Books in the Collection on Technology and Work series

Why do Americans work so hard? Are the long hours spent at work really necessary to increase organizational productivity? Leslie A. Perlow documents the worklife of employees who assume that for their own success and the success of their organization...

Most books on the subject of work focus on the increased amount of time Americans spend on the job. Peter Meiksins and Peter Whalley address the counter-trend, examining the difficult path traversed by people who choose to work less than the standard...

This is a story of how work gets done. It is also a study of how field service technicians talk about their work and how that talk is instrumental in their success. In his innovative ethnography, Julian E. Orr studies the people who repair...

Selling Technology offers a look at high-tech markets from within, through the experience of salespeople, purchasing agents, and engineers who construct markets for emergent technologies through their daily engagement in sales interactions. Although...

Between Craft and Science brings together leading scholars from sociology, anthropology, industrial relations, management, and engineering to consider issues surrounding technical work, the most rapidly expanding sector of the labor force. Part craft...

Contract work is more important than ever-for better or for worse, depending on one's perspective. The security once implied by a full-time job with a stable employer is becoming rarer, thereby erasing one of the major distinctions between "freelance...

Between Craft and Science brings together leading scholars from sociology, anthropology, industrial relations, management, and engineering to consider issues surrounding technical work, the most rapidly expanding sector of the labor force. Part craft...

In Surgeons and the Scope, James R. Zetka Jr. describes the impact of the video laparoscope on the work lives of contemporary surgeons. The video laparoscope allows surgeons to peer into the inner abdomen with a miniaturized camera, thereby enabling them to perform complex operations without large incisions through small ports punched into the abdominal wall. This technological innovation revolutionized surgery as we know it. Zetka blends rich interview and archival data into a compelling account of an important technological development. He shows how the new laparoscopic technology challenged surgeons to rethink their approaches to surgery, to relearn basic hand-eye coordination, to master complex machinery, and to shift from individualistic to team-based work strategies. Zetka then explains how and why general surgeons embraced this disruptive technology by examining the breakdown of the division of labor between general surgeons and gastroenterologists in response to the unintended and unanticipated outcomes of the scope technology. In Surgeons and the Scope, Zetka weaves cultural, structural, and political economic developments into a sophisticated account of technological change. By viewing the advent of laparoscopic surgery within the context of the history, culture, and ideology of medicine, Zetka provides a deeper understanding of the politics of technology, particularly its effects on job skills, occupations, and worker control.