Work in Transition

In tandem with the technological developments of the past decades in the form of new information and communication technologies (ICTs), the world of work has faced a significant transformation. Some call it a revolution and compare its effects with the changes wrought by the Industrial Revolution in the eighteenth and nineteenth century. This chapter deals with the changes in office respectively knowledge work and their implications for an organisation’s change management. Through the use of the Internet, mobile devices and their various applications for communication and collaboration, work is becoming more and more virtualised. This enables flexibility and mobility as well as global communication and collaboration. In the course of these developments, on the one hand, the subject gains more and more responsibility, while, on the other hand, digital work processes abet a standardisation of work. Yet, these processes are not one-sided but framed by various conditions and socially grounded. In this chapter, the theoretical concept of the mediatisation of work serves to explain the interrelation of the current technological and the sociocultural transformation as well as the changes in the world of work. The insights presented here are substantiated by the results of a study conducted by the author and by studies carried out by other scholars, as well as literature from sociology, business economics and media and communications.