| Social research on technological changes in industry has tended to focus on their broad consequences for workers' autonomy, power, and job security, or to compare various technical forms along historical and organizational dimensions. What has gone undescribed and under-theorized in this macro-level tradition is the widespread process in which firms transform production systems from within. In this dissertation, an ethnographic case-study of a food processing firm, I follow their construction of a new plant, and the introduction and implementation of computer-automation in several production lines. I document the importance of workers' "shop floor" knowledge throughout this process, and analyze the immediate political and ideological context in which managers obtained from workers flexible cooperation, despite the company's tradition of adversarial, even punitive labor relations. I analyze the process in terms of three phases of negotiation--broadly conceived--in which managers access and appropriate workers' knowledge, and then redistribute their discretion to exercise that knowledge in the new factory. I conclude that the effects of the transition were to expand the functional scope and authority of the minority of workers (15 percent of the workforce) in the highly-automated jobs. But, for the majority of workers the new technology has led to the intensification of labor and did not bring the promised relief from close supervision. I hope to demonstrate the benefits of integrating the study of technical change with an ethnographic perspective on organizational culture. |
