Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
This experience is set within the activity. It gives meaning to this activ-
ity, with regard to the course of work, and also guides it. Furthermore, the
activity mobilized in work constructs this experience. Activity is medi-
ated by skills (Teiger et al., 1998), which we will view here as means to
regulate action between three temporalities: a managerial one, that is,
sociotechnical in nature, and that refers to the goals and means of the
company, as implemented through the organization of work; a collec-
tive one, which refers to work collectives, to peers and to the hierarchy,
and that can therefore draw on several sources; and an individual tem-
porality, as defined above, which is composed of biological, psychologi-
cal and subjective dimensions. Therefore, courses of work are located at a
crossroads between several individual and collective temporalities. And
human activity, which takes its place within the course of work, relates
to a process of regulation between these various micro, meso and macro
temporalities (Gaudart, 2014).
Based on this, three major questions emerge: How can managerial
and collective time frames pose themselves as resources or as constraints
for these time frames? How can processes of decline and growth trans-
form activity? Conversely, how can activity, in return, exert an influence
on these multiple time frames? With this last question, we will arrive at
the means for a constructive approach of work.
Managerial time frames yield a vision of the course
of work as a process of decline
Whereas individual temporalities develop themselves within a combina-
tion, which is constantly renewed over time, between decline and experi-
ence, managerial time frames - those that design, organize and assess
work - often have another vision of these time frames. This increase in
the time experienced by workers is mostly associated with processes of
decline rather than experience. This has direct consequences on the orga-
nization of courses of work, as workers draw close to the end of active life.
This view of work as a decline is based on three different ingredients that
combine with one another: social stereotypes that are present in society
as a whole and are more or less fuelled by public policies at the national
level, transformations of work that leave little space for the diversity of
workers, and a view of skills as being based on prescribed work rather
than on activity as it is done in the real world. This managerial view leads
to mismatches between time frames (Alter, 2003). Managerial time frames
and individual time frames do not develop following the same logic, and
these conflicts may lead to declines in health over the course of life.
The first ingredient deals with negative social stereotypes related to
ageing. One should point out that - in Western societies - these stereotypes
