Contributions to a symmetrical and sociomaterial perspective on work environment

Abstract

Our paper presents a STS and actornetwork theory based alternative perspective on the concept of psychosocial work environment. We define this as sociomaterial (Orlikowski & Scott, 2008) work environment and thus emphasize the importance of material, technological and organizational factors for psychological wellbeing. Furthermore the ANT perspective is discussed with elements from post-ANT (Law & Moser, 1999) to address the problem of including aspects of subjectivity in ANT research. To contrast our socio-material position we present the perspectives that have influenced the Danish tradition of psychosocial work environment. These include the Socio-technical School (Trist & Bamforth, 1951), the physiological stress theories (Selye, 1950), the cognitive appraisal theories (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984), and finally the model based approaches (especially the demand/control model (Karasek, 1979)). In the paper we illustrate, using examples from our research, how novel and useful aspects of work are illuminated by an ANT perspective on work environment. Further, we discuss the implications for conducting workplace risk assessment and carrying out work environment and occupational health interventions. These implications revolve around the ANT stance that methods of assessment and intervention are always involved in the construction of reality, and thus are not neutral. We finally emphasize the need for further theorization of the aspect of normativity in work environment studies as well as the need for matters of subjectivity to be included in the ANT tradition.