From Linear to Interactive Logics: Characteristics of Workplace Development as Illustrated by Projects in Large Mail Centers

Abstract

The 1960's and 1970's saw a mushrooming interest in research-based experiments with new forms of work organization. From the latter 1970's, this interest started to decline. When, today, new initiatives are taken to bring research back into the process of workplace restructuring, there is a need to analyze the experiences with the experimental-like projects of the past with a view to defining their limitations and seeing to what extent alternative strategies for change can be developed. Based on Scandinavian experience, the article contains a discussion of field experiments and related approaches, and outlines an alternative in terms of broadly oriented interactive change processes where human communication is the leading element rather than, i.e., a specific theory of design. Projects in mail centers are used as illustrations.