ORGANIZATIONAL POLITICS AND TECHNOLOGICAL CHANGE

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Abstract
Sociologists tend to pay far greater attention to the “impacts” of technology on work and organizations than they do to the process of achieving technological change. This is an unfortunate situation because it invites researchers to ignore the critical choices that organizational members make about what technology should do to organizations. Two detailed case studies of the entire process of change—from the decision to change an established technology to the implementation of a new one—suggest that early choices provide important clues as to later “impacts.” Close examination reveals that the process of choice is influenced as much by political considerations as it is by economic and technical ones.