Treffer: TECHNOLOGY, IDEOLOGY AND SOCIAL TRANSFORMATION: THE CASE OF COMPUTERIZATION AND WORK ORGANIZATION.

The article presents a case study of computerization and work organization regarding technology, ideology and social transformation. Technological change has been a central theme for sociological analyses of work and organization . Sociologists concur that most factory technologies generally have rationalized and routinized industrial work. Industrial sociologists' dominant metaphor is the mechanized assembly line organization of many factories. It is conventional wisdom that computerization has tremendous potential to transform the nature and character of worklife. However, there is significant controversy and uncertainty about the nature of specific improvements or diminutions in the quality of work and the conditions under which computerization leads to improved or degraded work. Most work is carried out with specialized equipment or techniques. The researchers after conducting this case study concluded that within a given workplace, the transformation of work organization takes years to evolve. For changes in work organization to catch on so they dominate within society will take much longer. The industrial revolution was neither rapid nor dramatic. rather it took decades, even centuries, to evolve.