A matter of control? Managerial strategies of digitalisation and workers’ autonomy

Abstract

As a consequence of the digital transformation of work, the relationship between autonomy and heteronomy in the work process is being renegotiated. In the industrial sector in particular, the autonomy and decision-making latitude of production workers are reframed by the rise of digital technology. In that context, the potential of new technologies for increased control has often been interpreted as evidence of the de facto restriction of workers’ autonomy in the digitised working world. In contrast, the paper proposes a conceptual perspective that focuses on managerial strategies underlying the implementation of digital technologies. Based on qualitative empirical research from three industrial companies, the article proposes a typology of managerial strategies that permits differentiating four variants of performance control. Drawing on two empirical cases of real-time-transparency-systems being implemented, the paper shows how a supposedly prototypical control scenario is to be re-evaluated: The introduction of these systems was primarily guided by process-oriented rationalisation strategies that went along with increased demands for self-organisation and personal responsibility. When compared to the frequently portrayed control regimes of a kind of “Digital Taylorism”, this does not, however, result in less, but in different forms of stress and heteronomy for the employees.