Impacts of Programmable Manufacturing Technology: A Review of Recent Studies and Contingency Formulation <s> Introduction <s> Although managers tend to assume that the introduction of new technologies will result in a reduction of skill requirements, this is not always the case. In fact, there is often an upgrading effect. An examination is made of bank computerization to help identify useful generalizations about the new types of skills that will be required for effective automation. It is demonstrated that a careful assessment of the type of responsibility, degree of abstractness, and nature of interdependence will prove valuable for the manager. If, however, the assessment is clouded by uncertainty, then a guiding assumption is needed. The most useful guiding assumption is that optimal performance demands more responsibility for results, more intellectual mastery and abstract skills, and more carefully nurtured interdependence. <s> BIB001 </s> Impacts of Programmable Manufacturing Technology: A Review of Recent Studies and Contingency Formulation <s> Introduction <s> New medical imaging devices, such as the CT scanner, have begun to challenge traditional role relations among radiologists and radiological technologists. Under some conditions, these technologies may actually alter the organizational and occupational structure of radiological work. However, current theories of technology and organizational form are insensitive to the potential number of structural variations implicit in role-based change. This paper expands recent sociological thought on the link between institution and action to outline a theory of how technology might occasion different organizational structures by altering institutionalized roles and patterns of interaction. In so doing, technology is treated as a social rather than a physical object, and structure is conceptualized as a process rather than an entity. The implications of the theory are illustrated by showing how identical CT scanners occasioned similar structuring processes in two radiology departments and yet led to divergent forms of organization. The data suggest that to understand how technologies alter organizational structures researchers may need to integrate the study of social action and the study of social form. <s> BIB002 </s> Impacts of Programmable Manufacturing Technology: A Review of Recent Studies and Contingency Formulation <s> Introduction <s> This study investigated the relationship between integrated manufacturing, a new manufacturing paradigm comprising advanced technology, just-in-time inventory control, and total quality management, and job characteristics (task uncertainty and interdependence). We hypothesized that performance, size, and external control would moderate this relationship. Data from plant and functional managers and nonmanagerial employees in 123 companies showed no main effects of integrated manufacturing on job design among employees in operations, quality control and assurance, and production control. Rather, the relationships were contingent on organizational context. We discuss organizational inertia and resource availability as alternative theoretical perspectives on the impact of organizational context. <s> BIB003
The microelectronics revolution in manufacturing automation gives rise to varied images of its "social impact" depending on one's academic paradigm, political perspective, occupational position, and personal philosophy. To some, the impact is clearly favorable for the workforce and society-automation will not only help the bottom line, but also lead to jobs that are more enriched and challenging . Thus, the issue is to upgrade the skill levels of the workforce so they may take advantage, economically and personally, of the potential benefits offered by technology  . To others, the computer revolution seems principally to be a threat to the job security of America's hourly workforce, particularly the unskilled. Jobs will be lost, those remaining degraded, and managers will have almost complete control of the workforce through sophisticated electronic monitoring in a kind of Orwellian nightmare    . A third view is that programmable automation has varied impacts, depending on such factors as management's foresight in redesigning jobs appropriately  BIB001 ) the existing skill level of the work force BIB002 )) characteristics of firms leading to "organizational inertia", BIB003 , and political motivations of management and technology implementers   . The first two views assume that technology has main effects only-there are certain predominate consequences for organizations adopting PMT (e.g., skill levels will be raised) with a few exceptions due to random variation. The third view assumes that technology has contingent impacts-consequences vary depending on a set of contextual factors. Note that a contingency model does not imply that on average PMT's positive and negative impacts of technology cancel out. For example, it is possible that companies primarily use PMT to achieve more flexible production and thus on average PMT has the effect of making organizations more organic, but depending on the product mix flexibility required by the market, manufacturing operations facing rapidly changing demand will shift to more highly organic forms than those with more stable, predictable demand.l This paper reviews recent literature on the social impacts of programmable manufacturing technology (PMT) . By this we mean programmable technology within manufacturing firms, on their shopfloor or in their offices. We were intentionally quite broad in our definition of PMT. The technology had to be based on a programmable computer system and installed in a manufacturing firm. We included within this broad definition programmable shopfloor automation such as numerically controlled machine tools and robots, computeraided design systems used in the engineering offices, manufacturing resource planning (MRPII ) systems used for shopfloor control, and electronic data exchange technologies. In fact, when we searched for studies of such technologies in manufacturing environments, we ended up primarily with studies that included shopfloor automation like NC machines in their focus (80 percent)  described environment-organization combinations that range from highly uncertain-organic to highly certain-mechanistic. Thus it is not inconsistent to assume one can find environments that vary in the degree of uncertainty and corresponding organizations vary in the degree to which they are organic. with a smaller proportion that looked at CAD or CAD/CAM systems (27 percent). This paper has two purposes. First, we review recent empirical literature on social impacts of PMT to identify major trends in research findings, particularly with respect to evidence of main effects and contingent impacts. In particular, we statistically summarize empirical papers on the social impacts of PMT, published and unpublished, between 1986 and . These papers focus principally on the impacts of technology internal to the firm, that is, microimplications for the organization and people in the firm. However, these internal impacts ultimately have societal impacts as well, such as when a company's upgrading of skill requirements for its workforce leads to a greater need for education from society. Second, we critically evaluate the existing literature and suggest future research directions.