Workplace Studies and Technological Change

Workplace studies research is a genre of sociology which focuses on the social processes of work, particularly work involving technology. By examining work as a social process, and studying it in its natural setting, these researchers are able to figure out why technologies fail and to offer concrete suggestions for how work and technology should be organized, selected, and designed. We find that the traditional design process all too often fatally filters out the every-day social processes that employees depend upon for the successful accomplishment of their day-to-day work. Additionally, workplace studies research reveals new insights into how employees and technological systems are organized, how work is distributed, and how the office environment is conceived as a resource for accomplishing the tasks at hand. Workplace studies research has the potential to be of great use for managers and other decision makers in business and other complex organizations. However, this research has not sufficiently reached the business world. In our paper we define workplace studies, briefly explain its history and methods, and show how specific workplace studies research findings can be used by businesses to solve common business problems: 1. facilitating the collaboration of employees, whether co-present or geographically dispersed, and 2. minimizing under-utilization of employees, which can lead to hidden financial losses or excessive employee turnover.