Jon Clark’s study of the effect of the modernization of a telephone exchange on exchange maintenance work and workers is a solid contribution to a debate that encompasses two lively issues in the history and sociology of technology: technological determinism and social constructivism.
Clark makes the point that the characteristics of a technology have a decisive influence on job skills and work organization. Put more strongly, technology can be a primary determinant of social and managerial organization. Clark believes this possibility has been obscured by the recent sociological fashion, exemplified by Braverman’s analysis, that emphasizes the way machinery reflects social choices. For Braverman, the shape of a technological system is subordinate to the manager’s desire to wrest control of the labor process from the workers. Technological change is construed as the outcome of negotiations among interested parties who seek to incorporate their own interests into the design and configuration of the machinery. This position represents the new mainstream called social constructivism.
The constructivists gain acceptance by misrepresenting technological determinism: technological determinists are supposed to believe, for example, that machinery imposes appropriate forms of order on society. The alternative to constructivism, in other words, is to view technology as existing outside society, capable of directly influencing skills and work organization.
Clark refutes the extremes of the constructivists by both theoretical and empirical arguments. Theoretically he defines “technology” in terms of relationships between social and technical variables. Attempts to reduce the meaning of technology to cold, hard metal are bound to fail, for machinery is just scrap unless it is organized functionally and supported by appropriate systems of operation and maintenance. At the empirical level Clark shows how a change at the telephone exchange from maintenance-intensive electromechanical switches to semielectronic switching systems altered work tasks, skills, training opportunities, administration, and organization of workers. Some changes Clark attributes to the particular way
management and labor unions negotiated the introduction of the technology, whereas others are seen as arising from the capabilities and nature of the technology itself. Thus Clark helps answer the question: “When is social choice decisive and when are the concrete characteristics of technology more important?”
Which of the following statements about the modernization of the telephone exchange is supported by information in the passage?
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列哪一个选项关于电信交换现代化观点的信息是与原文信息相符？
A. 新技术可以简化为经理在劳动过程中的角色
B. 现代化的实践并未经过被其影响的雇员的同意
C. 现代化超出了对维修程序的影响
D. 一些维修工人感到被新技术的出现所威胁
E. 现代化理论给予了社会建构理论支持者的信任
题目解析：
A. 文章并没有讨论新技术是否可以简化的问题
B. 文章并未讨论雇员对于现代化实践的意见
C. 正确。根据原文 “ the passages states that the modernization of the telephone exchange affected tasks,skills,training, administration, and the organization of workers.”可知本选项正确。
D. 文中并未谈到
E. 文中并未对社会建构理论提出信任的态度
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