CASE AND CLASS

OVERHEADS -
TECHNOLOGY
Quality health care
THE PROBLEM TECHNE!
TECHNOLOGIES
Work
Tools &
processes,
equipment
procedures,
techniques,
APPLICATION

Knowledge &
skills
Capabilities
 LEONARDI’S DIFFERENCE BETWEEN
ROUTINE AND TECHNOLOGY
• Routine = sequential patterns of social action – the organizational residue
• Technology=also constituted by human and material agencies, but we
normally recognize them
 WAYS YOU CAN THINK ABOUT
TECHNOLOGY & POWER

Determinism Voluntarism
Materialism Contingency theory Sociomateriality
(ANT)
Idealism De-skilling theory Social
constructionism

Voluntarism in humans are also constrained by

systems of domination, legitimation and
domination.

We build large networks that are stabilized and

connected institutions, that are like material!
CONTINGENCY THEORY
 Strategy
Woodward was looking
for the one best way to
organize . . .
Structure

Strategy

. . . she found that the

best way depended
on technology:
Technology

Structure
Figure 5.3 Thompson’s Matrix of Technologies

TRANSFORMATION PROCESSES

INPUTS/OUTPUTS Consultancy
 Mediating technologies
Figure 5.6
generate pooled task interdependence
Figure 5.7 Long-linked technology
Figure 5.8 Intensive technology
 Figure 5.4 Perrow’s Typology

TASK ANALYZABILITY
 PERFORMING SALES: USING
“SCRIPTS” – PROCESSES.
• The defining feature of selling and buying is not, as economists would have
us believe, the formal exchange of money in return for goods or services.
Likewise, it is not limited to the search for information about quality and cost.
… We apply our dramaturgical approach to show how a fundamental
ingredient of economic transactions, the situated constitution of social
obligation, is achieved.
• It is those both organized and social!!! Involves people, processes,
techniques that we “script”/organize.
 SCRIPTS
• Scripts are similar to the notion of “frame” in that they are shaped by the
culturally bound social roles of “sellers” and “buyers”, by broader interests
such as management’s desire to control the sales force, by legal constraints
and regulations, and by the material setting of the sales interactions and the
nature of products being exchanged. Social roles, macro-level structures
and materiality enable and constrain the enactment of specific and
contextual scripts.
 IDENTITY SCRIPTS
• Identity scripts are used to personalize the deal in order to create a social
obligation, legitimizing a sales etc. (personal, audience, experts, trustworthy).
• “... So he has a motorcycle which is worth 150,000 US dollars [laughter] and he
starts telling you about his whole life, how he collects things and does all kind of
things. And you listen, being nice and selling him things, and he continues to
mess around with your brain, and at some point you realize that he is bullshitting
you, and you feel like saying “What do you want? Why are you bullshitting me?”
 MORAL SCRIPTS
• The acting out of moral scripts is often designed to obtain the trust and
obligation of the buyers. The acting out of moral sentiments and beliefs often
has popular cultural perceptions of the immoral and greedy salesperson as a
backdrop.
• There are some products ... which management really wants us to sell. These
products have high margins and we have a surplus. Personally, I feel really
uncomfortable selling this product, since it is of low quality. So far whoever
purchased it ended up returning it. So I have decided to tell my clients that I
don’t recommend this product. .. I prefer telling clients the truth and this way I
win their trust, the clients know I’m telling the truth and that I’m here to help and
not only to sell for the sake of selling.
 MATERIAL SCRIPTS
• Material scripts require that humans are able to recognize the appropriate
courses of action and the obligations entailed.
• Escalating scale of obligations:
• 1. leading people to a stand.
• 2. Trying out the equipment
• 3. Trying it by yourself.
• 4. Moving scene to talk actual pricing
• 5. giving small gifts
CONCLUSIONS
 WHAT WE LEARN
• Technology or techne is everywhere!
• It both defines us and enables us.
• It deskills and skills us
• It provides constraints and resources
• Technology can both be moral and imorale
• It is deeply organized and part of what we and our organizations are.