Author(s):
- Kasper Trolle Elmholdt
- Claus Elmholdt
- Lars Haahr
Abstract:
Existing perspectives on normative and aspirational control have undertheorised how digital technologies such as digital self-tracking might alter what kinds of control is possible in the workplace. This article remedies this lack by studying the affordances of digital self-tracking in the workplace. Empirically, we draw on a case study of digital sleeptracking in relation to a well-being initiative in a private energy company, Encorp. Our analysis reveals how digital self-tracking affords body visibility and remote management but also creates affordance opacity and an ambiguous space of autonomy and control. We theorise how digital self-tracking in the workplace both enables new forms of aspirational control, and creates ambiguity and new limits to control. We conclude by discussing challenges and opportunities for future research on digital self-tracking in the workplace.
Documentation:
https://doi.org/10.1177/1350508420970475
References:
| Alcadipani, R., Islam, G. (2017) ‘Modalities of Opposition: Control and Resistance via Visual Materiality’, Organization 24(6): 866–91. Google Scholar | SAGE Journals | ISI | |
| Alvesson, M., Willmott, H. (2002) ‘Identity Regulation as Organizational Control: Producing the Appropriate Individual’, Journal of Management Studies 39(5): 619–44. Google Scholar | Crossref | ISI | |
| Anteby, M., Chan, C. K. (2018) A Self-Fulfilling Cycle of Coercive Surveillance: Workers’ Invisibility Practices and Managerial Justification’, Organization Science 29(2): 247–63. Google Scholar | Crossref | |
| Ash, J. (2017) Phase Media: Space, Time and the Politics of Smart Objects. London: Bloomsbury Publishing. Google Scholar | |
| Bader, V., Kaiser, S. (2019) ‘Algorithmic Decision-Making? The User Interface and Its Role for Human Involvement in Decisions Supported by Artificial Intelligence’, Organization 26(5): 655–72. Google Scholar | SAGE Journals | ISI | |
| Barley, S. R., Kunda, G. (1992) ‘Design and Devotion: Surges of Rational and Normative Ideologies of Control in Managerial Discourse’, Administrative Science Quarterly 37(3): 363–99. Google Scholar | Crossref | ISI | |
| Barnes, C. M., Lucianetti, L., Bhave, D. P., et al. (2015) ‘“You Wouldn’t Like Me When I’m Sleepy’: Leaders’ Sleep, Daily Abusive Supervision, and Work Unit Engagement’, Academy of Management Journal 58(5): 1419–37. Google Scholar | Crossref | |
| Bell, E., Vachhani, S. J. (2020) ‘Relational Encounters and Vital Materiality in the Practice of Craft Work’, Organization Studies 41(5): 681–701. Google Scholar | SAGE Journals | ISI | |
| Bencherki, N., Trolle Elmholdt, K. (2020) The Organization’s Synaptic Mode of Existence: How a Hospital Merger is Many Things at Once, Organization. Published online before print October 8, doi: 10.1177/1350508420962025 Google Scholar | SAGE Journals | |
| Beverungen, A., Beyes, T., Conrad, L. (2019) ‘The Organizational Powers of (Digital) Media’, Organization 26(5): 621–35. Google Scholar | SAGE Journals | ISI | |
| Beverungen, A., Böhm, S., Land, C. (2015) ‘Free Labour, Social Media, Management: Challenging Marxist Organization Studies’, Organization Studies 36(4): 473–89. Google Scholar | SAGE Journals | ISI | |
| Bloomfield, B. P., Latham, Y., Vurdubakis, T. (2010) ‘Bodies, Technologies and Action Possibilities: When Is an Affordance?’, Sociology 44(3): 415–33. Google Scholar | SAGE Journals | ISI | |
| Brinkmann, S. (2013) Qualitative Interviewing. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar | Crossref | |
| Bucher, T. (2018) If. . . Then: Algorithmic Power and Politics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar | Crossref | |
| Calvo, R. A., Peters, D. (2014) Positive Computing: Technology for Wellbeing and Human Potential. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Google Scholar | Crossref | |
| Cederström, C., Spicer, A. (2015) The Wellness Syndrome. Cambridge: Polity Press. Google Scholar | |
| Charitsis, V. (2016) ‘Prosuming (the) Self’, Ephemera: Theory and Politics in Organization 16(3): 37–59. Google Scholar | |
| Charmaz, K., Belgrave, L. (2012) ‘Qualitative Interviewing and Grounded Theory Analysis’, in Gubrium, J. F., Holstein, J. A., Marvasti, A. B., et al. (eds) The SAGE Handbook of Interview Research: The Complexity of the Craft. 2nd ed, pp. 347–65. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE. Google Scholar | Crossref | |
| Christin, A. (2020) ‘What Data Can Do: A Typology of Mechanisms’, International Journal of Communication 14: 1115–34. Google Scholar | |
| Costas, J., Kärreman, D. (2013) ‘Conscience as Control–Managing Employees through CSR’, Organization 20(3): 394–415. Google Scholar | SAGE Journals | ISI | |
| Curchod, C., Patriotta, G., Cohen, L., et al. (2019) ‘Working for an Algorithm: Power Asymmetries and Agency in Online Work Settings’, Administrative Science Quarterly 65(3): 644–76. Google Scholar | SAGE Journals | |
| Dar, S., Ibrahim, Y. (2019) ‘The Blackened Body and White Governmentality: Managing the UK Academy and the Production of Shame’, Gender, Work and Organization 26(9): 1241–54. Google Scholar | Crossref | |
| Davies, W. (2019) ‘The Political Economy of Pulse: Techno-Somatic Rhythm and Real-Time Data’, Ephemera 18(4): 513–536. Google Scholar | |
| Davis, J. L., Chouinard, J. B. (2016) ‘Theorizing Affordances: From Request to Refuse’, Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society 36(4): 241–8. Google Scholar | SAGE Journals | |
| Dudhwala, F., Larsen, L. B. (2019) ‘Recalibration in Counting and Accounting Practices: Dealing with Algorithmic Output in Public and Private’, Big Data & Society. Published online before print July 17, doi: 10.1177/2053951719858751. Google Scholar | SAGE Journals | |
| Ekman, S. (2014) ‘Is the High-Involvement Worker Precarious or Opportunistic? Hierarchical Ambiguities in Late Capitalism’, Organization 21(2): 141–58. Google Scholar | SAGE Journals | ISI | |
| Elmholdt, K. T., Clausen, R. T. J., Madsen, M. T. (2018) ‘Seductive Atmospheres: Using Tools to Effectuate Spaces for Leadership Development’, Journal of Change Management 18(4): 257–280. Google Scholar | Crossref | |
| Ettlinger, N. (2018) ‘Algorithmic Affordances for Productive Resistance’, Big Data & Society. Published online before print April 25, doi: 10.1177/2053951718771399. Google Scholar | SAGE Journals | |
| Faraj, S., Azad, B. (2012) ‘The Materiality of Technology: An Affordance Perspective’, in Leonardi, P., Nardi, B., Kallinikos, J. (eds) Materiality and Organizing: Social Interaction in a Technological World, pp. 237–58. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar | Crossref | |
| Faraj, S., Pachidi, S., Sayegh, K. (2018) ‘Working and Organizing in the Age of the Learning Algorithm’, Information and Organization 28(1): 62–70. Google Scholar | Crossref | |
| Fleming, P., Sturdy, A. (2011) ‘Being Yourself’ in the Electronic Sweatshop: New Forms of Normative Control’, Human Relations 64(2): 177–200. Google Scholar | SAGE Journals | ISI | |
| Flyvbjerg, B. (2006) ‘Five Misunderstandings About Case-Study Research’, Qualitative Inquiry 12(2): 219–45. Google Scholar | SAGE Journals | ISI | |
| Flyverbom, M. (2019) The Digital Prism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar | Crossref | |
| Galloway, A. R. (2004) Protocol: How Control Exists After Decentralization. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Google Scholar | Crossref | |
| Gibson, J. J. (2015) The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception: Classic Edition. New York, NY: Psychology Press. Google Scholar | |
| Gond, J. P., Cabantous, L., Krikorian, F. (2018) ‘How Do Things Become Strategic? “Strategifying” Corporate Social Responsibility’, Strategic Organization 16(3): 241–72. Google Scholar | SAGE Journals | ISI | |
| Hayles, N. K. (2017) Unthought: The Power of the Cognitive Nonconscious. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Google Scholar | Crossref | |
| Hong, S. H. (2020) Technologies of Speculation: The Limits of Knowledge in a Data-Driven Society. New York: New York University Press. Google Scholar | Crossref | |
| Ivanova, M., Von Scheve, C. (2019) ‘Power Through Empowerment? The Managerial Discourse on Employee Empowerment’, Organization 27(6): 777–96. Google Scholar | SAGE Journals | |
| Jenkins, S., Delbridge, R. (2014) ‘In Pursuit of Happiness: A Sociological Examination of Employee Identifications Amongst a ‘Happy’ Call-Centre Workforce’, Organization 21(6): 867–87. Google Scholar | SAGE Journals | ISI | |
| Jenkins, S., Delbridge, R. (2017) ‘Neo-Normative Control and Value Discretion in Interactive Service Work: A Case Study’, in Vallas, S. P. (ed.) Emerging Conceptions of Work, Management and the Labor Market (Research in the Sociology of Work, vol. 30), pp. 59–85. Bingley: Emerald Publishing Limited. Google Scholar | Crossref | |
| Joerges, B. (1999) ‘Do Politics Have Artefacts’, Social Studies of Science 29(3): 411–31. Google Scholar | SAGE Journals | ISI | |
| Kellogg, K. C., Valentine, M. A., Christin, A. (2020) ‘Algorithms at Work: The New Contested Terrain of Control’, Academy of Management Annals 14(1): 366–410. Google Scholar | Crossref | |
| Klag, M., Langley, A. (2013) ‘Approaching the Conceptual Leap in Qualitative Research’, International Journal of Management Reviews 15(2): 149–66. Google Scholar | Crossref | ISI | |
| Kvale, S., Brinkmann, S. (2009) Interview: Introduktion til et håndværk. Copenhagen: Hans Reitzel. Google Scholar | |
| Lamont, M., Swidler, A. (2014) ‘Methodological Pluralism and the Possibilities and Limits of Interviewing’, Qualitative Sociology 37(2): 153–71. Google Scholar | Crossref | ISI | |
| Leonardi, P. M., Bailey, D. E., Pierce, C. S. (2019) ‘The Coevolution of Objects and Boundaries Over Time: Materiality, Affordances, and Boundary Salience’, Information Systems Research 30(2): 665–86. Google Scholar | Crossref | |
| Lewis, P., Simpson, R. (2012) ‘Kanter Revisited: Gender, Power and (In) Visibility’, International Journal of Management Reviews 14(2): 141–58. Google Scholar | Crossref | ISI | |
| Lupton, D. (2016a) The Quantified Self: A Sociology of Self-Tracking. Cambridge: Polity Press. Google Scholar | |
| Lupton, D. (2016b) ‘The Diverse Domains of Quantified Selves: Self-Tracking Modes and Dataveillance’, Economy and Society 45(1): 101–22. Google Scholar | Crossref | ISI | |
| Lupton, D. (2018) ‘How Do Data Come to Matter? Living and Becoming with Personal Data’, Big Data & Society. Published online before print July 5, doi: 10.1177/2053951718786314. Google Scholar | SAGE Journals | |
| Majumder, S., Mondal, T., Deen, M. J. (2017) ‘Wearable Sensors for Remote Health Monitoring’, Sensors 17(1): 130. Google Scholar | Crossref | |
| Manley, A., Williams, S. (2019) ‘We’re Not Run on Numbers, We’re People, We’re Emotional People’: Exploring the Experiences and Lived Consequences of Emerging Technologies, Organizational Surveillance and Control among Elite Professionals’, Organization. Published online before print December 6, doi: 10.1177/1350508419890078. Google Scholar | SAGE Journals | |
| Mann, S., Ferenbok, J. (2013) ‘New Media and the Power Politics of Sousveillance in a Surveillance-Dominated World’, Surveillance & Society 11(12): 18–34. Google Scholar | Crossref | |
| Mau, S. (2019) The Metric Society: On the Quantification of the Social. Cambridge: John Wiley & Sons. Google Scholar | |
| McCabe, D. (2016) ‘Numericalizing the Other: A Critical Analysis of a Strategy Discourse in a UK Bank’, Organization 23(4): 525–549. Google Scholar | SAGE Journals | ISI | |
| Moore, P., Robinson, A. (2016) ‘The Quantified Self: What Counts in the Neoliberal Workplace’, New Media & Society 18(11): 2774–92. Google Scholar | SAGE Journals | ISI | |
| Moore, P., Piwek, P., Roper, R. (2018) The Quantified Workplace: A Study in Self-Tracking, Agility and Change Management. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. Google Scholar | |
| Moya, J. F., Pallud, J. (2020) ‘From Panopticon to Heautopticon: A New Form of Surveillance Introduced by Quantified-Self Practices’, Information Systems Journal 30(6): 940–76. Google Scholar | Crossref | |
| Nicolini, D. (2009) ‘Articulating Practice through the Interview to the Double’, Management Learning 40(2): 195–212. Google Scholar | SAGE Journals | ISI | |
| Paring, G., Pezé, S., Huault, I. (2017) ‘“Welcome to the Whiteboard, the New Member of the Team”: Identity Regulation as a Sociomaterial Process’, Organization 24(6): 844–65. Google Scholar | SAGE Journals | ISI | |
| Przegalinska, A. (2020) ‘Mind Tracker as a Mediating Technology of Organization’, in Beyes, T., Holt, R., Pias, C. (eds) The Oxford Handbook of Media, Technology, and Organization Studies, pp. 265–274. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar | |
| Rockmann, R., Gewald, H. (2017) ‘Is IT What You Make Out of IT? On Affordances, Goals, and Positive and Negative Consequences in Activity Tracking’, in International conference on information systems, december, 2017, Seoul. Google Scholar | |
| Ruckenstein, M., Schüll, N. D. (2017) ‘The Datafication of Health’, Annual Review of Anthropology 46: 261–78. Google Scholar | Crossref | ISI | |
| Sewell, G. (1998) ‘The Discipline of Teams: The Control of Team-based Industrial Work Through Electronic and Peer Surveillance’, Administrative Science Quarterly 43(2): 397–428. Google Scholar | Crossref | ISI | |
| Tengland, P. (2016) ‘Behavior Change or Empowerment: On the Ethics of Health-Promotion Goals’, Health Care Analysis: HCA 24(1): 24–46. Google Scholar | Crossref | Medline | |
| Timmermans, S., Tavory, I. (2012) ‘Theory Construction in Qualitative Research: From Grounded Theory to Abductive Analysis’, Sociological Theory 30(3): 167–86. Google Scholar | SAGE Journals | ISI | |
| Toraldo, M., Islam, G., Mangia, G. (2019) ‘Serving Time: Volunteer Work, Liminality and the Uses of Meaningfulness at Music Festivals’, Journal of Management Studies 56(3): 617–54. Google Scholar | Crossref | |
| Wajcman, J. (2015) Pressed for Time: The Acceleration of Life in Digital Capitalism. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Google Scholar | |
| Zambotti, M., Claudatos, S., Inkelis, S., et al. (2015) ‘Evaluation of a Consumer Fitness-Tracking Device to Assess Sleep in Adults’, Chronobiology International 32(7): 1024–28. Google Scholar | Crossref | Medline | |
| Zammuto, R. F., Griffith, T. L., Majchrzak, A., et al. (2007) ‘Information Technology and the Changing Fabric of Organization’, Organization Science 18(5): 749–62. Google Scholar | Crossref | ISI | |
| Zhang, J., Lowry, P. B. (2016) ‘Designing Quantified-self 2.0 Running Platform to Ensure Physical Activity Maintenance: The Role of Achievement Goals and Achievement Motivational Affordance’, in 20th Pacific Asia Conference on Information System, june 2016, Chiayi, Taiwan. Google Scholar | |
| Zuboff, S. (2019) The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power. London: Profile Books. Google Scholar |