This research project is jointly funded by the Information Technology Research program, the Digital Society and Technologies program, and the Office of International Science & Engineering. It will investigate how information technologies that employ sophisticated mathematical techniques are reshaping technical work through a process conceptualized as intensification of abstraction. Intensification of abstraction centers on the replacement of the physical by the virtual, i.e., the manipulation of symbols that represent and substitute for objects. The study will be conducted in the context of automotive engineering design in partnership with General Motors Corporation. It will focus on the way in which information technology tools that employ techniques like finite element analysis and computational fluid dynamics are bringing about changes in how engineers think about and do engineering, changes in organizational structures and processes, changes in engineering knowledge, and changes in the division of engineering labor. It will also trace how these technologies alter relationships between automotive firms and their suppliers and pave the way for outsourcing engineering work.
The research will entail detailed ethnographic observations of GM engineers in both US and India, supplemented with interviews in firms that manufacture analysis tools and the researchers who develop the techniques on which the tools are based. To date little systematic research has examined the socio-technical dynamics of these kinds of changes. The intellectual merit of this study lies in its potential to alter how studies of technology and work understand the role of information technologies in a knowledge economy. Since technical and professional occupations now represent the largest sector of the American workforce, intensification of abstraction may transform modern knowledge work as significantly as automation did production and clerical work in the 20th Century. The broader impacts include implications for the U.S. economy and the nation's place in the international division of labor.
