ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews the sociological and economic literature on technology's effect on work organization and worker outcomes. It argues that the case study emphasis has resulted in conflicting and unrepresentative findings. The chapter examines the idea of a contingency approach and a research agenda for social scientists interested in technological change. It also examines insights regarding design decisions and suggests the feasibility of the design for larger-scale projects, such as state or regional labor market studies. The chapter argues that the development of the contingency approach is best served by a focus on three levels of an organization: the individual, the department, and the establishment. It deals with a discussion of how the proposed study design will provide data that will enable us to evaluate the optimistic and pessimistic approaches and to elaborate the mixed-effects model into a contingency approach.
