The Role of IT in the Transformation of Work: A Comparison of Post-Industrial, Industrial, and Proto-Industrial Organization

The mid-twentieth century was marked by the dominance of large, stable, centralized business; the late twentieth century is marked by a downsizing and disaggregation of the firm. This manuscript investigates this change and considers some possible causes for it using historical analysis. In order to explore the causes of the post-industrial organization of work, we compare it to the history of the industrial organization of work and to the early or proto-industrial system of artisanal and “putting out” manufacturing. We identify strong similarities between post-industrialization, which has been attributed to the use of Information Technology (IT) and an information-based economy; proto-industrialization, which was a goods-based manufacturing economy with little IT; and flexible specialization, a form of workplace organization common to the early industrial period and surviving in some areas today. These similarities cast doubt on the argument that the causal link between technology and the organization of work is a simple or direct one. We also review the literature on the role of technology in the organization of work in all three eras and determine that there is little support for technological determinism in any of them. Alternative determinants of organizational structures and avenues for future research are suggested.