Co-Configuration in Interaction Work

How to increase knowledge workers productivity is still a puzzle. While knowledge work has become increasingly virtual, collaborative and interactive, we still witness challenges in the area of productivity. We challenge the widespread perception of the causal relationship between high autonomy and high productivity in knowledge work and the fact that configuration and standardization for improving productivity is logical impossible. With a hermeneutical approach we describe and interpret “what is going on” in two different context of interaction knowledge work. Findings suggests that knowledge workers often feel caught in counter-productive practices with technology, due to the autonomous use of Interaction-IT and the challenge of configuring work. We witness different behaviors related to “the autonomy paradox” and we see something interesting happening, when introducing Interaction IT. While configuring work should lower autonomy and negatively influence productivity, we see the opposite. While increased autonomy should increase the productivity, we also see the opposite. We interpret the findings as a balance between autonomy-loss and productivity gain - and as such deliver new insight on the autonomy paradox.