Social interactions at work: why interactive work should be an analytical category in its own right
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/ER-06-2021-0245 |
| Published date | 07 July 2022 |
| Date | 07 July 2022 |
| Pages | 81-95 |
| Subject Matter | HR & organizational behaviour,Industrial/labour relations,Employment law |
| Author | Nadja Doerflinger |
Social interactions at work: why
interactive work should be an
analytical category in its own right
Nadja Doerflinger
Department of Changing World of Work,
Federal Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, Dortmund, Germany
Abstract
Purpose –The purpose of this paper is to make a conceptual argument for considering interactive work –
i.e. work made up of micro-level exchanges or social interactions with third parties such as customers,
patients or citizens –as a distinct analytical category in employment-related research. The argument is
underpinned by the core role played by interactive work in valorisation.
Design/methodology/approach –Thisis a conceptual paper, with its argument based on key findings from
the debates on symbolic interactionism, service work and interaction work. These are merged and combined
with a valorisation perspective.
Findings –“Social interactions”and “work”havemostly been considered separately bytheoretical sociology
and the sociology of work.The author contends however that the two conceptsshould be viewed together, as
social interactions at work are a constitutivefeature of many occupations,jobs and tasks. This impliesstudying
both exchangeand social relationships betweenthe different parties and theirembeddedness in specific (multi-
level)contexts. Moreover,there are two reasons whyinteractive work relatesto specific workingconditions: first,
it involvescustomers or similar groupsas third parties; second,it is key to valorisation. To systematicallystudy
interactivework, context-sensitive approachesspanning multiple (analytical) levels arerecommended.
Originality/value –The article contributes to advancing the understanding of interactive work as a distinct
form of work as yet under-theorised but deserving to be considered as a separate analytical category.
Keywords Social interaction, Interactive work, Service work, Service triangle, Valorisation,
Working conditions, Labour process
Paper type Conceptual paper
Introduction
Work as interaction is the central theme of sociological
and social psychological study of work.
Hughes (1971, p. 304)
Conceptualisations of different forms of work and employment often use dichotomies to
distinguish between analytical categories: production versus service work, blue-collar versus
white-collar work, paid versus unpaid work, part-time versus full-time work or permanent
Social
interactions at
work
81
© Nadja Doerflinger. Published by Emerald Publishing Limited. This article is published under the
Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) licence. Anyone may reproduce, distribute, translate and
create derivative works of this article (for both commercial and non-commercial purposes), subject to full
attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of this licence may be seen at http://
creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode
The author would like to thank the Editor and the three anonymous reviewers for their helpful
comments and guidance related to the article. Moreover, the author wants to thank Anita Tisch for her
feedback on an earlier version of the article. This research was developed in the framework of the project
“Interaktionsarbeit: Wirkungen und Gestaltung des technologischen Wandels (InWiGe)”(Interactive
work: exploring and shaping the effects of the technological transformation), financed by the Federal
Ministry of Education and Research (Germany), project numbers 02L18A000 and 02L18A001.
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
https://www.emerald.com/insight/0142-5455.htm
Received 11 June 2021
Revised 15 March 2022
5 May 2022
Accepted 6 May 2022
Employee Relations: The
International Journal
Vol. 44 No. 7, 2022
pp. 81-95
Emerald Publishing Limited
0142-5455
DOI 10.1108/ER-06-2021-0245
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