Workplace technologies are more central to working in organisations than ever before. These technologies began as instrumental aids to support office work of individuals but have since also become the basis for social interactions and community building in organisations and more recently become able to perform managerial roles with the use of advanced AI capabilities. Our call for papers to this special issue invited original studies to go further and advance our thinking on the strategic implications of this layered evolution of workplace technologies on work and the structure of organisations. In this introduction, we synthesise the main themes from the special issue, and also ongoing dialogues with the growing community at the regular AIS / IFIP 9.1 workshop on the Changing Nature of Work. A key observation is that the work involved in configuring emergent Digital/Human configurations, is vastly under-reported and poorly understood. Paradoxically, this configuring work is the most demanding and critical in the shaping of modern organisations. We suggest that this type of largely invisible work requires engagement beyond the level of execution or even the meaning of work, it requires intervening with third order effects that get to the core of what an organisation is. We highlight the challenges for organisations in dealing with third order change, particularly because these effects are beyond existing frames of reference and require more dynamic and supple responses based on the values, purpose and intent dominant in the organisation – we describe this as structural digital work. Leaders that are unable or unwilling to engage with effects at this level, and this type of work, will miss identifying core opportunities and risks associated with digital transformation in organisations. We also reflect on the value of current theories and methods used to research this important and emergent phenomenon.

工作场所技术对于组织中的工作比以往任何时候都更为重要。这些技术起初是作为支持个人办公室工作的工具辅助工具，但后来也成为组织中社交互动和社区建设的基础，并且最近变得能够通过使用高级AI功能来执行管理角色。我们对此特刊的论文征集邀请了原始研究进行进一步研究，并进一步推动了我们对工作场所技术在工作和组织结构方面的分层演进的战略意义的思考。在本引言中，我们综合了本期特刊的主要主题，并在不断变化的工作性质的AIS / IFIP 9.1常规研讨会上与成长中的社区进行了持续对话。一个关键的观察是，参与的工作配置紧急的数字/人配置的报告很少，并且了解甚少。矛盾的是，这种配置工作对现代组织的塑造是最苛刻和最关键的。我们建议，这种类型的基本不可见的工作需要超出执行级别甚至工作意义的参与，它需要干预进入组织核心的三阶效应。我们强调组织应对三级变更的挑战，特别是因为这些影响超出了现有的参考框架，并且需要基于组织中的价值观，目的和意图进行更动态，更顺应的响应-我们将其描述为结构性数字工作。无法或不愿在此级别上进行效果或此类工作的领导者会错过与组织数字化转型相关的核心机会和风险的识别。我们还反思了用于研究这一重要和紧急现象的当前理论和方法的价值。