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S. Zafari:
"Agency in socio-technical systems";
Supervisor, Reviewer: S. Köszegi, G. Fitzpatrick, M. Mara; Managementwissenschaft, 2020; oral examination: 2020-09-24.

Investigating the role of new technology is a continuing concern within organizational research.
With the rise of robotics and digitalization, the basic configurations underlying organizing are
changing dramatically. This is not merely altering the work we do but also who does the work
that opens new social challenges, such as whether being the author of actions means being in
charge or which consequences the emerging roles and forms of interaction with these
technologies have on our agency. Given that humans are the end-users and sense-making actors
of the organizations, it is vital to analyze the challenges that are associated with the integration
of emerging technologies into our social systems.
With a focus on system level, this dissertation displays a combined interest in the material and
social dimensions of organizing in explaining two working processes, namely human-robot
collaboration and flexible work. In doing so, I focus on social factors crucial in the integration
of emerging technologies in workplaces and show how these particular ways of working are
shaped by material (technology) changes and social (human) forces at workplaces.
The thesis concludes that changes in work do not only depend on assumed human agency but
the engagement with technologies also creates the conditionality that made certain
sociomaterial practices enacted. Our analytical and experimental results show a significant
impact of social and cognitive factors on people´s responses to technologies. That emphasizes
the importance of informal structure in enhancing the success of the technological integration.
Our findings suggest a set of contextual factors that influence the enactment of new ways of
working which can serve as a guideline for managers to align their resources and capabilities
for supporting new ways of working and optimizing their organization for the transformation
journey.

Socio-technical system, Agency, Human-robot collaboration, Flexible work

https://publik.tuwien.ac.at/files/publik_292765.pdf