7 research outputs found
Deskilling and Up-Skilling in an Information Systems Context
Information systems automation has been observed to cause changes in the skills of the employee ranging from loss of skills (deskilling) to learning new skills (up-skilling). This thesis aims to provide a comprehensive literature review of the prior research in the fields of deskilling and up-skilling effects caused by automation.
Factors behind to the deskilling and up-skilling effects are identified and examined with frameworks and theories from prior research. The design of the automation system plays a crucial role in the way skills are affected, and thus research on the design of automation tools is also included in this review. Implementation of automation is the second key element and likewise included in the literature review.
As knowledge is identified as the most valuable source of competitive advantage in many organizations, a thorough understanding of the deskilling and up-skilling effect is crucial to prevent the erosion of knowledge and skills of the employees
Robotic Process Automation from the Design-Capital Perspective â Effects on Technical Debt and Digital Options
Robotic process automation (RPA) is an instantiation of lightweight automation that allows organizations to automate manual business processes quickly and at low cost without modifying the organizationâs underlying deep information-systems structures. While RPA endows organizations with digital options (e.g., automation ability, cost savings), its implementation is bound to incur technical debt (i.e., accumulate unwarranted complexity in the IT architecture). The paper reports on an action research study shedding light on how RPA ties in with these two notions of a firmâs design capital: digital options and technical debt. Findings indicate that RPA can create digital options through improvements in knowledge reach, knowledge richness, and process richness. These benefits come at the cost of accumulating technical debt which stems from additional technical complexity and maintenance obligations
Consequences of Discontinuing Knowledge Work Automation : Surfacing of Deskilling Effects and Methods of Recovery
IS automation pervades business processes today.
Thus, concerns have been raised about automationâs
potential deskilling effects on knowledge workers. We
conduct a revelatory case study about an IT service
firm where a managerial decision was taken to
discontinue a fixed assets management (FAM) software
that provided seemingly effective automation of fixed
assets accounting and reporting. We study how
automation can result in latent deskilling that later
becomes apparent when the system gets discontinued,
causing disruptions in employeesâ daily work and
organizational processes. We also investigate how the
employees and the company recover from this
disruption by leveraging various coping strategies. We
suggest that automation of an accounting
function/process played a key role in the deskilling of
accountants. Although the effect on worker skills may
not be obvious when the system is operational,
discontinuing the system brings the effect to the
apparent level.peerReviewe
FrÄn traditionell redovisning till RPA : En analys av kompetensutveckling och arbetsförÀndringar hos redovisare i finska företag
I det dagliga arbetet för redovisare pÄ ekonomiavdelningar finns det en bred skala av repetitiva och tidskrÀvande uppgifter som utförs dagligen. Teknikens utveckling och dÄ frÀmst automationen har möjliggjort en fullstÀndig eller partiell automatisering av dessa ekonomuppgifter. En av de mera förekommande automationsteknikerna inom ekonomiadministrationer Àr robotic process automation (RPA) eller mjukvarurobotar. Eftersom mjukvarurobotar i mÄnga företag sjÀlvstÀndigt har börjat utföra arbetsuppgifterna som tidigare sköts av redovisare och personalen i ekonomiadministrationen, har det nu möjliggjorts en förÀndring för dessa roller. FörÀndringen innebÀr en viss kompetensförÀndring för att hÄlla sig konkurrenskraftiga inom rollen som redovisare och för att kunna samarbeta med de digitala kollegorna. Det har ocksÄ visat sig att det existerar en viss rÀdsla bland redovisarna som fÄr sina uppgifter automatiserade av bl.a. mjukvarurobotar. Syftet med denna avhandling Àr att öka kunskapen om hur redovisningspersonalens kompetensutveckling och rollförÀndring pÄverkas av RPA-teknik.
Syftet undersöktes genom en kvalitativ intervjustudie och data samlades in via dokumentanalys och semistrukturerade intervjuer med redovisare som jobbar med RPA eller nÄgon form av automation. Redovisarna arbetar inom olika roller och branscher i Finland.
Studien lyfter fram att redovisarens roll har förÀndrats i samband med RPA och fört med sig en förÀndring av redovisarnas fÀrdigheter och kunskaper. Exempel pÄ dessa fÀrdigheter och kunskaper Àr att förstÄ och analysera data, tolka information (i form av data) och kommunikationsfÀrdigheter. Rollen som redovisare med RPA har Àven förÀndrats i och med att redovisarna behöver en mer teknisk kompetens och ökad förstÄelse för de tekniska aspekterna som mjukvarurobotiken medför. Dessutom har rollen som redovisare med RPA formats frÄn en roll som förbereder data till en roll som analyserar data.
Resultaten tydliggör att RPA har en betydande inverkan pÄ redovisare och ekonomiadministrationer, vilket innebÀr att redovisarna behöver anpassa sig till dessa förÀndringar som automationen medför. Detta möjliggörs genom att utveckla nya kompetenser och fÀrdigheter som Àr mer inriktade pÄ analys, strategisk rÄdgivning och kommunikation, snarare Àn att utföra repetitiva och tidskrÀvande uppgifter. Resultaten lyfter ocksÄ fram risken för kompetensförlust bland redovisarna Àr en konsekvens av automatiseringen, men kan motverkas genom att investera i kompetensutveckling, frÀmja anpassningsförmÄga och uppmuntra samarbete. Detta gör att redovisarna och ekonomiavdelningarna bÀttre kan möta utmaningarna och anpassa sig till förÀndringarna som innebÀr med RPA
Social citizenship and the transformations of wage labour in the making of Post-Apartheid South Africa, 1994-2001
Faculty of Humanities and social sciences
School of social sciences
8508612p
[email protected] work is an investigation of the relationships between waged labour and social citizenship
during the first decade of post-apartheid democracy in South Africa. In particular, I look at the ways
in which changing forms of work and employment have affected workers' access to social security,
contributory benefits and non-contributory grants. The dissertation analyses two case studies
(workers in the glass, paper and metal industry in the East Rand and Johannesburg municipal
employees) by focusing on how rising unemployment, job losses, precariousness and casualisation
impact on employees' social provisions. The research is connected to theoretical debates that, in the
developed and the developing world, have emphasised the importance of the waged condition and
of labour movements in expanding social security as part of the broader concept of social
citizenship. In classical theorisations, from T.H. Marshall to G. Esping-Andersen, social citizenship
defines a generation of rights premised on decommodification, or the provision of social goods
(including pensions, unemployment benefits, housing, healthcare and municipal services) as
entitlements aimed at minimising individual dependence on the labour market.
The concept of decommodification underpins this dissertation. My analysis of the
relationships between wage labour and social citizenship in South Africa is ultimately an inquiry of
the ways in which wage labour and working class organisations have been able to deepen and widen
the decommodification of workersâ livelihoods. This conceptual perspective is particularly relevant
to the South African case, especially in consideration of the decisive role played by organised
labour both in contributing to the downfall of apartheid and in spearheading post-apartheid
democratic institutions and progressive social policies. The historical role of organised labour in the
South African transition was not confined to workplace issues and unionised workers' concerns, but
it also emphasised broader demands for social citizenship rights, decommodified provisions and a
politics of community-based alliances. Influential scholarly works have often characterised these
aspects under the heading of "social movement unionism".
In a post-apartheid scenario, social movement unionism is increasingly embattled due to
rising unemployment and "atypical" employment, and to the adoption of market-orientated socioeconomic
policies by the post-1994 African National Congress government. Labour's ability to
promote agendas for decommodification and social citizenship are concurrently facing
uncomfortable realities and problematic questions. Has wage labour fulfilled its "promise" to be a
vehicle to expand the social rights of the working class and the poor? In which ways are
employment and labour market changes affecting organised labour's ability to expand areas of
societal decommodification? Are alternative identities and social citizenship discourses emerging in
response to the crisis of stable employment?
I address these questions by looking at workers' responses to the crisis of wage labour as
emerging in case studies âfrom belowâ, and at the ways in which such responses are framed and
elaborated within the post-1994 social policy discourse. A second component of my research,
therefore, is based on interviews with policy-makers and documentary analysis on the development
of social policy from 1994 to 2001, which emphasise shifting policy discourses on the wage laboursocial
citizenship interaction. In the final analysis, social citizenship emerges from this work not
merely as a static construct, centred on programmes and institutions, but as a terrain of negotiations
and a "contested field of signification", shaped by the encounter of institutional narratives and
meanings defined by grassroots agency.
The result of the research confirms that concepts of "social citizenship" and "wage labour"
are profoundly shaped by contradictions determined by underlying social contestation. In fact,
respondents in my case studies clearly perceive the crisis of stable, dignified employment as a
structural reality that requires systemic policy interventions. On the other hand, no homogenous
discourse is emerging in workersâ narratives to challenge deeply entrenched views of inclusion and
the social order as based on waged employment. Decommodification discourses, as for example
advanced by new social movements, remain therefore substantially limited. Conversely, the policy
discourse of democratic South Africa responds to the crisis, when not the actual disappearance, of
wage labour as a social reality with an aggressive reassertion of work ethic and wage discipline as
vehicles of social insertion and moral virtue. The ANC government often combines these arguments
with a clear rejecton of decommodification, often presented as "dependency" on welfare
"handouts", which undermines individual incentives for productive jobseeking behaviours.
The contradictions between the crisis of wage labour in social practices and modes of
reproduction, and the reasserted centrality of wage labour in the policy discourse as the main
modality of social citizenship and inclusion opens new directions for research and interrogates
changing forms of social identities, contestation and political legitimacy in the South African
transition