The Social Production of Technical Work

Abstract

This book’s initial interest in engineers stemmed from a conjunction of two concerns, each deriving from a separate tradition of intellectual discourse. On the one hand engineers have received attention as bearers of a special kind of knowledge, knowledge critical to production in high-technology industries. A knowledge expected to generate a crisis of organisation and legitimation in profit-oriented busienss, as control over the dominant force of production — now no longer capital or labour, but knowledge — fell into the hands of technical experts.