Virtually every manufacturing company has plans for an automated "factory of the future." But Robert J. Thomas argues that smart machines may not hold the key to an industrial renaissance. In this provocative and enlightening book, he takes us inside four successful manufacturing enterprises to reveal the social and political dynamics that are an integral part of new production technology. His interviews with nearly 300 individuals, from top corporate executives to engineers to workers and union representatives, give his study particular credibility and offer surprising insights into the organizational power struggles that determine the form and performance of new technologies.
Thomas urges managers not to put blind hopes into smarter machines but to find smarter ways to organize people. As U.S. companies battle for survival in an era of growing global competition, What Machines Can't Do is an invaluable treatise on the ways we organize work. While its call for change is likely to be controversial, it will also attract anyone who wishes to understand the full impact of new technology on jobs, organizations, and the future of the industrial enterprise.
What Machines Can't Do Politics and Technology in the Industrial Enterprise
About the Book
Reviews
"Anyone who journeys through What Machines Can't Do is going to [become] much more sophisticated about the sociology of introducing new technologies into existing organizations."—Lester C. Thurow, Massachusetts Institute of Technology"A compelling case for rethinking why and how new technologies are introduced into organizations. With its graphic accounts and insider detail, he shows that when it comes to technology and politics, one cannot be understood apart from the other. What Machines Can't Do is one of those special books that fundamentally alters how one looks at the engines of corporate change."—Michael Useem, University of Pennsylvania
"An extraordinary achievement. Robert J. Thomas not only provides intimately detailed studies of the introduction of new technologies in large companies in four major industries. In the power-process framework, he provides us with a new theoretical approach that seems to me superior to other frameworks for the study of technological changes. For practitioners in industry, this book suggests ways of reorganizing the new technology introduction process so that workers and managers in manufacturing play more creative roles than is possible when they are considered as simply implementors of what others have designed for them."—William F. Whyte, Research Director, Programs for Employment and Workplace Systems,Cornell University
"This is one of the few books I have seen in reent years that is a genuine advance in business scholarship. For over ten years now, American business has been trying to achieve greater 'integration' across the separate components of the internal organization and between the organization and suppliers, customer, and clients outside. The results of these efforts have been disappointing. Here is a book that, for the first time, explains why. It may not be the last work on the subject, but all subsequent work will build upon these results and will have to come to terms with its argument."—Michael J. Piore, MIT
"This sophisticated, readable book . . . combines terrific original field research with a grand feat of theoretical synthesis."—Paul DiMaggio, Princeton University
Table of Contents
Preface
1. Introduction
Bridging Determinism and Choice
The Power-Process Perspective
History Matters
Dissimilar Logics in an Organizational Context
Choice, Change, and Worldviews
Understanding Technological Choice and Change
Case Studies in Context
Research Methods
Site and Case Selection
Reporting Findings
Organization of the Book
2. Technology as a Power Tool:
Technological Choice in an Aircraft Company
The Industrial and Organizational Context
The Aircraft Company
Case 1: The Flexible Machining System
Choosing Between Technologies
Symptoms Versus Causes
Bringing Interests to the Surface
Choosing Within the Technology
Finessing the ROI
Pitching the Technology
Implementing the Technology
Symbolic Sensors
Conclusion
Case 2: The Robotized Assembly Cell
Choosing Between Technologies
The Dangers of "Real Engineering"
Going Outside, Not Inside, for Help
Choosing Within the Technology
Preventing a Range War
Least Common Denominator
Implementing the Technology
Epilogue
Conclusion
Case 3: Shop-Programmable Machine Tools
Choosing Between Technologies
Choosing Within the Technology
Implementing the Technology
Conclusion
Conclusions and Implications
3. Between Invention and Convention:
Technological Choice in a Computer Company
The Industrial and Organizational Context
The Technology
Choosing Between Technologies
The Official Story
The Unofficial Story
Between Convention and Invention
Building a Movement
Networking
An External Threat
Product Openings
Choosing Within the Technology
The Great Investment Bake-Off
Implementing the Technology
East Coast: From Slack to Stress
The Temp Solution
Back to Convention
West Coast: Lights On or Lights Out?
Too Much Technology
The Cult of the Expert
Conclusion
4. Collaborative Change:
Technological Choice in an Aluminum Company
The Aluminum Products Company
The Technology
Choosing Between Technologies
Choosing Within the Technology
Implementing the Technology
Up and Running
Hitting a Brick Wall
Communicating Across Boundaries
Conclusion
5. A Contest over Content:
Technological Choice in the Auto Industry
The Auto Company
The Technology
Choosing Between Technologies
Corporate Control
Plant Autonomy
Union-Management Relations
Manufacturing Renaissance and Real Engineering
From Context to Content
Choosing Within the Technology
Contested Technology
A Language of Common Interests
Getting to "Yes"
Implementing the Technology
Owning the Technology
Up and Running
Conclusion
6. Politics and Technology
The Limits ofT echnological Determinism
The Impact of Organization on Technology
Breaking Institutional Molds from Within
How Independent Is Technology?
The Limits of Social Choice
Whose Strategy? Whose Choice?
Class Action?
The Power-Process Perspective: An Elaboration
Purposive Structuring
The Political Hand
Technology Politics
Crossing the Bridge Between Determinism and Choice
The Politics of Innovation and Innovative Politics
Implications for Research and Theory
7. The Politics and Aesthetics of Manufacturing
Politics and Change
The Status of Manufacturing
Design H Manufacturing?
Knowledge and Power
Product and Process Reconsidered
The Search for an Aesthetic of Process
Appendix 1. Talking Technology
Appendix 2. Preliminary Coding Categories
Appendix 3. Definition of Coding Categories
References
Index
Awards
- 1994 C. Wright Mills Award, Society for the Study of Social Problems