The difficulties of a different way of working
A recently published research study looks at labour organisation on digital platforms, including their social aspects
Digitalisation of production and, as such, of labour – not just a mere technological shift, but something that is more complex and deep-rooted, that needs to be investigated in order to better understand its scope and future, starting from the notion that any technology will always entail a social foundation. Marco Marrone (researcher in sociology of economics and labour at the University of Salento) explores this tangle of ideas in his research study entitled
“La piattaformizzazione dello spazio-tempo. Appunti per una teoria della relatività organizzativa” (“Turning space and time into digital platforms. Notes for an organisational theory of relativity”), published a few weeks ago in Labour and Law Issues. His contribution represents an attempt to think logically, from a social perspective, about the various labour organisational models that, over time, have succeeded one another in the entrepreneurial world. Marrone, however, does not look at the past but starts from the present, examining the organisational innovations that digital platforms have introduced and linking their analysis to the historical evolution of labour organisation.
“From this perspective,” writes Marrone, “digital platforms do not merely arise as the result of the new potential offered by digital technologies, but as the outcome of a more articulated and dynamic social process.”
The author, then, outlines the evolutions of the different organisation models that have been adopted in the industrial sphere (from Fordism to network capitalism, to the rise of digital platforms), highlighting how all these transformations achieve the same goal when meeting any social and political rationale: “To control labour”. Thus, according to Marrone, digital platforms appear as “the latest element of these transformations, and can fracture the spatial and temporal coordinates” of production processes. In other words, Marrone believes that, today, digitalisation has made it easier to control labour, even if people can now work in different and non-traditional places. This leads to a production culture that is radically different from the past but that, however, should not be seen as absolute – in fact, the researcher writes that “Platforms do not seem to be fully in control of their destiny” as workers demanding their independence and rights are increasingly “mobilising”. Indeed, these facts emphasise how much the digitalisation of labour organisation is undergoing changes, both in material and in legal terms. Hence, the culture of production organisation continues to be a complex outcome of technology and humanity, difficult to define with accuracy and, as such, still a very intriguing feature of corporate life.
La piattaformizzazione dello spazio-tempo. Appunti per una teoria della relatività organizzativa (“Turning space and time into digital platforms. Notes for an organisational theory of relativity”)
Marco Marrone, University of Salento, researcher in sociology of economics and labour
Labour and Law Issues, vol. 8, no. 1, 2022
A recently published research study looks at labour organisation on digital platforms, including their social aspects
Digitalisation of production and, as such, of labour – not just a mere technological shift, but something that is more complex and deep-rooted, that needs to be investigated in order to better understand its scope and future, starting from the notion that any technology will always entail a social foundation. Marco Marrone (researcher in sociology of economics and labour at the University of Salento) explores this tangle of ideas in his research study entitled
“La piattaformizzazione dello spazio-tempo. Appunti per una teoria della relatività organizzativa” (“Turning space and time into digital platforms. Notes for an organisational theory of relativity”), published a few weeks ago in Labour and Law Issues. His contribution represents an attempt to think logically, from a social perspective, about the various labour organisational models that, over time, have succeeded one another in the entrepreneurial world. Marrone, however, does not look at the past but starts from the present, examining the organisational innovations that digital platforms have introduced and linking their analysis to the historical evolution of labour organisation.
“From this perspective,” writes Marrone, “digital platforms do not merely arise as the result of the new potential offered by digital technologies, but as the outcome of a more articulated and dynamic social process.”
The author, then, outlines the evolutions of the different organisation models that have been adopted in the industrial sphere (from Fordism to network capitalism, to the rise of digital platforms), highlighting how all these transformations achieve the same goal when meeting any social and political rationale: “To control labour”. Thus, according to Marrone, digital platforms appear as “the latest element of these transformations, and can fracture the spatial and temporal coordinates” of production processes. In other words, Marrone believes that, today, digitalisation has made it easier to control labour, even if people can now work in different and non-traditional places. This leads to a production culture that is radically different from the past but that, however, should not be seen as absolute – in fact, the researcher writes that “Platforms do not seem to be fully in control of their destiny” as workers demanding their independence and rights are increasingly “mobilising”. Indeed, these facts emphasise how much the digitalisation of labour organisation is undergoing changes, both in material and in legal terms. Hence, the culture of production organisation continues to be a complex outcome of technology and humanity, difficult to define with accuracy and, as such, still a very intriguing feature of corporate life.
La piattaformizzazione dello spazio-tempo. Appunti per una teoria della relatività organizzativa (“Turning space and time into digital platforms. Notes for an organisational theory of relativity”)
Marco Marrone, University of Salento, researcher in sociology of economics and labour
Labour and Law Issues, vol. 8, no. 1, 2022