`This important book fills a major gap. It shoots down the mistaken belief that factories of the future will be staffed by large numbers of `low-skilled button pushers'. Business executives, labor leaders, and employees will find this book a valuable guide for setting strategies to meet the challenges of rapid technological change and intense foreign competition.'Edward E. Masters, President, National Planning Association

• Contributors 1: Paul S. Adler: Introduction 2: Larry Hirshhorn and Joan Mokray: Automation and Competency Requirements in Manufacturing: A Case Study 3: Paul Attewell: Skill and Occupational Changes in U.S. Manufacturing 4: Peter J. Senker: Automation and Work in Britain 5: Horst Kern and Michael Schumann: New Concepts of Production and the Emergence of the Systems Controller 6: Institutions and Incentives for Developing Work-Related Knowledge and Skill 7: Robert E. Cole: Issues in Skill Formation in Japanese Approaches to Automation 8: Robert J. Thomas and Thomas A. Kochan: Technology, Industrial Relations, and the Problem of Organizational Transformation 9: Max Ogden: Union Initiatives to Restructure Industry in Australia 10: Claudio U. Ciborra and Leslie S. Schneider: Transforming the Routines and Contexts of Management, Work, and Technology 11: Thomas B. Lifson: Innovation and Institutions: Notes on the Japanese Paradigm Name Index Subject Index