Reflections on Sociotechnical Change: New Directions for and Continuities in Research on New Technology, Work, and Employment

TL;DR

This reflective article proposes three interconnected directions for research on new technology, work, and employment: stronger theorisation of technology and political economy of Big Tech/AI, a wider empirical and methodological lens beyond “new, new technologies,” and deeper historical contextualisation. It argues that sociotechnical change should be understood as politically contested, uneven, and historically situated rather than inevitable.

Key findings

• The article calls for renewed theorisation of technology and political economy, arguing that AI is often black-boxed or presented as an autonomous, magical force, which obscures the social, economic, political, and organisational processes behind its production and implementation.
• It highlights the material dominance of Big Tech: the Magnificent 7 companies constitute around 35 per cent of the value of the US stock market, and NVIDIA alone makes up 8 per cent of the entire S&P 500, which the authors describe as a gigantic bubble financed by fictitious capital.
• It argues that research should expand beyond highly visible cases to under-explored sectors such as education, retail, hospitality, manufacturing, and construction, and to adopters versus non-adopters within the same industries, including logistics SMEs alongside Amazon warehouses.
• It emphasises historical contextualisation, warning that snapshot studies and fixation on the “new technologies du jour” obscure continuities such as Taylorism, metrics, surveillance, and earlier ICT-mediated control systems.

Methods

• This is a brief, reflective article rather than an empirical study; it identifies three interrelated directions for advancing scholarship in the field.
• No datasets were generated or analysed, as stated in the data availability note.
• The argument is developed through conceptual discussion and engagement with existing literature, including examples from the journal’s back catalogue and contemporary debates on AI, platforms, and Big Tech.

Limitations

• The paper does not state formal limitations.
• Evident from the text: as a reflective piece, it offers no new empirical data, systematic review, or tested hypotheses, so its claims are conceptual and agenda-setting rather than empirically demonstrated.
• Evident from the text: its examples and assertions about Big Tech, AI, and digitalisation rely on selected literature and illustrative cases rather than a comprehensive or representative dataset.