Organisationale Technokulturen: Kritik und Humor in der „Industrie 4.0“

The article examines organizational-cultural practices of technology critique in the context of “Industry 4.0”. The empirical basis is an ethnographic study of the appropriation of algorithmic work control by production workers in two industrial enterprises. In order to analyze the shared cultural references of workers to digital technologies, the article proposes the concept of organizational technocultures. These can be divided into official organizational technocultures and technocultures of critique. While the former propagate the use of technology in accordance with the goals of the organization, the latter distance themselves from these goals and instead focus on the self-will of the actors. The extent to which these technocultures manifest themselves is strongly context-dependent. In situations in which the management of the companies investigated was not present, workers’ criticism manifested itself in explicit and vehement accusations of digital violations of their dignity. However, critical appropriation practices also occurred in everyday working life when management is present. Then, they primarily took the form of subversive humor. Contrary to a position that understands workers as passive objects or ‘accomplices’ of digital control regimes, it can be shown here that workers develop specific interpretative skills in order to identify spaces of autonomy and to exercise critique.