Taking the highly-institutionalized, socio-technical domain of airport security as its empirical basis, the article focuses on interorganizational workplaces marked by public/private dialectics, and their impact on changing work practices, identity processes, and power-resistance relations. The empirical material stems from the ethnography that I conducted at an Italian international airport (April 2013–March 2015). Data include fieldnotes, interviews, and video recordings. Having described the institutional and operational scenario, I outline the contradictory pressures characterizing the considered setting, and the way security personnel make sense of and cope with them. Then I discuss a case of techno-organizational change concerning a technology in use at security checkpoints (Threat Image Projection). I show how the interorganizational context produces unforeseen and undesigned ‘second order’ change effects, and how such effects may escalate workers’ resistance. I close with some general reflections on ambivalent interorganizational working orders.

Airport security contradictions. Inter-organizational entanglements and changing work practices / Bassetti, Chiara. - In: ETHNOGRAPHY. - ISSN 1466-1381. - 19:3(2018), pp. 288-311. [10.1177/1466138117696513]

Airport security contradictions. Inter-organizational entanglements and changing work practices

Bassetti, Chiara
2018-01-01

Abstract

Taking the highly-institutionalized, socio-technical domain of airport security as its empirical basis, the article focuses on interorganizational workplaces marked by public/private dialectics, and their impact on changing work practices, identity processes, and power-resistance relations. The empirical material stems from the ethnography that I conducted at an Italian international airport (April 2013–March 2015). Data include fieldnotes, interviews, and video recordings. Having described the institutional and operational scenario, I outline the contradictory pressures characterizing the considered setting, and the way security personnel make sense of and cope with them. Then I discuss a case of techno-organizational change concerning a technology in use at security checkpoints (Threat Image Projection). I show how the interorganizational context produces unforeseen and undesigned ‘second order’ change effects, and how such effects may escalate workers’ resistance. I close with some general reflections on ambivalent interorganizational working orders.
2018
3
Bassetti, Chiara
Airport security contradictions. Inter-organizational entanglements and changing work practices / Bassetti, Chiara. - In: ETHNOGRAPHY. - ISSN 1466-1381. - 19:3(2018), pp. 288-311. [10.1177/1466138117696513]
File in questo prodotto:
File Dimensione Formato  
1466138117696513(1)_in issue.pdf

Solo gestori archivio

Tipologia: Versione editoriale (Publisher’s layout)
Licenza: Tutti i diritti riservati (All rights reserved)
Dimensione 522.05 kB
Formato Adobe PDF
522.05 kB Adobe PDF   Visualizza/Apri

I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione

Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11572/246816
Citazioni
  • ???jsp.display-item.citation.pmc??? ND
  • Scopus 6
  • ???jsp.display-item.citation.isi??? 4
  • OpenAlex ND
social impact