Work practices

What is work practices?

Adler and Pouliot (2011) suggest five key characteristics of a work practice:

1. practice is performance, i.e., the process of doing something
2. practice tends to be patterned, i.e., actions are repeated over time and space
3. practice is more or less competent in the meaning that it can be done correctly or incorrectly in a socially recognizable way
4. practice rests on background knowledge, and
5. practice waves together the discursive and the material world, i.e., without written and spoken communication people cannot make a difference between behavior and practice, and artefacts in the material world are used to carry out the practice.

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Business processes vs. Work practices

The notion of practice is often compared and contrasted to that of business processes.

Work practices — emerge bottom-up from the activities of agents and reflect their knowledge and experience as these have developed over time.

Business processes — are designed top-down by management and imposed on employees with or without their consent.

Business Processes

Processes:

• organize and structure the daily work in an organization
• are often expressed explicitly in task descriptions, process diagrams, and / or handbooks
• enable management to establish an efficient work organization that ensures reliable and consistent results
• may hamper creativity and flexibility
• newly introduced process can break down existing work practices, thereby disrupting the working of an organization