Chapter 1 Introduction

Abstract

This book is about the underlying mechanisms of agile management that control work processes in the context of industrial tech development. It challenges commonly held beliefs in adaptability, collaboration and flattened hierarchies claimed to be achieved by agile approaches. In asking how these promises are put into practice, this book offers novel insights into how work is controlled in times of increasing flexibility and constant change in the world of work and management. Through a rich analysis of a case study in industrial tech companies, Klara‑Aylin Wenten argues that agility is deeply entrenched in ambivalences ranging between planning and improvising, caring and exploiting, intimacy and professional distance, accuracy and imperfection and autonomy and control. She illuminates the challenging expectations and invisible work efforts that employees are faced with to adhere to the promise of agility. In introducing the concept of ‘management scripts’, the author sheds light on how action patterns, work habits, roles, interactions or artifacts embed (unspoken) guidelines instructing and controlling employees’ daily work lives. This lens on scripts challenges conventional management theories and highlights the pivotal role of material objects in work control. This book thus extends our understanding of the heterogeneity of humans and nonhumans contributing to the dynamics of managerial control, even beyond the scope of agile methodologies. This book appeals to an academic audience ranging from the humanities and social sciences to more practice‑based disciplines in management and business. As a research monograph, this book is predominantly dedicated to academic scholars in the fields of Science and Technology Studies, organization and management studies and the sociology of work but also addresses practitioners and scholars interested in business, innovation, design, anthropology or cultural studies. Chapter 1 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.