”…it means that people and actions are simultaneously forming and being formed by each other at the same time, all the time. Perhaps work in the future cannot be conceptualized as jobs or even as an organizational structure like the firms of today, but can be described as complex patterns of communicative interaction between interdependent individuals. All interacting imposes constraints on those relating, while at the same time enabling those people to do what they could not otherwise do. Supportive, inspirational, energizing and enabling patterns of interaction are the most important raison d´être of working and being together. And that is true already today!”
The concepts that govern our thinking about work are not just matters of the intellect. Our concepts structure what we perceive and what we think is possible. This is not something we are explicitly aware of. We simply think and act along certain lines.
We are used to understanding work as activities separated from other activities, as jobs. Organizational design has been seen as the planning and execution of a collection of activities forming the organizational system.
The industrial management paradigm is based on the presupposition that activities are the independent, governing factors and the scheme of interaction conforms to the planned division of labor as a secondary feature. The organizational structure comes first. Then an appropriate system of co-ordination and communication is put into effect. If the scheme of activities changes, even somewhat, the scheme of interaction should change too. As the two are mutually dependent, it means accordingly…
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Urban Mill – Building IntenCity! 