It's not IT: work and the machinery of markets

Paul Thompson

The continuing vulnerability of social science to an optimistic or indeed pessimistic technological determinism is particularly striking. The tendency to view work and employment relations under the rubric of the `information age' and ICT ranges from the techno utopias of popular management writers to the sophisticated conceptual models of Castells. Such perspectives are as disabling in this generation as they were in the last, confusing and misunderstanding actors and contexts. This paper will argue that ICT should be treated as a toll not a trigger, illustrated with reference to call centres and interactive service work.

It is important that critical social scientists re-assert the significance of the causal significance of institutions and political economy in shaping work systems. The former will be discussed by focusing on the distinctive nature of Anglo-American patterns of skill formation. The latter will draw from recent research to argue that the nature of and boundaries between work and employment relations are primarily influenced by the structural characteristics of shareholder-driven, deregulated and globalising markets on the one hand and the extended hierarchies that constitute forms of coordination between and within firms on the other. If there is a `revolution' in the world of work, it is marked by increased and disruptive tensions between what capital is seeking from employees in the labour process and what it finds necessary to enforce in the realm of employment relations.

Taking into account the institutional and political economy factors, the machinery of markets remains a more important consideration than technology, whether in formational or any other kind. The key task of research is to reveal the constraints and opportunities within these trends and explore the implications for public policy.