In this volume Drucker has collected twelve essays on technology and management and their relationship to, and interaction with, human society. In these essays the reader is able to grasp and savour some of the essential ideas and philosophy that have been expanded into Drucker's various books. In this volume Drucker has collected twelve essays on technology and management and their relationship to, and interaction with, human society. In these essays the reader is able to grasp and savour some of the essential ideas and philosophy that have been expanded into Drucker's various books.

An anthology of writings by thinkers ranging from Freeman Dyson to Bruno Latour that focuses on the interconnections of technology, society, and values and how these may affect the future. Technological change does not happen in a vacuum; decisions about which technologies to develop, fund, market, and use engage ideas about values as well as calculations of costs and benefits. This anthology focuses on the interconnections of technology, society, and values. It offers writings by authorities as varied as Freeman Dyson, Laurence Lessig, Bruno Latour, and Judy Wajcman that will introduce readers to recent thinking about technology and provide them with conceptual tools, a theoretical framework, and knowledge to help understand how technology shapes society and how society shapes technology. It offers readers a new perspective on such current issues as globalization, the balance between security and privacy, environmental justice, and poverty in the developing world. The careful ordering of the selections and the editors' introductions give Technology and Society a coherence and flow that is unusual in anthologies. The book is suitable for use in undergraduate courses in STS and other disciplines. The selections begin with predictions of the future that range from forecasts of technological utopia to cautionary tales. These are followed by writings that explore the complexity of sociotechnical systems, presenting a picture of how technology and society work in step, shaping and being shaped by one another. Finally, the book goes back to considerations of the future, discussing twenty-first-century challenges that include nanotechnology, the role of citizens in technological decisions, and the technologies of human enhancement.

In this volume Drucker has collected twelve essays on technology and management and their relationship to, and interaction with, human society. In these essays the reader is able to grasp and savour some of the essential ideas and philosophy that have been expanded into Drucker's various books. In this volume Drucker has collected twelve essays on technology and management and their relationship to, and interaction with, human society. In these essays the reader is able to grasp and savour some of the essential ideas and philosophy that have been expanded into Drucker's various books.

This book is primarily intended as an undergraduate text that introduces students to the impact of modern information technology on business. It focuses upon the use of information technology on organizations of all kinds, and the way this is constrained by the wider society within which such organizations operate.

This book considers the implications of the regulatory burden being borne increasingly by technological management rather than by rules of law. If crime is controlled, if human health and safety are secured, if the environment is protected, not by rules but by measures of technological management—designed into products, processes, places and so on—what should we make of this transformation? In an era of smart regulatory technologies, how should we understand the ‘regulatory environment’, and the ‘complexion’ of its regulatory signals? How does technological management sit with the Rule of Law and with the traditional ideals of legality, legal coherence, and respect for liberty, human rights and human dignity? What is the future for the rules of criminal law, torts and contract law—are they likely to be rendered redundant? How are human informational interests to be specified and protected? Can traditional rules of law survive not only the emergent use of technological management but also a risk management mentality that pervades the collective engagement with new technologies? Even if technological management is effective, is it acceptable? Are we ready for rule by technology? Undertaking a radical examination of the disruptive effects of technology on the law and the legal mind-set, Roger Brownsword calls for a triple act of re-imagination: first, re-imagining legal rules as one element of a larger regulatory environment of which technological management is also a part; secondly, re-imagining the Rule of Law as a constraint on the arbitrary exercise of power (whether exercised through rules or through technological measures); and, thirdly, re-imagining the future of traditional rules of criminal law, tort law, and contract law.

"To be able to exploit these changes as opportunities for the enterprise ... executives will have to understand the realities of the Next Society and will have to base their policies and strategies on them. To help them do this, to help them successfully manage in the Next Society, is the purpose of this book." - Peter F. Drucker Managing in the Next Society is a collection of Peter Drucker's most strikingly prescient articles from the past five years. Salient and incisive as ever, Drucker ranges widely over the most critical issues facing business and society today to offer advice, admonition and instruction for proactive executives. Divided into four parts, the book offers seaching analysis of the 'information revolution' and the knowledge society it has created. It goes on to scrutinize the unprecedented demographic, economic and sociological transformations of recent times to present an outline of "the Next Society" - which in turn points to a challenging, provocative and at times shocking view of the future. The rapid shrinkage of young people in the developed world for instance looks set to create a fundamental rift in the composition and scope of the mass market. With the work force being dominated by knowledge technologists, traditional personnel policies and personnel management are quickly becoming obsolescent. So what will take their place? And how will enterprises manage a work force which increasingly consists of people who work for the enterprise without being employees of the enterprise? While rapidly expanding in production volume, manufacturing is rapidly shrinking as a creator of wealth and jobs—to the point of becoming marginal socially but paradoxically thereby becoming all the more potent politically. And globalization means the rapid emergence worldwide of a new and dominant middle class. What does all this mean for managements and businesses? Drucker's work has taken a leading place in some of the most celebrated publications in the world, including the Economist, Harvard Business Review and the Wall Street Journal. This book provides the opportunity to sample the very best of Drucker's new writing in one volume. It is absolutely essential reading for any one who wants to know how today's tranformations will affect tomorrow's economic climate.

"A fateful conceptual gap separates the policy makers and managers charged with promoting technology, and the risk and technology assessors responsible for controlling it. This hampers the effective use of many new technologies, and prevents the development of others. The strategy of constructive technology assessment (CTA) addresses this gap through facilitating societal learning processes, and proposing a shared responsibility for the promotion and control of new technologies." "Combining analysis of both cases and concepts, Managing Technology in Society confronts the underdevelopment of innovative potential for achieving goals of wealth, sustainability and safety. Factors that block change, as well as conditions for successful learning are identified in a wide-ranging selection of cases that encompass biotechnology, clean technologies, information and medical technologies. The contributors build on the convergence of recent theories on technical change within economics, sociology and the history of technology, to offer suggestions for CTA action, and so create a new paradigm of managing technology in society."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved