The concept of work in CSCW

Transcription

1 The concept of work in CSCW University of Oslo, 13 March 2012 Kjeld Schmidt Copenhagen Business School

2 The agenda CSCW s research program Myths and realities of work The concept of work

3 The agenda CSCW s research program Myths and realities of work The concept of work The issue of work in CSCW: Panels at ECSCW 2003, 2007, 2009; Crabtree et al., 2005, 2009; Brown & Barkhuus, 2007; Debate at CSCW 2010 (and after).

4 Moving with the times away from work CSCW should move its focus away from work or widen its focus (Crabtree et al. 2005) for IT is increasingly used in ludic activities and CSCW concepts can be applied to ludic activities hence CSCW must follow in order not to become a historical curiosity

5 CSCW: quick recap (1) Proto-CSCW Computer-mediated communications (CMC): , instant messaging, computer conferencing Groupware, Collaborative Work Environments : CMC + shared repository Generic protocols of message and file exchange The model breaks down in complex work practices: cannot be integrated with work tools (Greif, 1988)

6 CSCW: quick recap (2) Coordination technologies (workflow, document, project management systems) Designed to regulate interaction in complex practices but cannot be mutually integrated and coordinative protocols cannot be controlled by workers The role of ethnography: understand coordinative practices

7 CSCW s research program Understand coordinative practices in complex work domains, so as to uncover logics of coordinative practices develop coordinative technologies beyond generic protocols of messaging and file sharing enable ordinary workers to control computational regulation of interaction

8 The socio-economic context Emerging global economy facilitated by communications and coordination technologies (with a little help from the CCP) But the separation* of coordination and execution of work is a brake on the development of advanced production (in manufacturing and health care as well as in scientific work) CSCW as a movement to reduce this separation. * Separation or rupture between mental and manual labor in the actual social organization of work (Bukharin, 1931)

9 Work: myths and realities

10 Cao Fei: Whose Utopia? (2006) Myths Post-industrial society Leisure society Information society Knowledge economy Weightless economy Service economy Anonymous

11 Source: Richard Florida s Martin Prosperity Institute, University of Toronto s Rotman School of Management, 2011

12 Reality check Manufacturing vs. agriculture: a false analogy Services: a useless concept Employment statistics of the OECD: a provincial point of view OECD: mio. manufacturing workers China: >120 mio. manufacturing workers An industrial revolution on an unprecedented scale (Castells 1996) Post-industrial society, a.k.a. regional decay

13 The concept of work Jan Vermeer: The lacemaker, Musée du Louvre, Paris

14 Work : what do we mean? Paid work? Voluntary work? Domestic work? Work at a designated workplace Mobile work? Industrial work? Office work? Home work? Interpretation work? The work of understanding an utterance?

15 Gilbert Ryle Ryle & James Urmson One of Ryle s leisure pursuits and recreations is gardening; I should never be surprised to hear that he has spent the afternoon working in his garden. But perhaps I ought to be surprised when I hear this, for if gardening is his recreation how can he be working when he is gardening? (Urmson) Urmson

16 Ryle and Urmson on work U: Hello Gilbert R: Hello Jim We haven t seen U: Hard at work, or relaxing? R: Not working very hard. Let me just get to the end of this and I ll stretch and then we can go and sit, and I can feel that I ve done my day s work U: if it s work? R: if it s work? Anyhow, compared to so many other things, it s a a treat rather than a pain.

17 Ryle and Urmson on work U: Hello Gilbert R: Hello Jim We haven t seen U: Hard at work, or relaxing? R: Not working very hard. Let me just get to the end of this and I ll stretch and then we can go and sit, and I can feel that I ve done my day s work U: if it s work? R: if it s work? Anyhow, compared to so many other things, it s a a treat rather than a pain.

18 Gilbert Ryle Ryle & James Urmson Work is a polymorphous concept. There is nothing which must be going on in one piece of work which need to be going on in another. Nothing answers to the general description of what work consists of. (Ryle) Urmson

19 Gilbert Ryle & James Urmson Ryle Primary cases of work designate activities that are considered necessary or useful the fruits of labor (food, clothing, timber, tools, machines) or some other reward (recognition, salary). Secondary cases of work are those which resemble reasonably closely in action-content typical and common forms of work. (Urmson) Urmson

20 Working In sum,. working is a polymorphous concept (like practicing, waiting, thinking ): not a specifiable set of characteristics common to all instances (like baking, cooking, walking ) working : a thick description (Ryle) designates certain circumstances of an activity (Ryle and Urmson) Which means working does not imply a certain location, form of remuneration and ownership, kind of product, degree of routine, etc. but work can be more or less constrained, hence more or less work-like, due to circumstances: viz. cooperative work

21 The ordinary concept of work Working:: activities that serve practical purposes (necessities of life, etc.) presume mastery of a host of technicalities typically require effort and stamina Medieval brewery

22 Johnny Cash & Karl Marx It s work, Mister, it demands the best. (1970) Really free working, such as composing music, is at the same time the most damned seriousness, the most intense exertion. (1858)

23 Alfred Schütz Schutz: On multiple realities (1945) The natural attitude : a pragmatic motive governs our natural attitude toward the world of daily life. We have an eminently practical interest in [work], caused by the necessity of complying with the basic requirements of our life. Finite provinces of meaning : the world of dreams, of imageries and phantasms, especially the world of art, the world of religious experiences, the world of scientific contemplation, the play world of the child, and the world of the insane. The world of working in daily life is the archetype of our experience of reality. All the other provinces of meaning may be considered its modifications.

24 Why work? Argument #1 Cooperative work involves sophisticated coordinative practices awareness practices: embodied techniques of heeding the state of affairs workflows, schedules, procedures classification schemes, nomenclatures, notations The key problem for CSCW is to develop technologies that support such coordinative practices. Abandoning (or widening ) this focus means giving up on this problem

25 Practice Practice vs. theory ( rules ) practices are normatively constituted: This is not how we do that! practices are upheld, taught, reconsidered, and, sometimes, adapted or abandoned Practice vs. culture, custom, habit, etc.: practice is an activity-concept: practices are performed a culture etc. is acquired, a practice is mastered through practicing Practice vs. activity : practice is a species of activity: regularly occurring, rule-governed activities Coordinative practices are (typically) highly sophisticated constructs.

26 Why work? Argument #2: In general: The daily lives of billions! Specifically: The separation of coordination and execution of work hampers economic development In other words: Since when was the social responsibility of scientists abolished? CSCW in league with Participatory Design and (some of) Knowledge Management?

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