Module Directory

Changes in technology, society and the economy have important implications for management, organization and work. Due to the theoretical lenses employed by management theorists, however, these implications are often not immediately appreciated. This module will examine the current changes happening in the world of work in light of contemporary social theory.

Particular attention will be paid to the wide-ranging socio-economic changes variously referred to in terms of the 'knowledge economy,' 'post-industrial society,' 'post-Fordism' or the 'new economy'. What all of these formulations share is an increased emphasis on 'knowledge' and 'communication' as the basis of organization, work, management and competitive advantage.

The aims of this module are:

• To critically understand contemporary changes in work, organization with particular reference to new technologies.


• To situate these changes in the context of wider societal and political-economic changes.


• To provide a theoretical framework for analyzing and critiquing these changes and to understand their implications for control and resistance in contemporary management and the labor process.


• To introduce a range of empirical examples of new organizational forms.


• Understand the dimensions of contemporary circuits of production and consumption.


• To be able to situate knowledge work and affective labor within these wider circuits.

By the end of this module, students will be expected to be able to:

1. Understand the implications of changes in technology, society and the economy for management, work and organization.


2. Have an appreciation of the ways in which new forms of labor and organization both shape and are shaped by these wider changes.

Skills for Your Professional Life (Transferable Skills)

• Synthesis and bringing together concepts and ideas


• Critical thinking


• Evaluation of evidence


• Recognise rival conceptual ideas


• Analysing Academic literature


• Argumentation / Essay writing skills


• Understand and work with social media and media analytical tools including social marketing skills

The shift of value production away from traditional concerns with capital, land and labor, toward more 'immaterial' resources such as knowledge, renders many of the old techniques and methods of management and work organization redundant. New forms of accounting for intangibles are necessary, as are new methods of control and supervision in more distributed forms of organization and work.

This module will focus on the emerging realities of management, organization and work within this new economy. Rather than a sanitized vision of the knowledge-intensive firm where everyone is equal, empowered, highly educated and self-actualizing in autonomous, networked organizations, this reality is often characterized by intrusive forms of managerial control, intensified surveillance, routinization and Taylorism, an increasing precariousness of employment and career, and a retrenchment in the gendered division of labor. Indeed, for many the engines of the 'new' economy are not knowledge and brainwork, but the high-volume, low-cost sweatshops found both in developing countries and in the cities of the global North.

By focusing upon the wider context within which these organizational and management challenges are arising, this module will prepare students for the new realities of work and management by paying attention to the full range of developments in organization.

This module will be delivered via:

• Weekly 2-hour lecture sessions, over 10 weeks.