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The Twilight of the Mechanical Technology
Fried, Louis
11/4  (Summer 1969): 63-68

During the past twenty years, as of 1969, three notable authors, Jacques Ellul, Norbert Wiener, and Marshall McLuhan, have pointed out the revolutionary impact of the electronic technology on man and his society. This impact may destroy many of the concepts of the behavioral sciences relating to individual motivation and management theory. The evidence of current events indicates that people are moving towards major organizational upheavals resulting from conflicts between the representatives of these disparate technologies, conflicts which could destroy organizations as they exist today. This article explores the validity of the observations of these authors and extends their ideas for an examination of the impact of the new technology on the organization and the individual. The author predicts that the electronic technology's reorientation of individual motivation, as seen in the current college group's move toward social involvement, will result in an anti-specialist with major implications to present organization structures and goals.

 

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