As a result of ethnomethodological indifference and developing vulgar competence, it was made visible that a division of labour is a feature of the work of creating Minecraft content. This division of labour turns upon the appropriation of multiple IT systems and resources, as well as cooperative work between members with different roles, responsibilities and expertise. In order to get to grips with this division of labour and the underlying work practices in creating Minecraft content, Strauss’ analytic framework for researching the workplace was used as a way of mapping the work (Strauss 1985). As such, it constitutes a representational device to depict the research findings instead of a tool that facilitated or drove the analysis. This is further reinforced by the terminology used while unpacking the data; instead of fabricating categories that were believed to be representative of the setting’s work, the mapping was based entirely on the words and terms members used while talking about their practices.
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Strauss re-conceptualised the notion of the division of labour by proposing that the focal point of the study of work should not be how manpower is distributed across the different ranks of an organisation, but rather what the work is and how it is conducted. This reasoning is based on the viewpoint that work, as it happens in the workplace, revolves around the doing of a project. Consequently, all the tasks that are carried out as part of the setting’s work aim at the accomplishment of a project and the creation of a product. As a result to that, the division of labour is not something that is determined and imposed by the organisation where the work is situated in but rather is produced through members’ actions and involvement in the project itself.
To further unpack this proposition, Strauss coined the term “arc of work:” the sequential or concurrent arrangement of all the tasks, “clusters of tasks” and discrete “segments” (ibid.) in the doing of a project. Strauss argued that the arc, to some extent, can be planned by its actors. More precisely, there are those that decide whether “a project is necessary or desirable,” those who plan the “totality or segments of the arc,” as well as the ones that will be allocated the various tasks for doing the project (ibid.).
This discussion raises a few points that warrant further clarification. First of all, the arc itself does not constitute only a small number of sequentially arranged tasks. On the contrary, it can be broken down into a number of discrete segments that constitute the project’s overarching work practices. Each of these segments are split up into groups of or individuated tasks.
Secondly, whilst the arc can be laid out prior to the initiation of working on the project, contingent scenarios can emerge, which deviate the work from its predefined arrangement. Such occurrences necessitate the alteration of the way segments, clusters of tasks and tasks are assigned to actors, carried out, accounted for, and coordinated.
Thirdly, these activities are usually assigned and performed by different actors who are not necessarily collocated. These actors might belong to different hierarchical groups, hence being unaware of what individuals in other departments or hierarchical levels of the organisation are responsible for.
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Because of these matters, it is essential for those that participate in the project to articulate their work to each other. This becomes even more crucial when actors are dispersed across different sites of work, organisational levels, departments, etc. Strauss refers to this set of activities as “‘articulation work’ – a supra-type of work” that “amounts to… the meshing of… tasks, clusters of tasks, and segments of the total arc” (ibid.). By doing articulation work, actors account for their actions to and coordinate with those they work with, namely: subordinates, managers, and those that are on the same rank as them. Accountability itself revolves around a number of matters that are pertinent to the actors’ work, such as: what they do, how they do it, when they finish their tasks, in what capacity they function, etc.
In doing accounting, actors employ the use of “accountability systems,” which can vary from “formal systems of reporting” (ibid.) that are part of the accountability procedure exercised by the organisation itself, to bespoke solutions actors come up with to facilitate their needs. In explaining this notion, Strauss draws upon his own work on hospital wards and gives the examples of “elaborate and detailed written as well as verbal reports” (ibid.) being used for accountability purposes in this setting.
Based on this discussion, to understand and subsequently unpack the arc of work and the underlying division of labour that permeates it, Strauss advises that researchers should enquire into:
The actors that participate in the workplace, as well as their roles, responsibilities, and goals;
The product that is at the heart of the arc of work;
The discrete segments of the arc, as well as their underlying tasks; The articulation work that takes place in coordinating between the
various tasks of the arc; and
The contingent scenarios that emerge in doing the work and how they are addressed.
These are matters that organically appeared and reported in the course of doing fieldwork. Whilst they did not inform how the study itself was conducted, they
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facilitated in framing the latter contribution of this thesis; design implications (see chapter 8).