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Modes of organising have an indirect relationship
with the new key technologies as enablers of new forms of
organisation. The effect is two-fold: first the emergent technologies
bring more efficiency to traditional organising, while at
the same time inspiring ideas about new ways to approach the
everyday life of organisations. Secondly, the metaphors and
models based on new technology are applied to building new
forms of organisational interaction. In this article we argue that
the metaphors that are currently beginning to affect organisations
on a larger scale are derived from networked communication
technology. Pentti Malaska, a Finnish Futures
Researcher, based his theory of societal change on the idea that
societal forms build upon one another as a succession of needs
that remain unfulfilled by the previous stage of development.
He presents the next stage as society of intangible needs, where
the focus of human activities will move to interaction between
people. We present the results of an investigation of two case
studies: Finnish IT-consultancy firm Reaktor, and Buurtzorg, a
Dutch home care organisation. They both have adopted
networked practices that question the traditional command
and control management structures, and replace them with
self-organisation, social control, and trust. In our research we
are focusing especially on how technology affects the way
these organisations approach their employees and clients.
These empirical findings are reflected against the theory of
society of intangible needs for contextualising the results, and
drawing out their potential implications for the organisations
and working life in the coming decades.