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Cutting dark matter. Professional capacity and organizational change

Bauke Steenhuisen (Delft University of Technology, Delft, Netherlands)

Journal of Organizational Ethnography

ISSN: 2046-6749

Article publication date: 12 August 2014

228

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the impact of organizational change on the competence of controllers in rail infrastructure operations. Controllers are a critical link in providing rail services. They guide train traffic 7/24 in real time from within control rooms by daily responding to a multitude of disturbances. Market reforms have radically changed their work conditions by unbundling and re-bundling control rooms.

Design/methodology/approach

Ethnographically inspired research has been performed at the work stations of controllers in both unbundled and re-bundled, both Dutch and British control rooms between 2007 and 2011. The author observed how controllers deal with moderate disturbances and discusses the nature of their underlying professional capacities, what guides their decision making in discretion. Implications are discussed how organizational change affects these capacities in case of unbundling and re-bundling control rooms.

Findings

The paper shows how to gain a more explicit understanding of what controllers, as professionals, essentially think and do. An open-interactive account of professional capacity emerges, in contrast to the private-cognitive view widespread in literature. Both conceptualizations of professional capacities have radically different implications for their susceptibility to organizational change.

Originality/value

This paper reveals an urgent perspective on the impact of market reforms, through the accompanying organizational change, on professional capacity at the operational level of providing public rail services.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

This research has been supported by the Next Generation Infrastructures Program.

Citation

Steenhuisen, B. (2014), "Cutting dark matter. Professional capacity and organizational change", Journal of Organizational Ethnography, Vol. 3 No. 2, pp. 152-168. https://doi.org/10.1108/JOE-03-2012-0016

Publisher

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Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2014, Emerald Group Publishing Limited

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