Power - Technological Dependence and Control

Tools and methods are exploited to enable work to be done and products and services to be produced and delivered. The devices brought together as a process technology themselves create organisational interdependencies internally and also externally. A department may wait on another to produce a part or process a document. Whereonly a skilled technician can operate a machine then those without the skill or access to a spare part rely on the technician who may be simply unavailable or behave unco-operatively impose leverage or bargaining relationships on others. If the dish-washer breaks down and the house-keeper does not know how to wash dishes by hand - then he or she must wait for the service engineer to arrive and pay the engineers fees.

Sequential work relationships (queues) form chains and if a link does not perform "to standard" the whole can suffer.

Organisational decision-makers have generally adopted forms of organisational design which exploit technology to free operational systems from worker control. The assembly line, the conveyor belt, the Lamson tube are examples. The operational system become more autonomous under management's control.

Scientific management methods represent a form of applied technology. What are the characteristics of scientific management?

• definition of work tasks
• identification of the most efficient methods
• measurement of movements and production times
• application of work simplification
• delineation and specialisation of thinking from doing
• efficient arrangements of people and machines

Marglin argues that managerial exploitation of technology to reduce costs, achieve improved reliabilities and uncertainties effectively de-skills the worker. If workers are expensive - install a machine that can work faster, does not get tired and can be operated by a less skilled person who, provided they are properly supervised can "mind" the machine. Skilled workers can too easily withdraw their skills. They can say "prepared to work overtime to fix this ..... unles...." They have the power to negotiate more effective rewards out of management who cannot operate or maintain machines. If new technology can be introduced which can be operated by semi-skilled or unskilled staff thencontrol and efficiency objectives are secured.

Successful employment of technology in production processes of course has achieved amazing results in productive capacity and the availability of affordable, high quality goods and services which we all benefit from every moment of the day. It is important to recognise however our (and thus organisational) dependence on core technology: the factory assembly line, computerised informaation and communication systems, capital intensive plant such as a refinery or modern office accommodation .

Changes in technology empoyed often generates conflict of interest between managers and employees and others (customers?). The new devices, their arrangement and how they are to be operated modify power and control relationships. Introduction of robots or new computer control systems into and assembly line increases managerial control over work. Mechanical and sequential assembly line technology offered more opportunity for unionised workers to bargain with management.

Managerial standardisation and sequencing of job processes with work simplification provides conditions in which individuals lose identity which may be re-couped by collective, group action - official through a union or unofficial. A withdrawal of labour by a small group may prevent all workers in a factory from producing and may have a knock-on effect on production at suppliers. Tens of thousands of passengers are typically inconvenienced each year by French air-traffic controllers.

Cell Technology
In the 1980's and 1990's employers have been encouraged by Japanese examples, the lessons of industrial sociloy and psychology into group technology to adopt systems of production based on autonomous work groups - cell technology. Cell technology emphasises the tightly knit team and trust building by management with managers and workers giving mutual support. Behaviourally, investment in team values and multi-skilling of workers in a "factory within a factory" which they administer themselves (within agreed organisational parameters) weakens any tendency towards collective, anti-organisational attitudes. The adoption of cell technology has also been associated with changes to reward systems so that the relationships between work and rewardscan more directly be seen to accrue to the team as the primary unit. The individual allies more closely and co-operatively with team members (who include managers) and their achievements. General collective action (all workers out in the factory car park voting by a show of hands) is made more difficult. The balance moves away from the pluralism of collective bargaining, to the unitary framework of identification with

• the product
• the team's objectives
• and thus the company's objectives.

Companies employing such cell strategies invest considerable time and resource into team communications to maintain the trust relationships needed to maintain these loyalities.

Where there is rivalry and suspicion between employees and employers or even between managers and departments which fosters protective, defensive responses any technological change (process methods, layouts, machines, computers) that strengthens one group's position over another can become a political issue. Individuals and groups have understandings about the power relations in work arrangements. Ingenious efforts may be made to block and dampen any undermining of positions. There are many examples from the 1960's and 70's of worker-management confrontation and bargaining relating new technology in the work situation. Generally management made the decisions and the new technology was introduced.

More informal and subtle resistences also illustrate power sources. People can themselves can control adopted technology just as they may use organisational rules for their own purposes. Operatives learning the nacks, querks and short-cuts on their machines can soon deceive industrial engineers when it comes to determining work rates and rewards for the pace of work. This was the story of the bank-wiring room observations of the Hawthorne experiments - where members of the group even though time studied and rated nevertheless controlled their own work arrangements.

With advanced computerised technologies the need to measure flow rates, task and production times is even more essential. This is the era of neo-scientific management. Data about work and work arangements can be so modelled by software systems that the integration of manufacturing and delivery processes is achieved beyond whatever Frederick Taylor could have foreseen. Computer controlled process technologies themselves can automatically gather data on an individual's production speed (typing speed, sales check-out performances, car testing, flight inspection and service rates). With computerised information systems monitoring work, speed, quality of product and service, it is less possible to conceal aspects of worker control from management. Performances and methods of carrying out tasks become even more visible to management who have a greater power to control.