Autonomia e controllo del lavoro dipendente. Mutamenti indotti dalle innovazioni tecnologiche contemporanee. Employee Autonomy and Managerial Control: Changes Brought About by Contemporary Technological Innovations

This monograph offers a comprehensive interpretation of changes in managerial control within employment in relation to the technological transformations of recent decades, from computerization and the digitalization of work to digital remote work. The analysis is grounded in a processual and non–dualist conception of organization and draws on conceptual categories from Bruno Maggi’s Theory of Organizational Action and Norbert Elias’s figurational–processual sociology. From a long–term perspective, it situates transformations in organizational control within the historical trajectory extending from the post–Fordist turn to the present. The theoretical reflection is complemented by an analysis of trend data drawn from the European Working Conditions Survey (1991–2021). These data are interpreted using three ideal–typical forms of managerial control—new Tayloristic control, panopticon control, and controlled autonomy—developed through an extensive review of the theoretical and empirical literature.The findings point to a long–term shift toward the type of control referred to as “controlled autonomy”, affecting employment as a whole and accelerated first by digitalization and then by digital remote work. The monograph concludes by considering the potential implications of artificial intelligence for the future configuration of control and autonomy within employment. The introduction by Paola M. Torrioni highlights cross–cutting interpretative perspectives for assessing the text’s theoretical and analytical contribution within the contemporary debate on organized work. The afterword by Matteo Rinaldini places the core concept of controlled autonomy in dialogue with classic contributions from labuor process theory and outlines directions for future research on digital work.