Subjektive Aneignungspraktiken digitaler Technologien und die zugrunde liegenden Gerechtigkeitsansprüche der Beschäftigten

In the context of digitization of work, the question of work humanization and humane work design is currently being discussed anew. This paper presents an empirical case study concerning the implementation of a digital warehouse management system (“Shelvesfit”) in a retail group. The study investigates how this digital system changes the work content in the stores, whether this results in a violation of subjective demands for “good work” and if so, in what way. “Good work” is here understood as work conditions granting the store employees a subjectively adequate degree of autonomy–in order to meet their own claims to act as successful customer consultants and salespersons. (Since this is a subjectively adequate degree it might range from a high autonomy to hardly any autonomy at all.) The empirical findings show that employees’ subjective demands can definitely come into conflict with the technological functions as they are intended by the organization. However, they also show that store employees appropriate this technology in a way that permits them to keep or win back the subjective degree of professional autonomy that permits them to act, in their own view, as successful customer consultants and salespersons. These findings are helpful to find a way how critical work research can integrate the subjective demands of employees into the analysis of “good work.”