Technology and Industrial Democracy An inquiry into some theoretical issues and their social basis

Abstract

The issue of the possible impact of technology on industrial democracy is explored theoretically, using two different approaches — sociotechnical theory and the Marxist labour-process approach. Within each of these approaches, a model of the interaction between technology and democratization is developed to illustrate how different theoretical conceptions produce different problematics and expose a seemingly similar issue in nearly non-comparable ways. The social basis of these differences is also discussed, and the necessity of further theoretical work is argued.