Managing the software development labour process: direct control, time and technical autonomy
Rowena Barrett · DMU Open Research Archive (De Montfort University) · 2005
Software developers, those people who create software, are often viewed as typical of ‘knowledge workers’ (Scarbrough 1999) or ‘symbolic analysts’ (Reich 1991) and among those said to become the future aristocrats of the labour market (Castells 1996). Castells (1996) is one of a number of writers who argue that cooperation, teamwork, worker autonomy and responsibility are necessary to manage such informational work processes, and there are obvious echoes here of notions of responsible autonomy arising from early labour process analysis. However various writers point to problems with ‘knowledge work’ as a concept (see Alvesson 1993, 2000; Scarbrough 1999; Alvesson and Kärreman 2001) and there is emerging a less optimistic view about the degree of autonomy these employees may enjoy (see Hyman, Baldry and Bunzel 2001; Rubery and Grimshaw 2001; Rasmaussen and Johansen this volume). In 2002 Reich argued that stress should now be placed on creativity rather than simply analytical skills and this has been popularized by Florida’s (2002) ‘rise of the creative classes’.