What Machines Can't Do: Politics and Technology in the Industrial Enterprise

Thomas provides provocative case studies on how major technology-intensive companies introduced new manufacturing machines and processes into their plants. Some readers may not like the idea that innovation means company politics, but this book shows how the very uncertainty of internal politics thwarted and aided the innovation process. By walking up to different views on what new technology was needed and what it would mean to a firm, many of the firms in his study gained new-found capacity to choose and manage technology. Large firms, whether product or process oriented, encompass many departments and professional work groups. His cases show how the efforts of engineers or unions or management to enact a vision of useful work in shapes innovation itself and, in my view, help us understand the complicated factors in seeking innovation. Another excellent feature of the book is the fact that he traces the entire innovation process--from how the original choices were framed and then selected to the learning associated with implementation. Some readers may be put off by the "theory" chapters, hence the four rather than five rating. Readers can easily skip the theory and methods and move to the cases. Those interested in what high quality qualitative social science can yield will find his work exemplary. Last but not least, my engineering undergrads read one of Thomas's cases and actually recommended I add the entire book the next time I taught the course. That's enthusiasm!