Between the cloud and a hard place: a study of industrial transformation in the platform age

Abstract

It is now widely accepted that a new wave of digital technologies are catalyzing major changes in industries, workplaces, and social life more broadly. Phrases such as ‘the future of work,’ ‘digital transformation’, and ‘disruptive technologies’ are now part of the zeitgeist. This dissertation grounds these amorphous and heady buzzwords in existing processes of industrial change. Specifically, I investigate an ongoing shift in India’s software industry. India’s prominent software sector serves the computing needs of large US and UK corporations and therefore is regarded as an offshore industry. Emerging methods of organizing computing systems are unsettling the traditional services offered by information-technology (IT) companies in India. Based on qualitative fieldwork, I find that the ascendence of a distinct paradigm of corporate computing (‘cloud computing) intersects with new competitive strategies and shifts in workplace relations. My analysis of this process highlights the special role of managerial decision-making and managerial precarity in actualizing creative destruction at an industry level. Considered together, this dissertation contributes to sociological debates on industrial transformation and social change.