Work Organization and Technology: Introduction to the Theme of the Special Issue

Abstract

The relationship between work organization and technology has been conceptualized in economic and sociological studies in a variety of ways, depending on the authors’ ontological premises and use of terminology (e.g., Leonardi & Barley, 2010; Mackenzie & Wajcman, 1985). For one thing, many economic analyses have not even regarded work organization as an analytical entity in itself but rather as a subcategory under an umbrella category of ‘technology’. In cases like this, the concept of technology has been used in the broad sense, also referring to human activities and know-how to do things. In many classical and modern sociological studies of work, the analytical distinction between work organization and technology has been of crucial importance, often based on a narrower concept of technology as a set of physical objects (...)