ILPC 2026

In the context of the “changing contours of work” (Sweet & Meiksins, 2017) within a “project society” (Lundin et al. 2015), the digital transformation and the rapid development of new technologies with its effects on work and employment belong to the central topics regarding the future of western societies (Brynjolfsson & McAfee, 2011, 2014; Evangelista et al., 2014; Frey & Osborne, 2013). Moreover, new organizational principles and techniques to organize and manage work such as the implementation of agile methods (Sauer, 2017) are a vital issue these days. In a positive interpretation of these aspects both are seen as promising, regarding both the self-management of work and its emancipative potential (Grantham, 2000). While the digital transformation potentially provides broad access to information for workers and a re-evaluation of work and distributed agency (Böhle & Huchler, 2016), agile work enables employees to make their own decisions in terms of work organizations and pace (Mann & Maurer, 2005). Thus, proponents argue that agile practices within an organization place “more emphasis on people factors in the project: amicability, talent, skill, and communication” (Cockburn & Highsmith, 2001: 131).

Usually, scholars analyze these aspects separated from each other (digital transformation much more frequently than agile practices). However, the interplay of these trends on a workplace level seems to be unexamined so far. This is surprising since the question of interconnectedness between technical and organizational change has been discussed for quite a while (Marglin, 1974; Pfeiffer & Suphan, 2015). Notwithstanding the issue of which of them determines the other, an interplay between these aspects can be observed. With reference to Max Weber, Edgell therefore highlights the historical change of organizing – and governing – work in the course of technical development. From pre-bureaucratic forms to the bureaucratic rational way, to post-bureaucratic forms, the governance of work develops towards a more democratic consensual deployment of authority (Edgell, 2012: 22). Within the post-bureaucratic organization – often initially made possible by digital tools (Grantham, 2000) – “authority is decentralized and democratized in a flattened hierarchy characterized by a culture of empowerment and consensual dialogue” (Edgell, 2012: 22; see also Malone, 2004).

Taking these considerations into account, we want to examine the following research question: How does the interplay of digital transformation and agile practices affect the governance of work? Based on two explorative case studies of a software developing company with 35 qualitative interviews with employees working in agile teams, we try to capture the interconnectedness of digital tools and agile practices and its consequences on the workplace level.

Preliminary results show that digital tools have a rather ambivalent character in the context of agile work. For example, technology-driven transparency within work organization can be used control-orientated or empowerment-orientated. On the one hand these tools support the employees in their self-management of work, thereby strengthening their autonomy, but on the other hand they can also contribute to the establishment of a control-orientated transparence within agile work organization.