Between Craft and Science: Technical Work in the United States / Edition 1

by Stephen R. Barley, Julian E. Orr

Overview

Between Craft and Science brings together leading scholars from sociology, anthropology, industrial relations, management, and engineering to consider issues surrounding technical work, the most rapidly expanding sector of the labor force. Part craft and part science, part blue-collar and part white-collar, technical work demands skill and knowledge but is rarely rewarded with commensurate status or salary.

The book first considers the anomalous nature of technical work and the difficulty of locating it in any conventional theoretical framework. Only an ethnographic approach, studying the actual doing of the work, will make sense of the subject, the authors conclude. The studies that follow report daily practice filled with disjunctures and ironies that mirror the ambiguities of technical work's place in the larger culture. On the basis of those studies, the authors probe questions of policy, management, and education.

Between Craft and Science considers the cultural difficulties in understanding technical work and advances coherent, practice-oriented insights into this anomalous phenomenon.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780801483660
Publisher:	Cornell University Press
Publication date:	03/03/1997
Series:	Collection on Technology and Work
Pages:	280
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.25(h) x 0.75(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Stephen R. Barley is Professor of Industrial Engineering and Engineering Management at Stanford University. He is Editor of Administrative Science Quarterly and of the Cornell University Press series Collection on Technology and Work. Julian E. Orr is a member of the research staff in the Work Practice and Technology Area of the Systems and Practices Laboratory of Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center. He is the author of Talking About Machines: An Ethnography of a Modern Job.

What People are Saying About This

John Seely Brown

An extremely insightful book that challenges many of the notions of how and where work gets done and knowledge gets created. Will be a leading edge book in the emerging field of knowledge management and organizational learning. A must read for both serious managers and organizational consultants and researchers.

Peter Cappelli

Between Craft and Science is indispensable for understanding why the growth of technical work is central to the new economy and why it confounds our usual explanations as to how jobs should be organized.

Editorial Reviews

A fascinating and useful look at the underappreciated subject of technicians' work.

Technology and Culture - Amy Sue Bix

A fascinating and useful look at the underappreciated subject of technicians' work.

--Amy Sue Bix, Iowa State University "Technology and Culture"

A thorough and innovative exploration of technical work.... A substantial contribution toward understanding not only technical work, but also the rapidly changing occupational sector as a whole.

-- "Contemporary Sociology"

This is an interesting book and develops issues of which we have little specific, organized knowledge.

-- "Administrative Science Quarterly"

From the Publisher

A thorough and innovative exploration of technical work.... A substantial contribution toward understanding not only technical work, but also the rapidly changing occupational sector as a whole.

Contemporary Sociology

This is an interesting book and develops issues of which we have little specific, organized knowledge.

Administrative Science Quarterly

"Between Craft and Science is indispensable for understanding why the growth of technical work is central to the new economy and why it confounds our usual explanations as to how jobs should be organized."

Peter Cappelli

"An extremely insightful book that challenges many of the notions of how and where work gets done and knowledge gets created. Will be a leading edge book in the emerging field of knowledge management and organizational learning. A must read for both serious managers and organizational consultants and researchers."

John Seely Brown