Smart Working

Purpose: To provide a conceptual framework for understanding the role of organizational control in the context of remote work arrangements. Design/methodology/approach The framework has been developed drawing on two distinct research streams. Existing frameworks on remote work arrangements enabled to identify relevant dimensions to include in our framework, i.e. drivers of adoption and outcomes of implementation. It also evidenced the importance of opening-up the remote work implementation process addressing crucial management issues, including organizational control. In the basis of extant organizational research we deconstructed the complexity of organizational control in its constituent elements and identified mechanisms of control enactment over time. Findings: The framework links the complex dynamics of organizational control change initiated by the adoption of remote work arrangements with its antecedents (drivers of adoption and characteristics of the remote work model) and implementation outcomes at individual, group and organizational level. It open-ups the implementation stage focusing on the dynamics of organizational control and clarifies its role when the organization decides to adopt remote working. Originality/value The framework assumes that organizational control is not a static entity but a process of mutual constitution between structures of controls and actions enacted over time by both managers and employees (remote workers and on-site colleagues). It shows the value of a process perspective that emphasizes time, change and mechanisms related to organizational control. Moreover, it constitutes a valuable reference guide to interpret in an integrated way existing research and identify inconsistencies in empirical findings, relevant gaps and opportunities for future research.

Until recently, knowledge-intensive work activities have predominantly taken place in office buildings as a specialized form of economic infrastructure. New digital technologies together with an economic and organizational transition from closed firms to open platforms has changed the pattern of work within the modern metropolis. The office building is no longer the sole workplace typology and work activity has intensified in other urban locations. The questions then are: "How might smart cities reinterpret workplace culture at the urban scale outside the framework of office buildings typology?" and "Which tools and methodologies can be used to make digital workplace culture visible at the urban scale?" In order to answer these questions, workplaces are observed not as private architectural spaces but as compositions of "subjective urban experiences". A Twitter data analysis provides evidence of workplace spatial culture within the innovative global cities of Amsterdam, London and Paris, interpreted as behavior settings. This analysis shows that office pattern locations are generally distributed independently to knowledge intensive business services and workplace demand, as expressed through social media analyses. In addition to office buildings, transit hubs, urban amenities and new digital services play a key role in reframing workplace location. Moving beyond generic visions for digital work in outer spaces, big data therefore provides specific insights and incentives for considering workplace design at the urban scale.

Of all the socioeconomic changes caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, the disruption to workforce organizations will probably leave the largest indelible mark. The way work will be organized in the future will be closely linked to the experience of working under the same institution's response to the pandemic. This paper aims to fill the gap in knowledge about smart working (SW) in public organizations, with a focus on the experience of the employees of two Italian research organizations, CNR and INGV. Analysing primary data, it explored and assessed how SW had been experienced following the implementation of governmental measures aimed at limiting the spread of COVID-19.

In this essay, I employ a crisis-opportunity perspective to approach the practice of smart work and the making of collaborative space in responding and adapting to COVID-19. These trends have been emerging at a faster pace in the recent decade, facilitated by a growing knowledge economy and information technological advancement. COVID-19 provides an extreme setting to test and trigger changes, and are likely to translate these emerging trends into a new normal in the way we work and the way we use space. This new normal, once established in the post-CVOID-19 world, will necessitate a new thinking about workplace management and space design to disrupt many norms rooted in an industrial age.

This paper focuses on the creative potential offered to remote workers by an innovative workplace, i.e. Smart Work Center (SWC), that acquired momentum with the diffusion of smart working, a holistic approach in managing employees' flexibility. In conceptualizing SWCs as "creative workspaces", we draw on literature on workplace creativity to identify a number of factors related to work environment influencing individual creativity. Then, in light of specific SWC's features, we developed a set of research propositions explaining how SWCs can support creativity among employees working in these spaces, both directly (through material elements) and indirectly (through culture and social relations).

During the Covid crisis the population in regime of telework jumped from 3% to 25% of the workforce. This study aims at better understanding how the massive shift to telework following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic affected workers’ jobs and lives in France during the first lockdown (March 17th-May 11th 2020). In particular, we shed light on how this exogenous change had an impact on tasks content and work organisation dimensions like teamwork, routine, workers’ autonomy and types and extent of supervisory controls method. Moreover, we dig into both subjective and objective dimensions of job quality such as job satisfaction, motivation, changes in working time and pay, together with issues related to physical and mental health and more generally to work-life balance. The picture that emerges is quite fragmented, largely depending on workers’ occupation and family composition, although some general patterns could be observed. First, the transition to telework did not affected the structural inequality of the occupational structure: respondents accomplishing low skilled and standardised tasks enjoyed, to a certain extent, more freedom from direct control, whereas interviewees on less standardised and more autonomous tasks were more able to carve out some niches of independence in the new situation and were more able to resist management pressures for more control and standardization. Second, most organisations had no specific policies dedicated to teleworking and workers had to adapt to the new situation without any special guideline: horizontal cooperation emerges as driver of adaptation as important as vertical control, if not more. Third, the positive aspect that was noticed by the large majority of respondents was the opportunity that telework gave them to experiment a more flexible management of time, at least for those who could tinker with their working time schedule. Fourth, and especially for that reason, the overwhelming majority of respondents wishes to consolidate the practice of telework also after the end of the lockdown and with more continuity.

La consapevolezza maturata nel lontano 2006 che si sarebbe arrivati all'attuale mutamento che sospinge il settore dei servizi ad una vera ristrutturazione e crescita in senso capitalistico mi ha portato a pensare che le mie scelte operative debbano essere potenziate da soluzioni tecnologiche che chiamerò "automatismi". L'obiettivo degli automatismi è il rafforzamento e lo sviluppo della reciprocità e della condivisione delle esperienze, per permettere di trasferire la conoscenza e di conservarla dall'interno delle nostre organizzazioni per un periodo indeterminato, in totale riservatezza. Tutti noi conosciamo nel concreto delle nostre esperienze professionali e delle nostre attività quotidiane i problemi commessi alla trasmissione del "saper fare" , ma spesso non accettiamo che la prospettiva di una soluzione dipende dal grado di "trasparenza" che riusciamo ad ottenere da noi stessi quando usiamo la tecnologia per comunicare, è questa la chiave di lettura della soluzione che delineo qui di seguito. La tecnologia deve aiutarci a concentrarci sull'esperienza, unica vera conoscenza del "come" subordinato al "perché", interagendo sul web con emozioni e competenze in base al quesito diagnostico al fine di rendere la soluzione al cliente, con una organizzazione in continuo apprendimento 1. Con il sistema jsarmute proponiamo di fare il passo necessario, integrando e distribuendo i contenuti che attengono il "come ho fatto e perché" e il "come farò e in base a cosa" 2. Questo avviene mediante il rispetto di criteri informatici essenziali, cioè "automatismi" che integrano i prodotti mono funzione attuali e li collegano alla produttività di gruppo. Le discriminanti essenziali sono:  informazioni permanenti generate a favore dell'organizzazione (cooperativa, capitalistica o associativa che sia);  informazioni permanenti generate a favore del cliente;  importanza o valore del compito o dell'incarico svolto;  raggiungimento degli obiettivi individuali (margini di esecuzione+/-margini di relazione);  tempo dedicato alla formazione dei collaboratori. Così il sistema gestisce e tiene conto delle variabili precitate riducendo concretamente il tempo di lavoro, trasformandolo da soggettivo, in oggettivo e poi produttivo (base della misurazione dell'accumulo di capitale intellettuale) a favore dell'organizzazione e del cliente. Imola, 29 dicembre 2014 Dott. Luca Martini 1 PARADIGM SHIFT (USA: Mc Graw Hill, 1993), 189. 2 THAT WILL BE: How The New World of Information Will Change Our Life (San Francisco: HarperCollins, HarperEdge, 1997), 212; Dertouzos: "For an organization to extract this increased decision power from its people, it will have to provide then with more knowledge about why some things are done and who does them, and why certain decision are made and who make them".

L’Istituto  Nazionale  di  Geofisica  e  Vulcanologia  (INGV), sin dal 2018, ha intrapreso un percorso che ha portato all'adozione del lavoro agile. Con l'emergenza sanitaria COVID-19, il lavoro agile è entrato massivamente in esercizio rivelandone i suoi vantaggi e gli svantaggi. Questo articolo mette in luce le specificità degli enti di ricerca e le correzioni che sarà necessario porre ai regolamenti del lavoro agile per armonizzarli con le norme e i contratti collettivi nazionali specifici del mondo della ricerca.

Il contributo affronta il tema della digitalizzazione e della esigenza di protezione dei lavoratori alla luce dell’emergenza sanitaria provocata dal Covid 19. Gli ambiti attorno ai quali si sviluppano le riflessioni sono la resilienza, l’equità e le pari opportunità, tutte condizioni che sono messe a dura prova dalla situazione emergenziale che ha costretto i lavoratori e le lavoratrici a lasciare il lavoro per operare dall’interno delle loro case.
Tale condizione ha rimarcato taluni stereotipi di genere evidenziando come l’impatto del Covid 19 rischia di ricadere soprattutto sulle donne lavoratrici.
PAROLE CHIAVE: Emergenza, smart work, lavoro femminile, resilienza, equità

A lot of sources are available to every side of human environment. These sources are genuinely provided by
nature to us. The utilization of these available sources again and again results in “re-source” for us. The
interaction among multiple resources increases the level of availability for maximum possible duration to
the environment. The involvement of both (natural & artificial) intelligence create interaction environment
which works every time and everywhere. The quality work done bounded with time for impactful effect is
known as “smart work”. The theme and framework are required for creating an environment for smart
work. In this article we propose a theorem for theme declaration which is based on suggested lemma. The
theme declaration is measured in probabilistic terms. To perform work in smart fashion we require the
appropriate proportion of both intelligence (natural and human) and their interaction. We have also cited
three varied examples discussing the relevance of intelligent interaction for smart work.