Hyper-Taylorism and third-order technologies: making sense of the transformation of work and management in a post-digital era

In this chapter we propose that the search for productivity and efficiency through the implementation and use of third-order digital technologies is leading to a shift in how both work and management are understood. This shift, we argue, draws on and reinforces a Taylorist logic in the design of work, where the norms of rationality and division of labour are key. Furthermore, this shift has consequences in that it allows for a different construction of work. Building on a sociomaterial framework that foregrounds both the social and material dimensions of work, we treat ideas – such as Taylorism – and materials – such as third-order technologies and other technologies – as constitutively entangled (Orlikowski, 2007). Through such a lens, we suggest that classical Taylorist ideas about how work ought to be organized and managed transform as new technologies have emerged.