High-tech workers are creating communities that offer flexibility, creativity and independence at work. But the jury is still out on whether such communities can overcome the problems of insecurity, long work hours, and exclusion created by the fierce individualism of high-tech careers.
References
1.
BarleySteven L.OrrJulian E.. Between Craft and Science: Technical Work in U.S. Settings.Ithaca, N.Y.: ILR Press, 1997. Studies of technical workers in a variety of industries, revealing how skills are developed within communities of practice.
2.
BennerChris. Work in the New Economy: Flexible Labor Markets in Silicon Valley.Oxford, U.K.: Blackwell, 2002. The most comprehensive analysis of flexible work and labor markets in Silicon Valley and the new institutions that have emerged around these new work practices.
3.
UllmanEllen. Close to the Machine: Technophilia and Its Discontents.San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1997. A gripping autobiographical account by a software programmer of the appeal of programming and the discontents of the work and lifestyle associated with it.
4.
von BurgUrs. The Triumph of Ethernet: Technological Communities and the Battle for the LAN Standard.Palo Alto, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2001. A case study of how a technical community decided computing standards.
5.
Washington Alliance of Technology Workers, Communications Workers of America, Local 37083, AFL-CIO.
Working Partnerships USA. http://www.atwork.org/wp/ A non-profit organization with links to organized labor. Policy experiments and reports on workplace change, job security and the new economy.
