When should workers embrace or resist new technology?

Abstract

The question of how workers might respond to new technologies has lurked behind many debates on the subject. It has not been posed directly, in part because of concerns about the determinism of asking about the effects of a technology. A preliminary is to set aside these concerns by showing that effects can be identified without determinism. The main argument is that technologies can be assessed on six dimensions: intended or unintended effects; direct and indirect effects; degree of reconstitution in use; immanence; degree of success and degree of discontinuity with the past. These dimensions can then be used to pose questions about any one technology. Three illustrations suggest how such questions can be posed in concrete conditions. Technologies can be challenged so that alternatives to extant systems of work organisation can be considered.

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