The currently dominant view among researchers interested in advanced manufacturing technology (AMT) and job design is that an organization’s choice of job design options—whether skill based or management-control oriented—is socially determined and independent of any technological constraint. Technology is seen as effectively neutral. From the perspective of such research, skill-based production system design is achieved through judicial redesign of organizational variables such as supervisory style, training, role, responsibilities, and/or decentralization of decision making. This view, which one may term technological indeterminism, is summed up by Buchanan (1983), who declares that technological imperatives are weak while organizational choice is strong. The aims of this chapter are twofold. The key theoretical aim is to explore the extent to which the development of skill-based production systems may be constrained by the production technology being utilized within a manufacturing organization. Within the social science research literature examining the relationship between AMT and job design, this is a fundamental, yet largely unanswered, question. A second, related aim is more practical: to examine the ways in which social scientists, users, and others can (re)shape the design and implementation of AMT in order to reduce or remove such constraints. This examination is aided by the inclusion of a number of case examples. I will argue that, although organizational variables are undoubtedly important in the development of skill-based production systems, the neglect of technological variables and the reluctance to open the “black box” of technology may seriously undermine the validity of organization-centered research programs in the longer term. Developments in the theory and practice of “human-centered technology” will be used to support this line of argument. The chapter is in five parts. In the first part, the case against technological indeterminism is examined. This is followed by a brief argument to support the case for a “soft” technological determinism that views the relationship between technology and job design as one in which the design of hardware and software technology may constrain key aspects of job design choice. In the third part, the background to two international project case studies is given.
The Relationship between Intensity of Competition, Advanced Manufacturing Technology and Organizational Performance
