Beyond Uberization: The co-constitution of technology and organizing


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Authors
Faraj, Samer 
Abstract

Uberization has emerged as a platform-based form of organizing that is reshaping work and labour markets and that is fundamentally challenging existing thinking on organizing. We suggest that organizational theorists have been reluctant to address the constitutive relation between technology and organizing. By emphasizing co-constitution, we argue against viewing technology as an entity that is separate, exogenous, or causal. Instead, we offer that technology can be fruitfully viewed as endogenous to and constitutively entwined with organizational actions and structures. To illustrate this co-constitution, we present a brief analysis of Uberization from a regime of organizing perspective that emphasizes how organizing practices, valuation schemes, authority arrangements and technological arrangements are entwined with each other. We conclude with an invitation to organizational theorists to more specifically engage with technology as they theorize new forms of organizing.

Description
Keywords
Conversations and Controversies, contingency theory, information systems, innovation, organizational form, science and technology studies (STS), technology
Journal Title
Organization Theory
Conference Name
Journal ISSN
2631-7877
Volume Title
2
Publisher
SAGE Publications