Business Commons^™

Clock As A Mediating Technology Of Organization, Melissa Gregg, Tamara Kneese

Media Studies

The clock has long been a social technology, or a way of authorizing a singular source to propel collective activity. This chapter explores whether this social function continues in quite the same way in the wake of digital technology. It investigates the particular role of the clock in the workplace—how a predictable relationship to time accrued value for The Organization as an institutional form. The chapter traces the history of the clock, from factories to the contemporary digital workplace, asking how new technologies have changed the status of the clock as a way of organizing labour and productivity.