Work Without Boundaries

Psychological Perspectives on the New Working Life

Michael Allvin, Gunnar Aronsson, Tom Hagström, Gunn Johansson, Ulf Lundberg

• Publisher: Wiley
• Year: 2011
• ISBN:
  9781119996231
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychologie
• Subtopic: Psychologie industrielle et organisationnelle

Drawing on more than a decade of inter-disciplinary research, this book provides a comprehensive overview of the available theories, concepts, data and research on new work organizations and the concept of 'work without boundaries'.

• Explores a concept of work that is not restricted by traditional organizational rules like regular office hours, a single workplace, fixed procedures and limited responsibility
• Provides a comprehensive overview of the available theories, concepts, data and research on new work organizations
• Examines the shift of power away from organizations to make individuals accountable for their own employability and work
• Draws on over a decade of original research into 'work without boundaries' in which the authors are key authorities
• Brings together organization theory and work psychology with scholarship from related fields including sociology, social psychology, cognition and psychobiology

Chapter 1

The New Work

It's all about “time to market.” You're in a hurry and things change all the time. If you can't get your products out in time, they will already be old when they get out. The timeframe between your product idea and one or two competitors getting an equal product onto the market is very narrow. So, when you're piloting a project, you're hurrying, hurrying, hurrying. Always running, not to miss the train.

In a sparsely furnished office in a suburb south of Stockholm, Peter is trying to explain what his work is all about. Leaning forward and gesticulating, he constantly checks his watch. From time to time he is interrupted by his mobile phone ringing or by colleagues poking their heads through the door to ask about something. With a tired look he apologizes each time.

I guess we're at least trying to stay ahead of the crowd but we can't keep up with the trend leaders, so we're probably lagging behind a bit. This means it's always stressful and products are always outdated. The competition is unbelievable.

Peter is one of the founders of one of the many IT companies that started up at the end of the 1990s. He started the company together with two course mates from university. Since then they have grown into a company of around ten employees, but Peter and his cofounders are still there, doing most of the work. This was also the original idea. They have no plans to expand, but rather see the company goal as cooperating and working together. Or, in Peter's words: “we like to race and wrestle one another. We enjoy it.”

Peter is a modern entrepreneur. Being one of the founders, the life of the company is his life. He also expects the same commitment from his co-workers. The company runs a profit-sharing system by which everyone receives a certain percentage of the profit. Peter sees this as an incentive for everyone to help out and “do their bit,” but he also feels that it comes natural – after all, to them the company is a communal project. The company per se does not interest him. The point is not to create or set up a business. It is rather the particular way of working he likes. He wants to do what he enjoys doing, and to be able to take that initiative by himself. As he says, to get the information you need when you need it, and arrange meetings with the people you need when you need them. For Peter, working with people with whom he gets on well on a common project, and at the same time being his own boss, is what makes his work so appealing. Just the same, it forces him to work a lot. And life outside work, if it exists at all, suffers the consequences.

On my wife's twenty-fifth birthday, I didn't get home until after midnight. [laughter] I couldn't go home. I just couldn't. We had to deliver next day, and the stuff wouldn't work.

Stella, a colleague of Peter's, also senses the impact of their hard work and has seen her health affected. She suffers from insomnia and high blood pressure. It feels strange to be struck by problems like these when you are so young, and she does not quite know what to do about it. Changing the particular way of working would be difficult. She has only just discovered its appeal, and cannot imagine an ordinary “nine-to-five job.” At the same time she is slowly realizing that the problems will not just go away. Still, she and her colleagues have been aware of the risks, and possibly even been challenged by them.

After all, we have created this situation ourselves, because we're eager for this to work. Then, you'll have to assume a larger role. At the same time we've tried to say that maybe you can't work like this for more than three years.

Running a business in such a competitive industry is, for both Peter and Stella, a way of testing themselves and stretching the limits of their capacity. The company itself is, in Peter's words, just a “tool” to develop yourself and your role in life.

In an apartment not far away, Monica is waiting for the phone to ring. She is employed by the hour by a sizable labor recruitment firm, performing less complicated office tasks.

If you're lucky you get to know about it the evening before. Around three–four in the afternoon they call and ask if you can work the next day. The worst is when they call at half past seven in the morning and tell you you need to be at work at half past seven.

Monica is 45 years old and a single mother. She used to work as a secretary at a larger company but was forced to quit when it was reorganized. Since then she has been back at her old workplace several times in temporary hired positions. Most of the people there are new, but the tasks she is assigned are more or less the same as those she performed earlier. She also does not understand why she was laid off in the first place. Even though she is not particularly fond of the tasks, she has no problem carrying them out. Instead, it is the way in which she has to work that she dislikes: that she can never know when or if she will be working. It is far too uncertain.

Monica has no specific education and does not believe she will be able to get a more “developing” job. In her youth she spent all her time doing sports. Even though she is still active and gets a few jobs coaching junior athletes, there is no future for her in sports. She also finds it difficult to relax and to use her spare time for anything constructive.

There is no relaxation. You always have at the back of your mind that: I wonder if they'll call? Should I prepare for tomorrow? Should I send away the kid? Even though you're free, you can't unwind. But you're thinking: are they going to call tomorrow? Will it be long until there is a new job this time?

She is registered as part-time unemployed with the national job agency. But she expects no help, at the most “a public labor market measure project, or something like that.” In a way it is good, as it keeps her from “falling out of the system,” but it does not do anything for her. “If I get stuck with something like that I'll just have to do it. But it's not something I look forward to, if you know what I mean.”

Her replies are laconic and overall she gives a rather apathetic impression, adding that she feels exploited, excluded, and discarded.

Sure, when they want you they want you. But if there's no work, you're no one, and then you can stay home. And that, that's exploiting people, isn't it?

Even though Peter, Stella, and Monica perhaps are not representative from a purely statistical point of view, their stories are not entirely uncommon. They certainly represent two extremes, but much of what they describe is in many ways typical of what we would like to call “the new working life.” There is a widespread perception of a fast tempo. There is the very tangible experience of abrupt turns, fluctuations, and constant changes. But there is also the paralyzing fatigue and feeling of uselessness. There is the sensation of having freedom and control, in work as well as in life. But there are also experiences of being imperiled and abandoned. There are expectations of development and future possibilities but also depressing sensations of uncertainty, insecurity, and frustration. On the one hand, the new working life provides expanded possibilities and a new kind of freedom. On the other hand, it can lead to increased exclusion. The life of work increasingly resembles a giant switchboard which either connects or disconnects people.

The New Inequality

But, you might wonder, what is new about this? The life of work has always divided people into those who are above and those who are below, those who exploit and those who are exploited, those who have power and those who lack it. This is of course true and the new work is no different. The life of work has not become less unequal, quite the opposite. What is new is instead the way in which the inequalities are distributed.

In order to explain this, we need to go back to the stories of Peter, Stella, and Monica. We can distinguish three experiences they all seem to have in common. First, there is the experience that time has become more urgent and demanding. For Peter and Stella this means a higher tempo and changing conditions. There is no upper limit for how much, how well, or how fast they are expected to perform. At the same time they must constantly be aware of the conditions and prerequisites. Working a lot, well, and fast with something that is already dated and nobody wants is not just useless, it is a waste of time. Time is stalking Monica as well. But for her it is all about seizing the opportunities that are offered. She is unable to relax as she can never know when, or if, the phone will ring. Conditions are constantly changing, and she never knows what tomorrow will bring. A consequence they all suffer is increasing fatigue, exhaustion, and possibly even burnout.

The second common experience is to have more control on a smaller scale, but less on a larger. For Peter and Stella this manifests itself in that they have substantial freedom at work. No one tells them what to do. At the same time they are subject to the unconditional demands of the industry, market, and competition. These demands rule their work as inevitably and mercilessly as an assembly line, although not in as much detail. What is more, the work is ruled without any regard for human limitations and social obligations. Saying that Monica is in control on a smaller scale may sound odd or insensitive, but her workday is, in a certain sense, not limited by the rules of work, but instead open and dependent on her personal choices. At the same time, these choices are severely constrained by events quite beyond her scope and control. Another way of expressing this problem is that people's control in their work has increased, whereas their control over the conditions of work has decreased. As a consequence they have parallel experiences of freedom and lack of security.

The third experience is the number of opportunities that are offered through work, and all the expectations they give rise to. In the case of Peter and Stella, these concern successes, personal development, doing what you want to do, and having fun. Just how they imagine this is, of course, individual. Their stories, however, hint that the world is at their feet and that everything is possible. A female colleague of theirs at another company describes her plans for the future as follows.

On the whole, I think I know fairly well what I want to do further on. I know I want to develop this company, and we have discussed having children in maybe three years or so, in order to first get the company going … Then I would like to get a PhD in the USA, and afterwards I would like to work helping women in the third world … or some form of international engagement, although not in any traditional organization.

But as the opportunities and expectations skyrocket, our abilities to respond to and benefit from them are still as limited as ever. We cannot do all that we want when we want it. Nor can we do it all at once. There are limits to how much we can work and at the same time lead a meaningful personal and social life outside work. Friends, family, personal economy, time, and finally our body fail us. There is also a limit to how much we can learn and how much we can adapt. Organizations may have become more flexible, but human life still requires a certain measure of stability. Although capital is now transient and global, the workforce is still stationary and local.

Monica had had the same experience too. She had also seen opportunities and had expectations. But in her case the possibility of realization lay not in work, but in sport. She expected her job to provide her with the social and economic stability her self-realization necessitated. But when the workplace was being reorganized, her education, experience, and abilities were not enough. When demands increased, conditions changed, frustrating her expectations. Hence, the third common experience is that the individual, with her physical, cognitive, social, and economic limitations, finds it increasingly difficult to match all the opportunities work has to offer, the expectations it harbors, and the demands that it makes. The result of this growing discrepancy is not just heightened pressure and stress, but also, as in Monica's case, frustration or even depression.

In a certain sense, these three types of experiences are all general, though the perception and awareness of them will of course vary. On the other hand, the consequences differ. Although everyone senses the speed and pace of change, not everyone is exhausted or burnt out as a result of it. Even though the displacement of control at work versus control of working conditions is felt by all, some experience it as enhanced freedom, whereas others experience it as lessened security. Although everybody sees the opportunities and harbors expectations for their work, not everyone is able to take advantage of and realize them. Here yet another inequality materializes. It is, however, not an inequality between those at the top versus those at the bottom as that would require a static order. The fact that some people have not been overcome by fatigue or burnt out by the fast pace and changing nature of the new work does not mean that they never will. Nor is this an inequality between the exploiters and the exploited, the prerequisite of which would be a zero-sum game in which everyone takes part and is needed. The ability of some to take advantage of and realize their possibilities and expectations does not dictate the inability of others. Finally, it is not the inequality of those who have power and those who lack it, which would require two or more hostile parties controlling each other or having a social relation to one another. The relative success of Peter and Stella is, after all, not based on them exercising power over people like Monica.

The emerging inequality is therefore not a social inequality, in that it is not distributed through social relations. Instead, relations between the concerned parties are similar to those between participants in a marathon. In a marathon it is pointless to speak of the differences between the runners in terms of social relations such as power, exploitation, or subordination. Either you are in the race or you are not. As long as you are in the race you can either be in the lead, in the pack, or behind. Each individual participates according to her own capabilities, and needs only the other participants to calculate her relative position. In other words, there is no evident relation between the runners other than their relative positions. The leader of the race is in the lead irrespective of how many runners are tailing him or have interrupted the race. The very last runner is last, regardless of how many are ahead or of how far ahead they are. The race as a whole is completely independent of the individual effort. A slow runner will not lower the tempo of the other runners, but will simply be left behind. Or, to rephrase it, the only one to care, or even notice, if a runner is left behind is that runner.

The new work is characterized by this particular kind of inequality. Stella and Peter are, in Peter's words, lagging a bit behind the leaders, whereas Monica has fallen far behind. Using another sport metaphor, we could even say she is on the bench. The inequalities between them do not primarily have to do with their jobs but with their individual capacities and opportunities. Peter can feel that it is getting more difficult, but there is still hope for a placement. Stella is beginning to notice her body reacting to the pace and worries about having to slow down and get stuck somewhere in the pack. Monica, on the other hand, is having doubts whether she will be able to hang on and finish the race at all. Peter and Stella are both young and well educated. Their mental and physical conditions, however, seem to differ. Monica has the physical requirements, but she is getting old. She does not have any kind of higher education, and on top of that she is a single mother and sole provider. Their opportunities for finishing the race all differ.

Perhaps we should better add that we, in underlining individual differences, by no means deny the existence of widespread power discrepancies and other social inequalities. On the contrary, these injustices to a large extent contribute to the differences in individual opportunities. But differing individual opportunities cannot be reduced to social differences. Differences in personality, attitudes, age, language, and cognitive, economic, biological, intellectual, physiological, and many other differences also play a significant role. Taken together with the “traditional” social differences, they generate the aforementioned individual opportunities. Of interest here, and what makes this more than the trivial statement that we are all different, is that the new work exploits and even presupposes such individual differences.

New Markets and New Structures

If the traditional inequality of work traces its origin to the hierarchical order of the workplace, the new inequality originates rather in the competitive nature of the contemporary labor market. The opportunities of the individual are decided not by her objective position within the organization, but by her relative position on the market. A person who is attractive to the labor market does not have to feel insecure. He or she has the possibilities to negotiate good working conditions, whereas those who are not attractive will be left at the mercy of a callous market.

It is not uncommon to explain this new inequality in terms of work and labor markets being influenced by a more liberalist, even neo-liberalist, policy. This statement is habitually used to claim that deliberate strategic political decisions have invested the market forces with more space for action. The fact that work and labor markets have been partially deregulated as a consequence of political decisions is true, as is that many of the decisions initiating these deregulations were taken within the framework of a neo-liberal agenda. This is valid internationally and especially if focusing on Anglophone countries. But though neo-liberal elements may be identified in the politics of numerous countries, it is still not possible to accuse all countries, including Sweden, of having conducted neo-liberal policies. Certainly, it is also up for discussion just how deliberate and strategic the decisions have actually been. Perhaps it has rather been a series of adjustments to growing pressure from international trade and competition. But it is difficult to deny that market forces have had their influence enhanced in work and on the labor market. Without downplaying the impact of political decisions, we would like to suggest an alternative representation of recent developments – a development where the internationalization of business has been an important driving force.

In Sweden, and in many other European countries, work and labor markets are relatively well regulated. Not only employment and wages but also working conditions and the job environment are regulated by laws and central agreements. These laws and agreements essentially mirror the balance of strength between the different parties on the labor market. They, so to speak, constitute the existing frontier between the parties, and they are changed by the unions advancing their positions on the employer, or by the employer doing the same thing vis-à-vis the unions. In other words, the regulation of work mirrors not only the diverging interests of the parties, but also their interdependence.

At least this can be said to have been the case up until the 1970s, when a substantial portion of the Western world stumbled into economic crisis. When their profits fell, companies were forced to finance their investments through raised prices and increased credit. This in turn led the unions to compensate their members by demanding wage increases, which shrunk profits and pushed prices even higher. The welfare state and bank system, through transfers and credits, acted as buffers by keeping up consumption and production in an inflation-triggering upward spiral. The result was simultaneous stagnation and inflation (aka stagflation).

In order to raise profits and speed up growth, companies increasingly turned to new markets abroad. This was mainly achieved through investment in other industries and in foreign companies. In the 1980s, Swedish investment abroad had already grown to twice the size of domestic investment. Swedish companies merged with, bought, bought stakes in, and entered into alliances and cooperation agreements with companies all over the world. Companies in other Western countries made similar investments. Through this strategy, companies expanded their markets beyond their national borders, first in neighboring countries and the Western sphere, later a few countries in Asia and Latin America, and during the 1990s the former Eastern bloc, followed by China and India. Simultaneously, companies were cutting their previously strong ties to unions and the welfare state in their country of origin. Instead of relying on these institutions, companies have become increasingly dependent on one another, as owners, partners, customers, or competitors in supranational commercial networks. Thus, companies do not ne...