Global Journal of Human Social Science, C: Sociology and Culture, Volume 23 Issue 2

one time affairs, production is kept lean and on demand without long term obligations, and employment is flexible and temporary. Projects therefore stimulate the significant reshaping of employment patterns along with organisational structures and processes. This includes delayering, downsizing and outsourcing to independent contractors and freelance workers. It is often associated with short term, part time or freelance positions, which are on the rise almost everywhere (Kalleberg & Vallas, 2017). Working in projects is thus a major contributor to the growing precarity of employment, stimulating the growth of the gig- or sharing economy. The very existence of roles and positions, the knowledge and procedures needed to fulfil them and the employment conditions involved have become uncertain and in constant flux. These conditions increasingly preclude prediction and long-term planning for nations and organisations alike. Thus, the transformation of organisations, of work and of government policy is intimately linked to projectification. Time also becomes flexible and simultaneous by networks of outsourced and subcontracted service providers, which enable the immediate supply of a variety of custom services and products. Furthermore, projects can be worked on anywhere and anytime, dissolving the boundaries between work, home, leisure and travel, contributing to the blurring of boundaries in second modernity. Aided by the ubiquity of mobile communication devices, they undermine work-life boundaries, leading to the indefinite extension of working hours. Meanwhile, the power and security of management significantly increases in a project based economy. Project management arose in order to deal with the uncertain environment in which projects form and operate, and is ‘increasingly used to deal with more complex business opportunities and problems, rapid technological obsolescence, shortening product life cycles, and cross-functional product development’ (Ludin et. al, 2015, p. 135). Project management is perceived as the field of expertise in organising and steering projects to their successful completion. Its definitive role is to ‘transform this uncertain, tenuous, and fuzzy initial identity [of the project] into a clear tangible reality. It is defined… as the responsibility for conducting all operations necessary for the study, development, and implementation [of projects]’ (Ibid., p. 82). The position of project managers is therefore firmly secure at the core of all project work, while the position of all other professionals involved becomes rather more tenuous. As project managers choose who they want to work with, this also encourages a high level of internal competition over employment (and managerial favour). Employability becomes a major concern for employees, which largely depends on the level of success and attention attracted by the projects in which they participate, and how their own contributions are rated by others, particularly managers. Individual learning also occurs throughout a project, based on the problems and tasks for which each individual is responsible. Training outside project work consequently diminishes in favour of on- the-job training, and thus the acquisition of skills and experience, so crucial for continued employment, become dependent on employability (Ludin et. al, 2015). Consequently, workers must assume relatively high responsibility for their career development, and constantly compete for their supply of work by being attractive to project managers and customers. In this manner, workers, redefined as independent contractors, can be made to assume risks and responsibilities previously handled by the firm (Schor, 2017). Projectification is also the basis of a new ethical order that gives rise to new definitions of justice and liberty. Boltanski and Chiapello (2005) famously associate it with the ‘third spirit of capitalism’. Yet, significantly, they base their entire discussion on the analysis of management textbooks and theories. According to this new ethical order, the ‘bureaucratic prison’ has been broken, and the association with a specific division or role disappears along with subordination to a single boss. Work is portrayed as a meaningful personal engagement, in which nothing is forced upon workers who are considered partners in the project. The key worth of a person is measured in terms of employability, which depends on perceiving each project as an opportunity to develop new skills, forge new relationships and prepare the ground for more projects. Thus, management leads to the creation of a new type of person, talented in a variety of roles, constantly and independently learning, adaptable, self organising and people oriented. This is the ethical edifice of the project society, built on the primary value of the individual’s self development and employability as his or her long term project. In return, the individual is promised self realisation and satisfaction in all fields of life. This ethical framework leads to the extension of projectification from business organisation to every aspect of society. This has been called the ‘projectification ofeverything’, defined as: a proliferation of a temporary, future-oriented, purposeful, time-limited organizational form that is more agile, sensitive, and flexible than the disciplinary codification and planning, which operates in one-off activities(Jensen et. al., 2016, pp. 25-26). The result is continual future oriented change, as all life activities become projects, which are intrinsically designed in order to make changes. The primary condition of projectification is activity at all costs. Activity is the creation of a project, and the core © 2023 Global Journals Volume XXIII Issue II Version I 79 ( ) Global Journal of Human Social Science - Year 2023 C Epochal Change and Second Modernity as a Sociocultural Manifestation of Managerialism