Introduction
In the previous three analytical chapters the participating firms were all characterised as webs of networks of relationships of human and nonhuman actors. These relationships were analysed to make meaningful, from the cultural symbolic, political and economic dimensions, how these networks were ordered, for, it is from their location in the pattern of ordering that actors construct the network meanings of telework. This analysis, I suggested, points to three network truths: the privileging of the office, the clients and the calculations or productivity. These truths were made durable through their location within the policies, procedures and culture of the firms and, therefore, obdurate. There were negotiated changes to this traditional ordering of the networks of the firms to allow actors called teleworkers to be colocated within the discrete networks of the home and the firm, but actors were only enrolled in these changes if the three network truths were maintained or enhanced.
In this, the last of the analytical chapters, the stories from the networks of the participating firms will be analysed using the technological dimension to understand the contribution of the technology actors in the maintenance of the three network truths and, therefore, the role technology plays within the networks that influences how directors construct telework. To achieve this outcome, this chapter will, first, from the technological perspective, understand how the technologies, as actors within the
networks, have through their locations shaped the relationships between actors to achieve the required calculations of translation. Secondly, to understand how the technologies have maintained the office as the location where the work of accountancy is carried out. Thirdly, to understand how the
technologies have influenced, or are influenced by, the technology actors within the client networks and lastly, how therefore, have the technologies disrupted and influenced the ordering of the networks and therefore the directors’ meaning making of telework.
Before continuing, it is worth noting that the storytellers all understood technology in terms of computers, computer software, printers, phones and photocopiers. Managers and directors associated the newer digital tablets and smartphones with the younger staff and their addiction to social
carpet, the electric toaster, the coffee machine, the microwave, the fridge, the filing system and the ergonomic furniture found within the firm with ‘technology’. Consequently, this chapter follows their associations.
Stories of technology and productivity
The stories of the importance of technology to the firm’s productivity were summed up by the director
at H: “Our productivity is completely dependent on computerisation,” a technology that was so boring and dependable that it was taken for granted. It was a tool of trade, visibly there yet invisible, just a ghostly part of the furniture until it stopped working. To the director at S, “Everything is computer-dependent.” As a result, at BYD when the computers went down, the staff ended up going home, as “once all the filing was done, there was nothing else for us to do,” while at WDN, “we
(including a teleworker) all left the office and went orienteering as a team-building exercise as the (software) upgrade was programmed to take up the full day.” Thus, if the technology actors failed or were being upgraded then their agencies could not be exercised resulting in a gap in the mechanics of power. Consequently, all other actors in that network of relations who relied on the agencies of the technologies to enable their own actions found that they could not achieve their part in the
translations. Accounting actors therefore, regardless of where they worked, i.e., in the office or at home, were dependent on the location and agencies of the technologies within their networks to achieve the desired calculations of translation.
Thus translation, achieving the calculations of time, was dependent on the uninterrupted flow of interrelated actor agencies, each shaping the next in the relationships to achieve translation. Consequently, as the director at DKS explains: “When the job comes in, it is entered into Workflow by me (director) after I have set the budget.” Thus, the director actor is directed by the agency of the productivity software, like Workflow or Banklink or iFirm, to enter the client information and the budget of hours the director sets for the job in the order the software requires it, no argument. In this way, the agency of the software disciplines the director and other actors with access to this
programme to enable the calculations to be achieved. The programme then generates the timesheet for the job, adjusts the firm’s provisional revenue budget and cash flow and updates the annual productivity budget of the staff member the job is allotted to.
These productivity software programmes are also resident on all staff computers, including those used by teleworkers. Their function is to graphically remind the actor accountant for that client job of the time they have taken on that job in comparison with the budgeted calculations of time, as the manager at W explained:
They are able to see what their productivity is, for our internal system gives them a smiley face if they’re good and a grumpy face if they are not, which is the most ridiculous thing I have seen in my entire life. Staff hate it and I don’t blame them.
I both loved and empathised with her passion. I would not want them on my computer monitor either! This software exercises its agency by informing and shaping the activities of the accounting actors in two ways. First, the symbolic faces or other graphics as a dashboard on the computer monitor focuses the accounting actors on, and motivates them to achieve, the budgeted calculation of time. Secondly, it acts as a control or monitoring function because this software actor communicates the accounting actor-achieved and director-budgeted calculations to other actors in the productivity network, most commonly the managers and directors. Material differences between the calculations triggers these actors to “question the person,” to question how their agencies had deviated from the translation calculations. The director at B extolled the agency of the program iFirm.
It generates an email when they are at 80 percent of the time budget and after that iFirm generates time to budget and percentage time over budget. I got one the other day saying a job was 172 percent over budget!
Most managers and directors like the one at B understood these dashboards to be an excellent way of maintaining staff interest in productivity. This view was evidenced at WDN, which did not at the time have productivity software, when the manager there said “we will have ours up and running within the week.” The fact that this manager described the coming software as “awesome,” and said
“I can’t wait” reflects her tacit acceptance of productivity in terms of chargeable time, and, therefore, acceptance of the agencies of this technology as the truth.
Here, the actors tell of two networks in communication with each other, the accounting and the productivity. Located within the latter is the productivity software actor like iFirm that communicates with the accountancy network at what Callon (1986) calls an obligatory passage point where an action, the completion of the 6-minute segment on a timesheet, must be carried out. This actor, therefore, shapes the actions of the actor accountants, focusing them on their calculations through graphical representations of timing variances. These, this software actor also records and
communicates to other actors within the relationships of the productivity network as part of the
network’s control cycle.
However, as noted in the previous chapter, some actors were not allocated jobs off the production line of time, but off-line through the directors. Here, actors within the networks have negotiated changes to the relationships to allow specific actors, constructed as teleworkers, to bypass the obligatory passage points (Callon, 1996) of the observational office and the 6-minute timesheet. Consequently, these workers do not have to complete timesheets, the progression of the client job is not monitored by the technologies and there will be no productivity symbols on the screen of their computer
monitors advising them of their job productivity. These workers were the exception, since all other actors were shaped within the network relationships by location, requiring their agencies to pass through the office space and timesheet obligatory passage points (Callon, 1986). Thus, as Mol (1999) pointed out, networks know their choices and they align their actors to achieve these, by, for example, privileging the office.
Those actors located within the networks of the home used the technologies from their home
networks, i.e., the computer, the modem and internet provider to communicate with the firm’s virtual private network (VPN) via a remote access portal. This obligatory passage point (Callon, 1986) allowed the teleworking actors to virtually access the firm’s accounting programs and client files to complete client translations while physically located in their home network. To Nippert-Eng (1996), the networks of the firm now intruded into the networks of the home or, from Deetz’s (1992)
perspective, the technologies that made telework easily possible now allowed the networks of the firm to colonise the home. Thus, the technologies within the networks are contextual, and being so, will at times be in tension with each other, Mol’s (1999) ontological politics. Such tensions the networks of the firm appear to overcome through the traditional mode of ordering that privileges the office over the home.
Two firms, however, did allow teleworkers and in-office staff to programme uninterrupted productive time. At C and D staff including teleworkers were disciplined to log their location, any “not to be disturbed time” and contact phone number in Microsoft Outlook, allowing the receptionist to advise clients who rang in, or to take messages. HT however, disciplined its clients to make an appointment to talk to their accountant physically, by Skype or by phone. Walk-in appointments so favoured by other firms were discouraged. “If someone walks in the door, they have either got an appointment, or they are expected, or someone has to deal with them and these are getting less and less all the time.” Here, the directors had changed the locations of the communications technologies within the
network’s relationships and then enrolled the client actors into these changed relationships allowing accounting actors to book undisturbed agency time to increase their calculations of translation. Thus, the technologies, besides shaping the actions of actors within the firm, also shaped how client actors were allowed to act.
Because of the privileging of productivity, it was surprising to find that most firms were still reliant on paper-based files. From the manager at WDN: “We have this large room upstairs where we house all our files,” and,from the manager at DKS, “Files from last year we keep in our store area. Older files we store in two storage sheds offsite.” Scanning these files to the firm’s computer servers makes them more secure, available to any actor at anytime, anywhere and not changeable. The result, changed relationships between actors, improved calculations of time and for teleworkers, this meant
no more visiting the office to uplift or return client files, since they are digitally available to them anywhere they are working. Some firms were in the process of scanning client files to the servers; some were concerned at the cost, some had just started, while others had stopped because of other priorities. Nevertheless, for most directors the cost and the preference for reviewing paper-based files: “G prefers paper-based files; you won’t catch him reviewing a file on screen,” were factors in marginalising this technology, factors that also maintained the privileging of the office.
Where technology actors were located in relationships with other actors within the accounting network determined the agencies they had and how these, within the mechanics of power, achieved the timing of client account completion, the calculation of translation. To monitor that actors, through the exercise of their agencies, were carrying out their required actions, specific technologies in the form of productivity software, were located within a productivity network. These network actors communicated the progression of translation of client jobs against budgeted hours to both the responsible accounting actor and other actors in the productivity relationships, the managers and directors. New technologies such as upgraded software were enrolled into the network relationships only if their proposed location and agency enhanced the current calculations of translations. Thus, the ordering of the technologies both achieved the required calculations of translation and acted as a means of control over the agencies of other actors so that the calculations could be achieved.
Stories of technology and control
“Does the computer system control what staff do? I sure hope so, for it’s set up to do just that.”
(Director at FNS).
To the directors, control over the factors of production lay with them, as they expressed in the chapter on the political dimension of the networks, not with the technologies or in conjunction with the technologies, but with them. This view equates with the stories they told of taking the technology for granted, there operating in the background, masking the importance of the agencies of the
technologies in ordering the calculations of the network. It is this ghostly powerfulness of agency that makes technology so important in organisational control. When one manager was asked if they thought that technology was important in the control of teleworkers, the response was: “how?” I moved on. The director at HT remarked, in a rather annoyed voice, “very little. We use technology to collaborate more than a control.” With the chameleon technology so taken for granted by all, it is not unexpected that managers only minimally linked their technologies, their computer systems and associated programmes, the phones and the printers with their ability to control staff behaviours.
Thus, the technology actors within the relationships of the networks were like any other actor; they were simply there, shaped through agency to perform their part in translation.
It was obvious that those managers who used the technology innovatively, or who took a real interest
in how the technology assisted the firm’s competitiveness, well understood the part technology played
in the control of staff, the assets of the firm and clients, as the manager at C explains:
At the moment, a lot. Our current technology, it acts as a controlling factor quite a lot, I think. Simply the way we use timesheets, the way staff are measured in productivity, the way we can see the WIP (work in progress) balances build every month, how much our debtor balances are, like all of that. It controls quite a lot the way timesheets are set up, where they are set up with certain hour parameters that kind of stuff, quite a lot.
For the manager at K, the agencies of the technologies quietly in the background influenced the behaviours of other actors, “Our IT manager certainly manages the system, though not rigidly, but inappropriate use of firm’s assets is not something we tolerate. Our brand is important to us.” I suggest the networks, through the information technology manager, enrolled actors into changes in the relationships that prevented them communicating with the Facebook, Twitter and Trademe networks
using the firm’s computers so that the actor’s required calculations of translation could be achieved. The manager constructed this change as the protection of the brand.
The accounting networks, therefore, maintained an ordering of the location of actors so that their collective agencies, were focused on the calculations of transaction. While in the productivity network, actors including the productivity software were ordered so their agencies reported on the activities of the agencies of the accounting actors, allowing their activities to be modified to maintain the calculations as required. However, the reporting capability of the agencies of the technologies is only as accurate as the data provided to them. To assist in achieving this accuracy, the accounting network provided common materials, for example, templates for the correct calculation of
depreciation, stock values, net present values of assets and tax, as examples, so that these calculations could be relied on. Locating the technologies in this way allows many accounting routines to be
carried out by semitrained staff, thus contributing to the firm’s lower labour costs while maintaining its calculations of transactions. These technologies, used by all accounting actors both those in-office and teleworking, I suggest, help the networks to control productivity in four ways.
First, by maintaining, through agencies, the security of the firm’s digital technologies and reporting on their use. This the agencies of the technologies achieved in two ways. First, by providing access to
the firm’s computer system only to accredited actors via the traditional login scripts. This system also applied to teleworkers who used the family computer to log into the firm’s VPN. However, none of
from those computers. Most directors like N admitted to not even knowing if the computer technologies in the teleworker home were adequate: “No we don’t ask about what computers they have at home.” The concept that the teleworker computer system was adequate, reliable and
connected to broadband did not appear to be of interest to the directors in terms of risk to productivity. Some firms, for example WDN, restricted remote access to the firm’s VPN: “No, not everyone has access. They don’t need it, just the senior staff,” while others like B said, “If you request it and the directors approve, then fine.” Secondly, productivity control was exercised by reporting on all the activities the actor accountants were engaged in while logged on to the VPN regardless of the network they were located in. Thus, technology, especially the computer software, is the ultimate silent panopticon. However, unlike Bentham’s original which was visible yet invisible so that the power of being observed was always in the minds of the inmates, the technological panopticon is completely invisible. Thus, the ‘inmates’, the actors, regardless of where they were located, would be unaware