Jon Clark’s study of the effect of

the modernization of a telephone

exchange on exchange maintenance

lively issues in the history and sociol16

ogy of technology: technological

determinism and social constructivism.

Clark makes the point that the char-

decisive influence on job skills and

work organization. Put more strongly,

technology can be a primary determinant

of social and managerial organ-

has been obscured by the recent sociological

fashion, exemplified by

Braverman’s analysis, that emphasizes

the way machinery reflects social

a technological system is subordinate

to the manager’s desire to wrest control

of the labor process from the

workers. Technological change is

among interested parties who

seek to incorporate their own interests

into the design and configuration of the

machinery. This position represents

The constructivists gain acceptance

by misrepresenting technological determinism:

technological determinists are

machinery imposes appropriate forms

of order on society. The alternative to

constructivism, in other words, is to

view technology as existing outside

skills and work organization.

Clark refutes the extremes of the

constructivists by both theoretical and

empirical arguments. Theoretically he

between social and technical

variables. Attempts to reduce the

meaning of technology to cold, hard

metal are bound to fail, for machinery

functionally and supported by appropriate

systems of operation and main17

tenance.