Nature and Implications of Infrastructural Technological Change for the SocialOrganization of Work. (Project Learning Work: Making the Transition from School to Work)

摘要

The report examines a shift in the forces of production and the nature of workwhich may enable us to reframe and more effectively address a number of challenges that currently face organizations and society itself. We begin by identifying two distinct types of socio-economic change implicated in the shift to a computational infrastructure. The first is a shift in the occupational distribution of employment, which implies quantitative change in the types of work most people do for a living. In some cases, new technologies will eliminate jobs and skills while, in other cases, new jobs, new skills, and even new occupations will emerge. The second type is a widespread change in work practices, which implies potentially profound modifications in how people do what they do for a living. This sort of change impacts the skill content of existing occupations, perhaps transforming them completely, while having little or no effect on what occupations are called or how they are culturally understood. Each of these types of change is detailed in turn.