Awareness, Motivation and Leadership in Production Systems: A Socio-Technical Perspective

Abstract With the remarkable structural changes that many sectors of the industry are currently experiencing with the advent and introduction of new digital technologies and the push that they are receiving from assorted agendas concerning industrial developments – as those connected with digital transformation and the so-called Industry 5.0 – it sensible to think that different aspects concerning cooperative work will be subject to changes, especially when it comes to issues associated with the use and appropriation of digital technologies. In this contribution, we address the concept of awareness and how it has been impacted by the continuous process of digitalisation and digital transformation within the industry under a practice-centred computing perspective. The study is based on an in-depth interview study featuring 19 participants across 11 different-sized manufacturing companies from the metalworking industry and other related sectors. The data was transcribed and subjected to thematic analysis. Subsequently, we discuss how not only awareness, but also motivation and leadership in production systems have been continuously impacted by these structural changes, at times in a negative way. We elaborate on our findings and reflect upon how existing CSCW notions, as coordination mechanisms, common information spaces and articulation spaces can be used to inform the design of new technologies that could enhance awareness and mitigate potentially negative impacts. In particular, we extend the notion of articulation spaces to include the role of a group mediator, which has been found relevant to support cooperation in industrial settings undergoing digital transformation.