Technological innovation and futures of work organization: A choice of social design principles

Introduction The integrated advancement of computer and telecommunications technology is central to the emerging wave of fundamental technological innovation. A major question that this latest stepwise advance in technological capability raises for the future of work organization is whether there will be a transformation of social relationships, or whether the social and organization design principles of the first industrial revolution will be perpetuated. The new technology involves a basic shift from energy-based to informationbased technology. However, there is nothing inherent in this technology that gives it the compelling force to determine the social design of organizations. The characteristics of technology comprise one important consideration in decisions about the organization of work, but these decisions also express choices of social design [7, 13, 191. Much of the uncertainty surrounding the consequences of new technology can be seen as uncertainty about the choices of social and organization futures that will be made. Similarly, the limitations on choices of future directions are not imposed by the nature of the new technology, but by decision makers’ past experience and perceived alternatives with respect to social design. This paper examines the essential choice between social design principles for organizing work and the implications of the alternative design principles for decisions about new technology. The design of work organizations that developed during the first industrial revolution had two essential characteristics. First, division of labor was taken to a point where individuals could not control their work nor coordinate their work activities with the task performances of others whose work related to their own. Second, control and coordination were imposed on work performance through hierarchical organizational structures [5, 10, 141. This continues to be the predominant pattern of organizing work in industrial societies. However, there were, and still are, alternatives in the organization of work. The alternatives have been demonstrated most powerfully in the numerous and increasing attempts to democratise work. In contrast to the bureaucratic pattern of organizing work, which developed with industrialism, democratic organization designs provide conditions for employees to exercise direct control over their work and to coordinate their efforts with each other. Employees are able to organize their work in ways that satisfy both the