IT & Work Design (Spring 2025)

Abstract

The students learn to conduct work place studies and analyses through the use of ethnographic methods.

Description

Today most new technologies are collaborative and supposed to support multiple, heterogeneous participants engaged in cooperative activities in various private and public domains. Designing, constructing, and integrating collaborative technologies within organizational settings requires carefully executed analyses of the particular organization in terms of IT strategies, work practices, and new technology opportunities. Workplace studies applying ethnographic field methods have proved to support such careful analysis.

In the course the students will be introduced to methods for conducting ethnographic studies with the aim of re-configuring practices and technologies to support particular organizational settings. The objectives of the course are thus to qualify the students to plan, participate, and report upon an ethnographic workplace study conducted within an organization with the aim of re-configuring practices and technologies to support the particular organizational setting. The students will learn to apply theoretical socio-technical concepts to argue, explain, and reflect upon workplace studies aimed at understanding business and workplace realities.

Formal prerequisites

- Students should be able to formulate a research question
- Students should be able to search for and cite literature

Intended learning outcomes

After the course, the student should be able to:

• Define a research question within the area of workplace studies related to IT, process, and organisation
• Identify, select, and analyse relevant material (theoretical concepts, method(s), and empirical work) for the research question
• Conduct an ethnographic workplace study within an organisation with the aim of re-configuring practices and technologies to support the particular organisational setting
• Report and communicate the project work (research question, theoretical background, method(s), analysis, argument, and result) in relation to academic standards
• Argue and reflect essential challenges and theoretical concepts relevant when executing workplace studies to understand business and workplace realities

Ordinary exam

Exam type:
D: Submission of written work with following oral, External (7-point scale)
Exam variation:
D2G: Submission for groups with following oral exam supplemented by the submission. Shared responsibility for the report.