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Correction to ‘Always on across time zones: Invisible schedules in the online gig economy’ New Technol. Work Employ. (IF 4.182) Pub Date : 2024-02-05
Shevchuk, A., Strebkov, D. & Tyulyupo, A. (2021) Always on across time zones: invisible schedules in the online gig economy. New Technology, Work and Employment, 36(1), 94–113. The authors acknowledge the contribution made by Asya Karaseva and Maria Momzikova to the development of the topic of zone-related inequality in Russia, as presented in the article ‘Time Zones and Synchronous Telecommunications:
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The assembly line at Ford and transportation platforms: A historical comparison of labour process reorganisation New Technol. Work Employ. (IF 4.182) Pub Date : 2024-02-02 Carl Hughes
This paper provides a historical comparison of the introduction of the moving assembly line at Ford Motor factories in the early 20th century, with the development of transportation platforms in the 21st century. The paper pushes back against the argument that either of these cases was based upon technological innovation, arguing that in neither case was new technology developed, but rather existing
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Does the welfare regime impact the telework gender stress gap? New Technol. Work Employ. (IF 4.182) Pub Date : 2024-01-03 Alain Klarsfeld, Kevin Carillo, Gaëlle Cachat-Rosset, Tania Saba, Josianne Marsan
After decades of slow diffusion, the acceptance of telework has dramatically accelerated during the pandemic crisis, becoming a mainstream work practice. However, little is still known on the impact of telework design on employee stress, particularly when stress is high due to a major health crisis, at a time when it is crucial that organizations help buffer it. Using the welfare regime literature
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Digital worker inquiry and the critical potential of participatory worker data science for on-demand platform workers New Technol. Work Employ. (IF 4.182) Pub Date : 2023-12-19 Cailean Gallagher, Karen Gregory, Boyan Karabaliev
The knowledge that workers have of the systems they work under is an outcome of strategic choices by platforms and by workers themselves. Based on three initiatives undertaken by food distribution workers in Scotland, this article explores the obstacles that platform workers face when conducting inquiries into their systems of control, and investigates the potential for workers to overcome these obstacles
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Solidarity and collective issues in remote crowd work: A mixed methods study of the Amazon Mechanical Turk online forum New Technol. Work Employ. (IF 4.182) Pub Date : 2023-12-08 Markus Hertwig, Manuel Holz, Philipp Lorig
The article deals with collective issues and emerging forms of solidarity in remote crowd work. Using the example of the Amazon Mechanical Turk platform, we analyse communication in one of the oldest online labour forums (OLF) with a mixed-methods-approach (web scraping, topic modelling and qualitative content analysis) over a 10-year period. We identify six broader themes of collective relevance whose
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Platform labour in contexts of high informality: Any improvement for workers? A critical assessment based on the case of Argentina New Technol. Work Employ. (IF 4.182) Pub Date : 2023-11-30 Sonia Filipetto, Ariela Micha, Francisca Pereyra, Cecilia Poggi, Martín Trombetta
The article analyses the effects of digital labour platforms in a context characterised by high informality, exploring the way platforms may or may not imply a disruption in this respect. To do so, it examines the labour transitions that lead to platform labour, taking into account the formal status of workers before and after joining platforms, as well as their evaluation of resulting labour conditions
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The emotional labour of teleworkers conducting online counselling during Covid-19. New Technol. Work Employ. (IF 4.182) Pub Date : 2023-11-27 Jennifer. J. O'Neil, Britta. H. Heidl, Andrew Bratton, Andreas Vossler, Naomi Moller
Drawing on emotional labour theory, this paper explores the barriers to emotionally complex telework, with a specific focus on the space, interface and pace of work. We examine the working lives of mental health counsellors who adapted from in-person delivery to online delivery whilst working from home, during the Covid-19 pandemic. Our qualitative data set comprises of semi-structured online interviews
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The social construction of algorithms: A reassessment of algorithmic management in food delivery gig work New Technol. Work Employ. (IF 4.182) Pub Date : 2023-11-22 Heiner Heiland
Algorithms are usually regarded as fixed objects. In contrast, the article conceptualises and analyses the (social) construction of algorithmic management. By means of interviews, ethnography and analyses of chats, two allocation algorithms in platform-mediated courier work are examined. Different levels of algorithm construction are identified and a conceptual framework is developed to analyse the
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The gender pay platform gap during the COVID-19 pandemic and the role of platform gender segregation in Australia New Technol. Work Employ. (IF 4.182) Pub Date : 2023-11-03 Brendan Churchill
Progress towards pay equity between men and women in the Australian economy stalled during the COVID-19 pandemic, highlighting once again the gendered impact of the pandemic. However, little is known about the impact of the pandemic on the gender pay gap in the platform economy. Drawing on data from an Australian survey of platform workers (n = 947) during the early months of the pandemic (2020), this
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Employee acceptance of digital monitoring systems while working from home New Technol. Work Employ. (IF 4.182) Pub Date : 2023-10-10 Luisa Wieser, Martin Abraham
Digitalisation and COVID-19 led to an expansion of remote work arrangements, raising the question of whether and how employers should monitor remote workplaces. However, before the implementation of monitoring methods, it is important to consider employees' acceptance of this approach. Therefore, we contribute to current research on electronic performance monitoring by empirically investigating em
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Online job search discouragement: How employment platforms and digital exclusion shape the experience of low-qualified job seekers? New Technol. Work Employ. (IF 4.182) Pub Date : 2023-09-05 Guillaume Dumont, Stefano De Marco, Ellen Johanna Heslper
How do people experience the platform-mediated job search process? We explore this question based on a sample of in-depth interviews (n = 20) with low-qualified, unemployed Spanish job seekers. Our main finding shows that the ways they use Information and Communication Technologies negatively impact their engagement in online job search activities. Based on our findings, we develop a framework of online
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Mind the gender gap: Inequalities in the emergent professions of artificial intelligence (AI) and data science New Technol. Work Employ. (IF 4.182) Pub Date : 2023-08-27 Erin Young, Judy Wajcman, Laila Sprejer
The emergence of new prestigious professions in data science and artificial intelligence (AI) provide a rare opportunity to explore the gendered dynamics of technical careers as they are being formed. In this paper, we contribute to the literature on gender inequality in digital work by curating and analysing a unique cross-country data set. We use innovative data science methodology to investigate
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Pushed online: What characteristics of regional offline labour markets influence the expansion of Internet and platform work? New Technol. Work Employ. (IF 4.182) Pub Date : 2023-08-02 Wouter Zwysen, Agnieszka Piasna
Despite disruptive impact of internet work on labour markets little is known about what, beyond individual pull factors, drives its expansion. This article extends current frameworks by investigating the role of regional economic and employment conditions. The analysis covers 165 regions in 14 European countries using a representative cross-national data set on individual engagement in internet and
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New social relations of digital technology and the future of work: Beyond technological determinism New Technol. Work Employ. (IF 4.182) Pub Date : 2023-06-27 Simon Joyce, Charles Umney, Xanthe Whittaker, Mark Stuart
This introduction sets out the context for the Special Issue and offers an in-depth reflection on key themes addressed by our contributors. The Special Issue aims to place the social relations of production at the centre of debates about technology and the future of work, and create space for greater critical reflection on what it means to go ‘beyond technological determinism’. We identify ways in
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Organisational inhibition and promotion of flexible working in digitalised work environments New Technol. Work Employ. (IF 4.182) Pub Date : 2023-06-21 Anja-Kristin Abendroth, Mareike Reimann
Work-related use of digital information and communication technology (ICT) is not restricted to specific working sites and times. For employees, this can involve opportunities for flexible working, that is, having control over when and where to work. Applying an organisational comparative perspective, we examined whether adherence to the ideal worker norm inhibits and adherence to family-friendliness
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When work and family collide: ‘Resource Caravans’ of personal and contextual resources in remote work New Technol. Work Employ. (IF 4.182) Pub Date : 2023-06-07 Dawn S. Carlson, Sara J. Perry, Micki Kacmar, Min (Maggie) Wan, Merideth J. Thompson
Research on remote work remains without consensus as to its benefits, with continued questions about which factors may enable it to be more beneficial to employees working remotely. Applying Conservation of Resources theory, we explore the impact of ‘resource caravans’ on ‘work–family balance’ and subsequent ‘well-being’ in a sample of 446 remote workers. Our findings contribute to ongoing sociological
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Platform cooperatives and the dilemmas of platform worker-member participation New Technol. Work Employ. (IF 4.182) Pub Date : 2023-05-27 Morshed Mannan, Simon Pek
Despite the surge of interest in platform cooperatives, we have a limited understanding of the dynamics of platform worker-member participation in these cooperatives. Drawing on interviews with 21 senior leaders and founders of platform worker cooperatives, we investigate the dynamics of platform worker-member participation, finding that these cooperatives experience some successes and many challenges
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Platform couriers' self-exploitation: The case study of Glovo New Technol. Work Employ. (IF 4.182) Pub Date : 2023-05-24 Tiago Vieira
This article examines the phenomenon of self-exploitation among platform couriers, using the company Glovo as a case study. The research, based on a qualitative approach with interviews from 22 different stakeholders, highlights the ways in which precarity, entrepreneurial subjectivity, and gamification intersect to create what are referred to as postdisciplinary control mechanisms. These mechanisms
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Re-humanising management through co-presence: Lessons from enforced telework during the second wave of Covid-19 New Technol. Work Employ. (IF 4.182) Pub Date : 2023-05-11 Laurent Taskin, Ive Klinksiek, Michel Ajzen
The use of enforced telework during the Covid-19 crisis sheds light on the importance of co-presence—i.e., presence mediated by information and communication technologies instead of physical proximity—for managing people. Previous studies on telework have exposed the risk of social isolation, which can lead workers to feel dehumanised. In this paper, we investigate how management adapts to co-presence
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(In)visible everyday work of fostering a data-driven healthcare and social service organisation New Technol. Work Employ. (IF 4.182) Pub Date : 2023-04-20 Marta Choroszewicz
This article combines the frameworks of (in)visible work and articulation work to examine the everyday articulation work ascribed to a knowledge production and technology expert team (KT) in the transition to a data-driven healthcare and social service organisation. The article structures the results of an ethnographic study spanning 2.5 years around four roles of the KT's work: (1) mediating messy
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Urgency at work: Trains, time and technology New Technol. Work Employ. (IF 4.182) Pub Date : 2023-04-04 Katrina Pritchard, Gillian Symon
In contemporary workplaces, urgency is symbolic of workers' experience of time as accelerated, and often associated with use of digital technologies. Yet we know little about how urgency is constructed at work, including the agentic roles of technology and other materialities. Based on interviews with railway workers, we extend Rosa's conceptualisation of temporal junctures to explain how urgency as
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Risks, possibilities, and social relations in the computerisation of Swedish university administration New Technol. Work Employ. (IF 4.182) Pub Date : 2022-12-29 David Ö. Regin
This mixed methods case study discusses how the introduction of new technology changed the work of departmental administrators at a Swedish university, drawing on Cockburn's theories on gender and technology, viewing organisations as fields of contestation. This paper argues that jobs seem more fragmented with less discretion, as a result of computerisation. However, time saved by a new division of
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Telework quality and employee well-being: Lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy New Technol. Work Employ. (IF 4.182) Pub Date : 2022-12-07 Massimo Miglioretti, Andrea Gragnano, Silvia Simbula, Marco Perugini
The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) forced organisations to implement intensive telework for many of their workers overnight. This scenario was completely new, and the emergency caused by COVID-19 created the possibility of experimenting with new ways of working with an unknown impact on employee well-being. Drawing on previous literature, we defined a model of telework quality consisting of the
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Work-on-demand in patchwork capitalism: The peculiar case of Uber's fleet partners in Poland New Technol. Work Employ. (IF 4.182) Pub Date : 2022-12-02 Bartosz Mika, Dominika Polkowska
In recent years, global corporations entering Central and Eastern European (CEE) markets have begun to adapt to existing legal regulations through innovative means. Uber's entry into Polish market, for example, involved the use of a supplementary entity—a fleet partner. Based on 42 interviews with Uber drivers in Poland (conducted between 2018 and 2020) and two in-depth interviews with fleet partners
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Divided we fall: The breakdown of gig worker solidarity in online communities New Technol. Work Employ. (IF 4.182) Pub Date : 2022-11-29 Peter Kalum Schou, Eliane Bucher
The ‘gig economy’ presents a contested new work arrangement where freelancers find work on digital platforms. Subsequently, previous research has investigated how gig workers develop solidarity and take collective action against the exploitative practices of the platforms. However, this research is limited by mostly focusing on solidarity in contexts of local gig worker communities. We investigate
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Building coalitions on Facebook: ‘social media unionism’ among Danish bike couriers New Technol. Work Employ. (IF 4.182) Pub Date : 2022-11-29 Mark F. Hau, Owen G. Savage
Platform work represents an important challenge for the ‘Danish model’ of unionisation. Using interviews and ethnographic data, this article analyses the strategies of the Danish grassroots union movement the Wolt Workers' Group, representing principally migrant couriers using the food-delivery platform Wolt. This study is an attempt to map an emergent form of flexible labour organisation based on
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Re-examining technology's destruction of blue-collar work New Technol. Work Employ. (IF 4.182) Pub Date : 2022-10-17 Darryn Snell, Victor Gekara
Despite research suggesting certain death of blue-collar work due to technological advancements, blue-collar jobs continue to be in demand. Through a study of the blue-collar dominant Transport and Logistics sector in Australia, we apply a Critical Realist framework to consider the tendencies contributing to, and limiting, technological uptake and worker displacement. Our analysis of interviews with
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Platform capitalism and neo-normative control: “Autonomy” as a digital platform control strategy in neoliberal Chile New Technol. Work Employ. (IF 4.182) Pub Date : 2022-10-12 Karol Morales, Antonio Stecher
A key element of the platform business model is concentrating great organisational power over the work process while simultaneously allowing workers certain degrees of autonomy and encouraging them to see themselves as self-employed. This study applied the neo-normative control concept to analyse the mechanisms platforms use to promote freedom of choice and self-regulation values, which are formed
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Resisting algorithmic control: Understanding the rise and variety of platform worker mobilisations New Technol. Work Employ. (IF 4.182) Pub Date : 2022-09-29 Lorenzo Cini
Algorithms are seen as effective for managing workers. Literature focuses mainly on the functioning and impact of algorithmic control on workers' experiences and conditions. The ways in which platform workers have organised collectively to regain control have received far less scholarly attention. This paper addresses this gap by making sense of the mobilisation dynamics of two platform-work categories:
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Skilled maintenance trades under lean manufacturing: Evidence from the car industry New Technol. Work Employ. (IF 4.182) Pub Date : 2022-08-23 Ron Roberts, Niall Cullinane
This article explores how skilled maintenance trades have fared under lean automotive manufacturing, a cohort of workers relatively neglected in the literature. Historically, such trades possessed a distinct ‘craft consciousness’ derived from apprenticed-acquired skill, autonomy in job execution, strict job boundaries and relative occupational status and prestige. The article assesses how lean has
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Affective commitment, home-based working and the blurring of work–home boundaries: Evidence from Germany New Technol. Work Employ. (IF 4.182) Pub Date : 2022-08-21 Yvonne Lott, Anja-Kristin Abendroth
Analysis of data from the representative German Linked Personnel Panel revealed that, overall, the use of home-based working is associated with a higher affective organisational commitment on the part of employees. However, this is less often the case when the use of home-based working involves the blurring of work–home boundaries. Perceived trust and fairness on the part of supervisors mediates the
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‘It's like, instant respect’: Coworking spaces as identity anchoring environments in the new economy New Technol. Work Employ. (IF 4.182) Pub Date : 2022-07-19 Peter A. Bacevice, Gretchen M. Spreitzer
As employment relationships become more tenuous, as work grows increasingly virtual and as professional reputations circulate across online platforms, coworking provides individuals across various work arrangements with shared workspaces oriented towards sociability, visibility and convenience. Our study explores how coworking spaces also enable individuals to shape their professional identities while
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Theorising labour unrest and trade unionism in the platform economy New Technol. Work Employ. (IF 4.182) Pub Date : 2022-07-15 Simon Joyce, Mark Stuart, Chris Forde
The article develops a novel conceptualisation of labour unrest and trade unionism in the platform economy, extending current understandings in two ways. First, we situate platform work historically, in the longue durée of paid work under capitalism. Secondly, we introduce a consideration of social structure into debates on union practices often framed in terms of agency. Building on Silver and the
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Parasitic universes: Organisational and technological meddling in the social New Technol. Work Employ. (IF 4.182) Pub Date : 2022-07-11 Simon Bailey, Marc Lenglet, Gemma Lord, Dean Pierides, Daniel Tischer
Debates about technology theorising ‘the social’ solely on dyadic and fixed positional terms fail to grasp important ways that new financial technologies participate in work organisations. As an alternative, we build on the work of Michel Serres to propose that these technologies already inhabit triadic and relational parasitic universes in which they introduce interruptions that do much more than
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Disconnecting labour: The impact of intraplatform algorithmic changes on the labour process and workers' capacity to organise collectively New Technol. Work Employ. (IF 4.182) Pub Date : 2022-07-04 Pedro Mendonça, Nadia K. Kougiannou
This article examines how gig economy platform companies, via algorithmic management, shape working conditions and collective organisation of food delivery couriers. Using qualitative data from one case study operating in a city in the United Kingdom, the study captures real-time intraplatform unilateral changes in algorithmic management to provide increased flexibility for couriers. Findings show
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COVID-19, economic crises and digitalisation: How algorithmic management became an alternative to automation New Technol. Work Employ. (IF 4.182) Pub Date : 2022-05-23 Simon Schaupp
The COVID-19 crisis witnessed a major rise in investment in software for the digital organisation and rationalisation of work, while investment in robotics is continuously lagging behind expectations. This article argues that we can understand this development as the continuation of the rise of algorithmic management as a technological fix for profitability crises. Thus, in the face of falling wage
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Social relations and employees' rejection of working from home: A social exchange perspective New Technol. Work Employ. (IF 4.182) Pub Date : 2022-05-23 Alexandra Mergener, Miriam Trübner
Why do employees prefer working on-site rather than working from home (WfH)? This article examines how personal concerns at the level of social relationships affect rejection of WfH. Using a large-scale representative survey of employees in Germany (N = 4448), we apply logistic regression analyses to examine, first, the association between employees' social relationships at work and rejection of WfH
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One of many roads to industry 4.0? Technology, policy, organisational adaptation and worker experience in ‘Third Italy’ SMEs New Technol. Work Employ. (IF 4.182) Pub Date : 2022-04-28 Barbara Da Roit, Francesco E. Iannuzzi
Industry 4.0 (I4.0) is a technological framework and policy programme that emerged in Germany in the 2010s, promising to revitalise manufacturing and revalue work by means of intelligent productive systems. The paradigm's cross-national diffusion raises questions about its context-dependent adaptation. This article focuses on the Italian I4.0 programme and its implementation among medium-sized manufacturing
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Who is leading the digital transformation? Understanding the adoption of digital technologies in Germany New Technol. Work Employ. (IF 4.182) Pub Date : 2022-04-27 Clemens Ohlert, Oliver Giering, Stefan Kirchner
Debates on digitalisation in Germany often refer to ‘Industrie 4.0’ describing a seamless and technology-driven process spearheaded by manufacturing. This view conflicts with sociological arguments, assuming highly differentiated processes of digitalisation. We review the literature and empirically test the core assumption that digital technologies relate to organisational characteristics and that
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Automation and the future of work: A social shaping of technology approach New Technol. Work Employ. (IF 4.182) Pub Date : 2022-04-10 Debra Howcroft, Phil Taylor
Recent years have seen enormous attention paid to automation and its potential implications for the future of work. This study rejects unhelpful speculation and, instead, poses the question ‘what is shaping automation and its predicted effects?’ In contrast to the technological determinism framing much of the current debate, this study utilises the social shaping of technology (SST) approach, a theoretically
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The role of the capability, opportunity, and motivation of firms for using human resource analytics to monitor employee performance: A multi-level analysis of the organisational, market, and country context New Technol. Work Employ. (IF 4.182) Pub Date : 2022-04-07 Barbara Bechter, Bernd Brandl, Alex Lehr
The digitalisation of business processes has led to the availability of (big) data which increasingly allows firms to analyse their workforce using HR analytics. On the basis of a cross-national multi-level analysis and a data set that covers more than 20,000 firms in all member states of the European Union we investigate the reasons why some firms make use of human resource (HR) analytics to monitor
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Gender and precarity in platform work: Old inequalities in the new world of work New Technol. Work Employ. (IF 4.182) Pub Date : 2022-03-21 Christine Gerber
Platform work creates a work model that is both a curse and a blessing for vulnerable labour market segments. Based on research on female precarity, the article expects that remote platform work—so-called crowdwork—could especially attract women who need to combine income and care responsibilities. This article investigates whether women experience more precarity on crowdwork platforms than men, and
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Putting the university to work: The subsumption of academic labour in UK's shift to digital higher education New Technol. Work Employ. (IF 4.182) Pub Date : 2022-03-21 Mariya Ivancheva, Brian Garvey
This paper considers how the formal and real subsumption of academic labour in UK higher education are exposed and exacerbated by the move towards online teaching, assessment and communication. These processes have been expedited by the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak and attention is drawn to the technology-driven organisational and operational innovations that are transforming academic divisions of labour
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A Very Short, Fairly Interesting and Reasonably Cheap Book about GlobalizationLeoMcCannSage Publications LTD (UK). (2018) 160 pages, £15.99 paperback, £49.99 hardcover New Technol. Work Employ. (IF 4.182) Pub Date : 2022-03-09 Andrew Kozhevnikov
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The combustible mix of coalitional and discursive power: British trade unions, social media and the People's Assembly Against Austerity New Technol. Work Employ. (IF 4.182) Pub Date : 2022-03-09 Torsten Geelan
This article investigates how the British trade union movement sought to challenge the politics of austerity after the North Atlantic financial crisis of 2008 by founding a union-led coalition: the People's Assembly Against Austerity. To lay the ground for the study, it redefines the concept of discursive power as the capacity of trade unions to influence the public debate by producing and self-mediating
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Digital intrusions or distraction at work and work-Life conflict New Technol. Work Employ. (IF 4.182) Pub Date : 2022-02-23 Farveh Farivar, Osveh Esmaeelinezhad, Julia Richardson
Internet usage for non-work activities during work hours is an increasingly common concern among management scholars and practitioners as well as for employees, particularly in relation to its impact on work-life conflict and individual well-being. Drawing on memory for goals theory, this study investigates the distinction between digital intrusions and digital interruptions during work and their concomitant
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Charting platform capitalism: Definitions, concepts and ideologies New Technol. Work Employ. (IF 4.182) Pub Date : 2022-02-23 Yin Liang, Jeremy Aroles, Bernd Brandl
The term ‘platform capitalism’ captures a dynamic set of new work modalities that are mediated by platforms and have been brought about through advances in Information and Communication Technologies, adjustments in consumption modes and preferences, and changes in how work is conceived. Beyond work-related changes, the ascent of platform capitalism reflects wider societal and political as well as economic
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What's wrong with work? Lynne Pettinger Bristol, England: Policy Press. (2019). 230pp. AUS$33.68. Paperback. New Technol. Work Employ. (IF 4.182) Pub Date : 2022-02-08 Xiaochen Liang
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Information systems in nurses' work: Technical rationality versus an ethic of care New Technol. Work Employ. (IF 4.182) Pub Date : 2022-02-07 Minna Salminen-Karlsson, Diane Golay
Nurses increasingly interact with health information systems (HIS) in their daily work. This article examines how the problems that they confront in that interaction can be understood through the theoretical concepts of technical rationality and an ethic of care. The findings are based on a qualitative study of nurses in one Swedish hospital. They suggest that HIS did not support the holistic care
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Technology in care systems: Displacing, reshaping, reinstating or degrading roles? New Technol. Work Employ. (IF 4.182) Pub Date : 2022-02-06 Kate A. Hamblin
In the United Kingdom and further afield, policy discourse has focused on the efficiencies technology will afford the care sector by increasing workforce capacity at a time when there are recruitment and retention issues. Previous research has explored the impact of telecare and other technologies on roles within the care sector, but issues related to job quality and the consequences of newer digital
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Corrigendum New Technol. Work Employ. (IF 4.182) Pub Date : 2022-02-03
In (1) the corresponding author's surname was not included. The corresponding author's name has now been updated with the addition of her surname, ‘Parth’. The online version has also been corrected. Parth, S. & Bathini, D.R (2021). Microtargeting control: Explicating algorithmic control and nudges in platform-mediated cab diving in India. Network Technology, Work and Employment, 36(1), 74–93.
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Reconsidering digital labour: Bringing tech workers into the debate New Technol. Work Employ. (IF 4.182) Pub Date : 2022-01-11 Robert Dorschel
The digital labour debate has produced manifold insights into new forms of work emerging within digital capitalism. So far, though, most research has focused on highly precarious labourers, neglecting the growing ranks of affluent ‘tech workers’. I argue that this analytical oversight can be attributed to a narrow conceptualisation of digital labour. Thus, this article first proposes a broadening of
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Organisation, technological change and skills use over time: A longitudinal study on linked employee surveys New Technol. Work Employ. (IF 4.182) Pub Date : 2021-12-31 Steven Dhondt, Karolus O. Kraan, Michiel Bal
The impact of technological change on the content of jobs and accompanying skills is a central topic across disciplines. To date, ample research has directly linked the technological change to shifts in skills use; however, organisational change is rarely considered as an influencing factor. Based on a panel survey, this paper uses a Luhmannian approach to understand the relationship between technological
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Engineering the revolution? Imagining the role of new digital technologies in infrastructure work futures New Technol. Work Employ. (IF 4.182) Pub Date : 2021-12-15 Pauline Leonard, Roger Tyers
Contemporary imaginations of the impact of new digital technologies (NDTS) are dominated by utopian visions of a ‘revolution’ in productivity and efficiency, contrasted with dystopian views of declines of work and human skills, and distrust of artificial intelligence's efficacy. This article explores imaginations of digital futures in the infrastructure sector through case study research of a global
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Pacesetters in contemporary telework: How smartphones and mediated presence reshape the time–space rhythms of daily work New Technol. Work Employ. (IF 4.182) Pub Date : 2021-11-19 Eva Thulin, Bertil Vilhelmson
We examine how mobile information and communication technologies (ICTs) and mediated interaction transform daily work activity in contemporary, extended telework. We expand on the concepts of mediated bundles and pacesetters to understand how the rhythms and employee control of work activity change. We draw on in-depth interviews with 22 teleworkers with varying skills and work tasks. We find that
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Actions in phygital space: Work solidarity and collective action among app-based cab drivers in India New Technol. Work Employ. (IF 4.182) Pub Date : 2021-11-16 Shalini Parth, Dharma Raju Bathini, George Kandathil
This study delineates the microprocesses of solidarity development and the subsequent collective actions of gig workers in India amidst multiple structural constraints. Using netnography, semi-structured interviews and direct observation, we show how digitally naive app-based cab drivers amalgamate physical and digital spaces, construct a phygital space free of managerial gaze and leverage it to bond
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Group-based instant messaging in Finnish residential elder care work: Taming the technology or vice versa? New Technol. Work Employ. (IF 4.182) Pub Date : 2021-11-06 Helena Hirvonen, Mia Tammelin, Antti Hämäläinen, Sakari Taipale
As new communication technologies become embedded in care work, there is a need to understand how they affect its temporal order. This article analyses group-based mobile instant messaging (IM) in residential elder care work in Finland. The article asks (i) how care workers use group-based messaging for work; and (ii) how they negotiate the rules for its use. Theoretically, the article draws on science
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Enhanced job satisfaction under tighter technological control: The paradoxical outcomes of digitalisation New Technol. Work Employ. (IF 4.182) Pub Date : 2021-10-30 Nidhi S. Bisht, Clive Trusson, Juliana Siwale, M. N. Ravishankar
Via a multiple case study of work in microfinance institutions in India, this paper reports on the experiences of field officers and branch managers following work digitalisation. It identifies and explains an intriguing post-digitalisation paradox of reported increased job satisfaction and tighter technological control diminishing branch managers' work-life balance. The paradox draws attention to
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