DiDIY on Work and Organization
(this topic will also be the topic of one of the workshops of our final conference in Milan, June 22nd 2017!)
To help understanding the multifaceted concept of DiDIY it is important to introduce its operational definition (D3.1, par 2.4):
- a DiDIYer, i.e., certain organizational roles (or, at a higher level of aggregation: certain organizational units, certain enterprises),
- carries out their own certain activities, activities previously carried out by experts (or specialized companies) – this aspect deals with the traditional notion of Do It Yourself –
- by exploiting certain digital technologies
- and possibly exploiting the knowledge sharing within a certain community (of individuals, of organizational entities) – these aspects deal with the innovative notion of Do It Together, where “together” refers to a community the DiDIYer belongs to.
On the basis of this definition, within the DiDIY D3.6 deliverable "Reviewed Research Model", several specific domains have been explored to highlight the presence of DiDIYers in different industries, at different hierarchical levels.
The general framework developed basing on the exploration in these domains shows the emergence of a profile of the 2020 worker, that we call “DiDIY worker”, who appears similar to the promising but rarely realized figure of the “smart worker”. The DiDIY worker, and a DiDIY-friendly organizational environment, represent a credible possible alternative scenario to the dark forecasts of a jobless economy as a sole consequence of digital innovation.
