Windows on the Workplace: Technology, Jobs, and the Organization of Office Work - Softcover

Greenbaum, Joan M

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1583671137 ISBN 13: 9781583671139

Publisher: Monthly Review Press,U.S., 2004

Synopsis

In this eye-opening book, Joan Greenbaum tells the story of changes in management policies, work organization, and the design of office information systems from the 1950s to the present. She describes the impact of new technologies on the organization of working life with a keen awareness of the social forces that seek to benefit from them, showing how the process is driven by the needs of capitalist profit and control over the workforce rather than the good of society or greater efficiency.
Windows on the Workplace takes as its starting-point the experience of office workers and their own accounts of it. The book includes interviews with a wide range of workers, including young people entering a workplace in which the expectation of stable, long-term employment has all but disappeared. Greenbaum's approach is to locate their experiences and expectations within broader social and economic patterns, and to show how these patterns are constantly changing.
In a field that is constantly changing, this book captures the moment and clarifies the direction in which it is moving. It exposes the myth that technological advance and free market economics are creating a better future for all, and reveals the reality behind the myth.

About this title

About the Author

Joan Greenbaum is professor of computer information systems at La Guardia Community College and professor of environmental psychology at the Graduate Center, City University of New York.

Edition details

• Publisher: Monthly Review Press,U.S.
• Publication date: 2004
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1583671137
• ISBN 13: 9781583671139
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 1770