Thematics & GTAIM > Work and digital

Work and Digital

The second edition of this thematic session intends to explore the multiple links between work and the digital world, based on research with varied methodologies and open to contributions from different disciplines (from Management Sciences and beyond).

The aim is to look at the construction of technological dynamics in the digital domain and their consequences on work, organisations and their actors.

A first line of questioning concerns the work of individuals and organisational actors who develop, design and deploy digital tools: from the activity of researchers and R&D engineers in the Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) sector, to the roles of CIOs and the way in which work can also come to question them (cf. planned themes).

It is then a question of furthering the understanding and analysis of the way in which digital technologies are shaking up work in a very large number of professions, questioning skills and modes of organisation and management. Detailed empirical studies would make it possible to support both the destabilization caused by digital technologies at the individual or collective level, but also the way in which this opens up new perspectives for individuals, professional groups and organizations that manage to seize them.

A particular reflection can also be developed on the question of the impact of the explosion of data and its governance on professions and skills. The increasingly strategic (and even sensitive) nature of data requires the implementation of good practices in the management of digital data and the development of specific skills in this field. For example, how do European and French policy on Open Science and recent regulations impact on the profession of researcher?

The aim here is not to consider digital technology in a deterministic way, but on the contrary to shed light on the multiplicity of transformation dynamics and to consider the links between work and digital technology in an iterative and recursive way, envisaging the phenomena of appropriation, reinvention, diversion, decoupling, etc. between uses and tools.

This thematic session aims to provide a forum for reflection on the burning questions raised by the digital world at work, and vice versa. A multidisciplinary perspective will be favoured to allow for an understanding of the different facets of the transformations underway and to encourage the always rich exchanges between researchers from various disciplines (IS and other sub-disciplines of management sciences, sociology, political sciences, ergonomics, psychology or economic sciences).

The session also intends to unite researchers around a common interest in the theme of "Work & Digital", which could foreshadow the future creation of an AIM thematic group and the launch of collective publication projects.

Envisaged themes

• How do these technologies change work at an individual and collective level?
• To what extent do they contribute to the formation of new work collectives and the dissemination of collaborative practices?
• What impact do they have on skills, employability, career paths, the meaning of work and the quality of life at work?
• How do individuals and organisations cope with these transformations, which can either weaken or strengthen individual and collective capacities?
• How does digital technology transform the spatial and temporal aspects of work?
• How does management (at different levels of the hierarchy) understand these changes, accompany them and transform itself?
• What role can other stakeholders, such as trade unions, public authorities or actors in the training system, play in these transformation processes?

Track leaders :

Aurelie Girard (Aurelie.Girard@univ-nantes.fr)

Pierre Loup (pierre.loup@umontpellier.fr)

Florence Nande florence.nande@umontpellier.fr

Marie-Laure Weber marie-laure.weber@umontpellier.fr