Open AccessIn Search of Cooperation: An Historical Analysis of Work Organization and Management Strategies
Author(s) -
Joan Greenbaum
Publication year - 1988
Publication title -
daimi pb
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2245-9316
pISSN - 0105-8517
DOI - 10.7146/dpb.v17i256.7611
Subject(s) - work (physics) , context (archaeology) , theme (computing) , democracy , meaning (existential) , sociology , knowledge management , bureaucracy , process (computing) , control (management) , tacit knowledge , focus (optics) , public relations , epistemology , computer science , political science , engineering , politics , law , world wide web , mechanical engineering , paleontology , philosophy , physics , optics , artificial intelligence , biology , operating system
During the last decade, literature about work has increasingly focused on the importance of collective communication, tacit knowledge, and group activities. The idea of designing computer support for groupbased work activities, which we loosely call ''cooperative work'', is a useful and challenging one, for it represents a break from design approaches that focused on centralized and bureaucratic systems of communication and control. To get a clearer idea of the meaning of cooperative work. this article will look at historical patterns of world organization and management strategies. It will contrast user-centered concepts of cooperative work, with the idea of seeing cooperative work in the context of democracy in the workplace. The focus on workplace democracy has been a main theme in the Scandinavian systems tradition. The article uses the Scandinavian tradition, with its roots in a Labor Process Approach as a way to analyze the meaning of cooperation for workplace democracy and its implication for the design of computer support.