Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Work is concerned just as much with the relationship of workers to the
rule - as far as system operation is concerned - as with the relationship
to values in the order of subjectivity. Real-life work always arbitrates
between these two normative ranges. Hence, both the work organization
and the management that drives it are confronted with a choice:
•
To justify the collective or to justify autonomy only in terms of their utility
:
But then, how can one account for engagement and involvement if one
only recognizes these to make use of them, with a strictly utilitarian -
and therefore, heteronomous - view of perfecting their operation?
•
To justify the collective or to justify autonomy only in terms of subjective
values
: But how can one understand, then, their effectiveness if one
does not recognize their rationale in the very nature of the situations
involved?
We can therefore see that it is a key issue to develop a view of the
organization as something that mobilizes the resources necessary to man-
aging the tension between these heterogeneous designs. Indeed, in the
end, everything depends on the ways in which these situations respond
to one another: the areas that the organization identifies as a risk - see, in
our example above, the risk of oil projections in the eyes if one does not
wear goggles - are not necessarily the areas that the worker identifies as a
risk to himself (for the fitter, the risks which he identifies in relation to 'not
getting it right the first time').
To achieve this vision, one must recognize the power of subjectivity in
the battle with the 'unexpected elements of work' - that is, anything that
will constitute an event and justifies the active presence of the subject. But
to draw this line of reasoning to a close, one must be able not only to relate
subjectivity with its economic utility, but also to understand why the sub-
ject has a stake in being able to do something for himself or herself out of
what is happening (or happening to him or her).
The managerial stakes of autonomy
Ergonomics advocates a view of human resources management that is
geared not toward managing people, but toward managing the produc-
tive power of their activities. This orientation is concerned with the way
in which the organization constructs a relationship with autonomy: on the
one hand, the autonomy of people in their work, and on the other hand,
the autonomy of work in the processes of value creation. Indeed, there is
no way of truly supporting autonomy if one grounds its development only
in what the organization expects out of it.
When this orientation is not clear, this leads to an
injunction
of
autonomy - which is increasingly prevalent today, and increasingly patho-
genic. This may, for example, take on the form of the modern
obligation
to
