ABSTRACT
As a determinant of work system structure, technology has been operationally defined in several distinctly different ways that are useful to macroergonomics: (1) by the mode of production, or production technology; (2) by the action
individuals perform on an object to change it, or knowledge-based technology; (3) by the way it reduces uncertainty, or strategy for reducing uncertainty; and (4) by the degrees of automation, workflow rigidity, and quantitative specificity of evaluation of work activities, or workflow integration. A major generalizable model of the technology-work system design relationship has been empirically derived from each of these empirically derived classification schemes.
