XIX ISA World Congress of Sociology (July 15-21, 2018)

427

Technology and Work: New Sociological Approaches?

RC23 Sociology of Science and Technology (host committee)

Language: English and French

Since industrialization, the relationship between technical change and labour structures has been highly complex, and is still being discussed and interpreted today. Recent studies (Brynjolfsson & McAfee, Frey & Osborne, Autor, and others) are contributing to that public debate. The use of information and communication technologies has had an enormous impact not only on the manufacturing sector, but also in the reorganization of the service sector. The worldwide integration of technical systems (e.g. in production, logistics, marketing, etc.) has also created new forms of global value chains, leading to substantial changes in the mode of work. Today, these changes can no longer be explained by a causal model, but new theoretical approaches are required to integrate the technological dimension into the new globalization debate, the long tradition of sociology of work, sociology of technology, and the debate about "subjectivization" of work. Singular aspects of technologies in the work process which bring about new developments (e.g. to new technologies in health care, cyber-physical systems, Industry 4.0, robotics) can be examined in the framework of sociology. The technological impacts of these developments in turn are integrated into a conceptual re-evaluation of the relationship between work and technology.