indian engineers had difficulty interpreting the implicit knowledge embodied in artifacts sent to them from Mexico and the United States. To resolve and prevent the problems that subsequently arose, individuals from the home sites developed five new work practices to transfer occupational knowledge to the offshore site. The five practices were defining requirements, monitoring progress, fixing returns, routing tasks strategically, and filtering quality. The extent to which sending engineers in our study were free from having to enact these new work practices because on-site coordinators acted on their behalf predicted their perceptions of the effectiveness of the offshoring arrangement, but Indian engineers preferred learning from sending engineers, not on-site coordinators. Our study contributes to theories of knowledge transfer and has practical implications for managing task-based offshoring arrangements.
Diane E. Bailey is an associate professor at the School of Information at the University of Texas at Austin, where she studies technology and work in information and technical occupations. Her ...research interests include work and artificial intelligence, computational technologies in engineering design, remote occupational socialization, and Information and Communications Technologies for Development (ICT4D).
Building on recent work suggesting that objects and boundaries coevolve in practice, this paper theorizes the mechanisms for such coevolution. We argue that users in organizations choose objects to use for crossboundary collaboration, because they believe that they will afford certain types of communication. Over time, use of the object changes collaboration, which alters the constitution of the boundary at which the object was originally used. When the object’s materiality makes it difficult to achieve collaboration goals, users change objects. New objects provide new affordances for communication, which help to transfer new knowledge across the boundary. As knowledge changes people’s work in practice, the boundary that separates them changes, often requiring the use of a new object with new affordances useful for communicating across the new boundary. We illustrate our emerging theoretical perspective that highlights the role of materiality and affordances in the coevolution of objects and boundaries through a longitudinal study of a global product development organization. We discuss how our findings can lead to novel theorizing about the coevolution of objects and boundaries, the role of affordances as the mechanism for this coevolution, and the use of objects in communicating knowledge across boundaries.
Telework has inspired research in disciplines ranging from transportation and urban planning to ethics, law, sociology, and organizational studies. In our review of this literature, we seek answers ...to three questions: who participates in telework, why they do, and what happens when they do? Who teleworks remains elusive, but research suggests that male professionals and female clerical workers predominate. Notably, work-related factors like managers' willingness are most predictive of which employees will telework. Employees' motivations for teleworking are also unclear, as commonly perceived reasons such as commute reduction and family obligations do not appear instrumental. On the firms' side, managers' reluctance, forged by concerns about cost and control and bolstered by little perceived need, inhibits the creation of telework programmes. As for outcomes, little clear evidence exists that telework increases job satisfaction and productivity, as it is often asserted to do. We suggest three steps for future research may provide richer insights: consider group and organizational level impacts to understand who telework affects, reconsider why people telework, and emphasize theory-building and links to existing organizational theories. We conclude with lessons learned from the telework literature that may be relevant to research on new work forms and workplaces.
In this paper, we broaden the concept of interdependence beyond its focus on task to include technology, defining
technology interdependence
as technologies' interaction with and dependence on one ...another in the course of carrying out work. With technologies increasingly aiding knowledge work, understanding technology interdependence may be as important as understanding task interdependence for theories of organizing, but the literature has yet to develop ways of thinking about technology interdependence or its impact on the social dynamics of work. We define a
technology gap
as the space in a workflow between two technologies wherein the output of the first technology is meant to be the input to the second one. Using data from an inductive study of two engineering occupations (hardware engineering and structural engineering), we analyzed engineers'
gap encounters
(episodes in which a technology gap appeared in the course of action) and found striking differences in how engineers minded the gaps. Hardware engineers minded the gaps by coordinating technologies via "bridges" that automated data transfers between technologies. Structural engineers, in contrast, allowed technology gaps to persist even though traversing gaps consumed significant time and effort. Our findings highlight a difference between task and technology in the degree of coordination necessary for success. Managers in our study designed policies around technology interdependence and coordination not to manage technology most efficiently, but to manage work and workers in a manner consistent with occupational structures and industry constraints. We discuss the implications of our findings for theories of organizing work.
When user needs do not align with system designers’ visions, new technology implementation becomes a complex process as users appropriate the new technology to meet their needs. Prior studies ...recognize this complexity, but focus on the complex implementation of simple systems in which user groups are well defined and the IT artifact is the primary change. We extend the research lens by examining the implementation of the Brazilian correspondent banking system, a complex system involving multiple actors, system elements, and settings intended to address the social problem of financial exclusion. Our case study comparison of two settings—retail stores and post offices—reveals that actors’ appropriations extended beyond the IT artifact to include technical, role, usage, social, and policy appropriations. The intended users (poor clients in remote and underserved areas) barely interacted with the IT artifact or other system elements; instead, they relied upon remote bankers (correspondents) to appropriate the system on their behalf. Because rewards, incentives, and constraints differed by setting, correspondents’ appropriations differed by setting. We call the resulting mix of appropriations across multiple elements by multiple actors in multiple settings multiplex appropriation. Complex societal challenges often involve multiple users in multiple settings with varied needs and few technology skills; thus, designing systems to meet user requirements may prove impossible. Instead, allowing multiplex appropriation might foster system success because, rather than forcing a global alignment among system elements or trying to ascertain multiple user needs, it allows for multiple local alignments of system elements that fit local settings.
Why do people who perform largely the same type of work make different technology choices in the workplace? An automotive design engineer working in India, for example, finds advanced information and ...communication technologies essential, allowing him to work with far-flung colleagues; a structural engineer in California relies more on paper-based technologies for her everyday work; and a software engineer in Silicon Valley operates on multiple digital levels simultaneously all day, continuing after hours on a company-supplied home computer and network connection. InTechnology Choices, Diane Bailey and Paul Leonardi argue that occupational factors -- rather than personal preference or purely technological concerns -- strongly shape workers' technology choices. Drawing on extensive field work -- a decade's worth of observations and interviews in seven engineering firms in eight countries -- Bailey and Leonardi challenge the traditional views of technology choices: technological determinism and social constructivism. Their innovative occupational perspective allows them to explore how external forces shape ideas, beliefs, and norms in ways that steer individuals to particular technology choices -- albeit in somewhat predictable and generalizable ways. They examine three relationships at the heart of technology choices: human to technology, technology to technology, and human to human. An occupational perspective, they argue, helps us not only to understand past technology choices, but also to predict future ones.
We analyze information and communication technology in education initiatives in two South American countries: Bolivia and Uruguay. Utilizing qualitative data collection and analysis methods, we ...construct a comparative case study to trace the path of how national discourses—in response to the idea of globalization and initiatives promoting computers in education—were translated into policy goals, strategic implementation plans, and teaching and learning practices and outcomes. We document the role of the selected information and communication technology’s materiality in terms of portability and connectivity along this translation path. Our findings point to the importance of considering national discourse, often overlooked in information and communication technology in education studies, when examining initiative success and failure, and of conceptualizing materiality as more than merely the infrastructural foundation upon which information and communication technology in education initiatives are built. Understanding the role that materiality plays in interaction with national discourse may be especially important in guiding successful information and communication technology in education initiatives in developing countries, where financial resources are limited.
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