Work and technological change
In: Oxford scholarship online
In: Business and management
In: Clarendon lectures in management studies
In: Oxford scholarship online
The chapters of this work summarize the results of 35 years dedicated to studying how technologies change work & organizations. The first chapter places current developments in artificial intelligence into the historical context of previous technological revolutions by drawing on William Faunce's argument that the history of technology is one of progressive automation of the four components of any production system: energy, transformation, & transfer & control technologies. The second chapter lays out a role-based theory of how technologies occasion changes in organizations. The third chapter tackles the issue of how to conceptualize a more thorough approach to assessing how intelligent technologies, such as AI, can shape work & employment. The fourth chapter discusses what has been learned over the years about the fears that arise when one sets out to study technical work & technical workers.