Working and Organizing in a Digital Age
A sociomaterial case study of a VU spin-off: high task connectivity, deep social isolation.
The need
VU-AMS, a fast-moving VU spin-off building stress-monitoring devices, was buzzing with digital activity yet starved of social cohesion. The question was how its scattered tools were actually shaping whether people belonged.
The challenge
Belonging is hard to measure, and even the founder felt the digital landscape was 'miserable' without knowing why. We had to make the invisible structure visible: how a messy mix of Outlook, WhatsApp, Teams, Jira and Notion was quietly producing isolation.
What I made
I built a sociomaterial framework across ecological, processual and institutional dimensions, and ran fieldwork (semi-structured interviews plus around four hours of non-participant observation). It synthesised into our concept of Fragmented Functionalism: people could do tasks together while being cut off from community and identity.
The outcome
A clear diagnosis and concrete recommendations the start-up could act on: a governed digital commons, and matching the medium to the relational purpose.
Key points
- Conducted interviews and around four hours of structured observation
- Built a three-dimensional sociomaterial framework (ecological, processual, institutional)
- Synthesised the findings into the concept of Fragmented Functionalism
- Recommended a governed digital commons and media-to-purpose alignment