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Views new tasks of vocational education and training (VET) from the perspective of the German educational system for the upper secondary level. Outlines a proposal to enrich the German “dual system” of vocational education with elements of “general” education. Important effects on VET are to be expected. The main means for such a change should be the guideline of “social shaping of work and technology”. Stresses the importance of “doing” in relation to “thinking”. This “shaping approach” shows to be a starting point for a new curricular theory. Sketches the problem of legitimizing criteria for shaping work and technology, making use of dialectical ideas. In conclusion, highlights some consequences for the education of VET professionals.

Proposes the concept of rhetorical closure to address the phenomenon of pervasive IT “fashions”. Suggests that prevailing discourses surrounding IT are dominated by the rhetoric of closure and that such closure, although mutually constructed by suppliers, consultants and managers, has had several adverse consequences in terms of organizational change and results. Stimulates a critical thinking regarding the persistence of successive waves of new IT fashions and the consequences of closure on practice.

Theoretical framework informed by political views within the social shaping school combined with Habermas' theory of communicative action. Illustration of the argument is based on 22 semi‐structured interviews (senior practitioners from client‐firms, software suppliers and consulting‐firms working on ERP projects).

Outlines the nature of the “chain reaction” produced by rhetorical closure from individual practices to the segment level. Identifies occasions for breaking down rhetorical closure at the three levels of analysis. At the individual level, opportunities are related to daily users' practices. At the organizational level, opportunities are related to ongoing organizational decisions and negotiations regarding IT adoption. At the segment level, opportunities are related to forming coalitions, networks and groups of users.

Adopts an original perspective, examining the concept of rhetorical closure from a combination of two approaches: social shaping of technology and communicative action theory. Connects different types of closure to different types of rationality, and recognizes the specific validity claims underlying them. Calls into question current decision‐making processes that sustain IT pervasiveness and taken‐for‐granted assumptions of inevitability associated with new IT fashions.

This study aims to establish a comprehensive understanding of the intricacies of how individuals engage with deepfakes, focusing on limiting adverse effects and capitalizing on their benefits.

This study conducted a meta-synthesis of qualitative studies on deepfakes, incorporating study-specific analysis followed by a cross-study synthesis.

Based on the meta-synthesis, the study developed an integrated conceptual framework based on the perspectives from the social shaping of technology theory embedding deepfake-related assertions, motivations, the subtleties of digital platforms, and deepfake-related repercussions.

The study offers crucial insights into the evolving nature of deepfakes as a socio-technical phenomenon and the significance of platform dynamics in deepfake production. It enables researchers to comprehend the cascading effects of deepfakes and positions them to evaluate deepfake-related risks and associated mitigation mechanisms.

The framework that emerges from the study illustrates the influence of platforms on the evolution of deepfakes and assists platform stakeholders in introducing effective platform governance structures to combat the relentless proliferation of deepfakes and their consequences, as well as providing guidance for governments and policymakers to collaborate with platform leaders to set guardrails for deepfake engagement.

Deepfakes have been extensively contested for both their beneficial and negative applications and have been accused of heralding an imminent epistemic threat that has been downplayed by some quarters. This diversity of viewpoints necessitates a comprehensive understanding of the phenomenon. In responding to this call, this is one of the first to establish a comprehensive, theoretically informed perspective on how individuals produce, process, and engage with deepfakes through a meta-synthesis of qualitative literature on deepfakes.

To assess: (1) the prevalence of specific work practices that incorporate use of information and communication technology (ICT), (2) whether these practices are connected to employee distress or productivity via work extension or social network processes; (3) the implications of ICT-based work practices for the work/family interface.

We draw on the 2008 Pew Networked Workers data collected from a nationally representative sample of workers and use logistic regression methods to investigate links among use of specific ICT-based practices and increases in distress or productivity.

(1) Use of e-mail, instant messaging, texts, and social networking sites at work varies by demographic, organization, and job characteristics, and (2) ICT-based work extension, social network expansion, and connectivity to work colleagues are linked to increases in distress and productivity. Connecting with family or friends while at work can reduce the likelihood that an employee reports an increase in work stress.

Limitations include a cross-sectional design, age of the data, missing data, and measurement issues. Even with these limitations, there are few investigations drawing from national samples of employees that can assess work-related ICT use with this level of depth.

Findings point to technological innovation as an important factor influencing work extension and social network processes and connect this to changes in employee distress and productivity. The focus on productivity is especially important given the emphasis that previous research has placed on linking ICT use and employee distress.

Generational membership is argued to have an impact on how social technologies are used for knowledge sharing and communication in organizational contexts. Previous research has especially underscored the difference between digital natives and digital immigrants in how they make sense of and interact with social technologies for work. The purpose of this paper is to provide a multidimensional perspective and to explore generational differences as well as other factors deriving from both work-related and personal characteristics.

The paper presents a summary of the findings from interviews with 58 consultants from 17 managing consulting firms. Participants were selected based on their knowledge-intensive roles and their willingness to share information about their knowledge practices.

Findings highlight the significance of the organizational rank, knowledge needs, individuals’ enthusiasm for technology use and personality disposition in shaping workers’ attitudes toward social technologies for knowledge practices. This work builds from a social construction of technology perspective to provide a comprehensive insight into the roles played by work and personality-related factors beyond age and generational differences in the use of social technologies in and for work.

This research contributes to the discourse on generational differences and the use of social technologies. It puts this question into a broader context, and highlights other factors that shape this relationship.

Information systems for production management tend to be promoted by technology suppliers as standardised solutions which form a singular “best practice”. However, as these technologies are configurational, the notion of best practice is illusory. Data on the diffusion and design of information systems for production management across four European countries indicate distinctive national differences. It is argued that these can best be explained at two levels: first, national differences in the social institutional networks through which information about these systems is diffused socially shapes patterns of adoption and design; second pre‐existing patterns of work design and managerial practices may influence the degree of “fit” between particular design philosophies and prevailing organizational contexts in different countries. Differences in the particular roles of professional association networks and technology suppliers in the diffusion process are explained in terms of different patterns of knowledge sharing across countries.

What is the future of work going to look like? The aim of this paper is to show how the sociology of expectations (SE) – which deals with the power of visions – can make important contributions in terms of thinking about this issue by critically evaluating the dominant expert positions related to the future-of-employment- and artificial intelligence (AI) debate.

After providing a literature review regarding SE, an approach based on the latter is applied to interpret the dominant ideal-type expert positions in the future of work debate to illustrate the value of this perspective.

Dominant future scripts can be characterized by a focus on the effects of AI technology that give agency to technology and to the future, involve the hype of expectations with polarized frames, and obscure uncertainty. It is argued that these expectations can have significant consequences. They contribute to the closing off of alternative pathways to the future by making some conversations possible, while hindering others. In order to advance understanding, more sophisticated theorizing is needed which goes beyond these positions and which takes uncertainty and the mutual shaping of technology and society into account – including the role expectations play.

The study asserts that the dominant positions contain problematic assumptions. It makes suggestions for helping move beyond these current framings of the debate theoretically. It also argues that scenario building and backcasting are two tools that could help move forward thinking about the future of work – especially if this is done in a way so as to build strongly on SE.

The arguments presented herein enhance sense-making in relation to the future-of-work debate, and can contribute to policy development.

There is a lack of adequate exploration of the role of visions related to AI and their consequences. This paper attempts to address this gap by applying an SE approach and emphasizing the performative force of visions.

It is widely claimed that new developments in human genetics will be instrumental in shaping life over the next century. But how, exactly, might these technologies affect developed societies? Do technologies themselves shape society or are technologies such as genetic testing and engineering themselves shaped by social structures? This article looks at the need for futurists to consider the ethical dimensions of human genetics and critically reviews the bodies of thought in this area.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the social adoption of the mobile phone by Irish teenagers in city, town and rural settings. It aims to investigate two key areas that have influenced the teenagers' social adoption of the mobile phone: first, the influence of locational and socio‐economic factors on mobile phone usage; second, how the teenagers' adoption of recently emergent Web 2.0 applications (social‐networking web sites and instant messaging services) tends to bring about a re‐positioning of the mobile phone's role as a communications channel.

The paper draws on a social shaping and domestication of media technologies approach, using original empirical data from a survey of teenage respondents and six focus groups.

The findings suggest that the teenagers' relationship to the mobile phone is evolving as newer communications applications emerge. In particular, the technical competencies and media literacies necessary for multi‐model communication are evolving fastest where locational and socio‐economic conditions are most favourable.

Although access to the mobile phone cuts across the strata of society, people's capacity to benefit from it – and from other forms of multi‐modal communication – is not evenly distributed. The paper argues that, despite universal ownership of the technological device among the sample of teenagers, the mobile phone is caught up in wider digital and socio‐economic divides.