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Lookup NU author(s): Professor Iain Munro
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND).
The new world of work is being characterized by the emergence of what are, apparently, increasingly autonomous ways of working and living. Mobile work, coworking, flex office, platform-based entrepreneurship, virtual collaborations, Do It Yourself (DIT), remote work, digital nomads, among other trends, epitomize ways of organizing work practice that purportedly align productivity with freedom. But most ethnographical research already reveals many paradoxical experiences associated with these new practices and processes. Indeed, it appears that with autonomy comes surveillance and control, to a point where, as Foucault observed way back, subjectivity and subject become synonyms, and the current pandemic both strengthens and makes visible this situation. In this introduction to the special issue we make a foray into this situation, using four open and related themes developed in the five papers we selected: managerial control and technology; surveillance and platform capitalism; time and space; and new organizational forms and autonomy. Paradoxical movements are identified for each of them, before we conclude by reflecting on a grounding paradox which appears at the centre of this special issue and the themes it covers.
Author(s): de Vaujany F, Leclercq-Vandelannoitte A, Munro I, Yeah N, Holt R
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: Organization Studies
Year: 2021
Volume: 42
Issue: 5
Pages: 675–695
Online publication date: 06/04/2021
Acceptance date: 02/04/2018
Date deposited: 06/07/2021
ISSN (print): 0170-8406
ISSN (electronic): 1741-3044
Publisher: Sage
URL: https://doi.org/10.1177/01708406211010988
DOI: 10.1177/01708406211010988
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