Modern technology places new skill demands on workers while still retaining many of the skills that were required in traditional work settings. Machine operators, for example, still rely on their hands, eyes, and ears when they are setting up a machine for a specific task or when troubleshooting is required. Even with fully computerized machines, certain alignments are still carried out manually. During trial runs, machine operators watch the machine's movements closely, often running it in slow motion to detect potential trouble sources. Machine operators not only adjust machine parts, they also interpret and manipulate the data in the computer program that runs the machine. They recognize these digital inscriptions as representations of the computerized commands to be executed by the machine, and, consequently, as numbers that require careful assessment by comparing them against other inscriptions they make and, in particular, against their own deft perceptions.
Workers' skilled use of perceptions and representations are particularly manifested during troubleshooting moments at the machine. Machines have been shown to be idiosyncratic in their behavior. Orr (1991a, 1991b) notes that as machines age, workers have to deal with their quirks. This study has found that, because of rapid changes in the machine technology and products, workers have to constantly readjust to different circuit-board jobs and to more advanced equipment. Given the protean nature of applications technology, workers are often faced with the task of having to adapt the machine to the requirements of a specific job. Since they typically work under tremendous time pressure, they carry out much of the problem solving on the fly. The workers in this study used their perceptual skills in adapting machine parts creatively to accommodate special component sizes, adapt software data so that the machine would be able to offset boards of unusual size, and even suggest a way to adapt a faulty assembly design. Lévi-Strauss (1966) formulated the notion of bricoleur to describe the person who uses tools in creative ways, including ways that go beyond the original purposes for which the tools are designed. Some (e.g., Harper, 1987) have argued that the traditional workers' skills at bricolage have been lost with the advent of computerized technologies. Adler and Boris (1989) point out that operators of computer-controlled machines need an abstract knowledge of the machinery in order to detect and solve problems. They claim that tasks have shifted from machining to monitoring and, therefore, workers place less emphasis on perceptual processes. In contrast, this research argues that workers can be contemporary bricoleurs, adapting even the digital tools to ever-changing circumstances.
Work in Company X is accomplished in teams, a concept that is receiving wide acceptance across diverse work settings. One successful team endeavor has been the New United Motor Manufacturing, Inc., a joint venture between General Motors and Toyota, which Wilms, Hardcastle, and Zell (1994) describe as the creation of a "hybrid" organizational culture. One clear feature of this re-organization is that the workers' skills are valued; workers are looked upon as responsible participants who solve problems together and who have a stake in the quality of the product. The management and employees at Company X clearly have a sense of teamwork. The management supports the practice of workers organizing their own groups (known in some corporations as natural teams). Workers are trusted to use their shared language and cultural understandings for the good of the company. This research shows that the employer's trust in workers' good will is well-founded. The workers have "a sense of responsibility for the integrity of the whole process" (Adler & Borys, 1989, p. 393). They consider outcomes beyond their own immediate circumstances and take into account larger issues such as providing alternatives for customer design errors. They are free to contest one another's suggested solutions and assemble, as it were, the knowledge that is distributed between them and across material inscriptions surrounding them and, eventually, come upon optimal solutions.
This ability to work together has broader implications about learning on the job. No single person is expected to hold all the knowledge about assembling circuit boards. Workers combine their knowledge with different co-workers, in different situations, and by using different artifacts. Nevertheless, the whole of this knowledge is greater than the sum of its distributed parts: problem-solving moments are moments of ignorance[8] in which workers construct new knowledge together. Opportunities for learning occur with relative frequency in Company X, where market demands require that workers be flexible enough to shift occasionally to different teams and assignments. Because tools, products, and tasks change rapidly, workers are challenged daily by new situations with their attendant problems that need solving and with new domains about which to learn. Tran's comment in one interview, "I learn something new every day," embodies what most employees who spoke to us claimed and what we actually observed in their concerted work.
Assuming that this workplace is typical of what work settings will be like in the 21st century, then work-based learning will become a major aspect of a person's educational life. If this is the case, what is the role of educational institutions in preparing workers for their future jobs? Schools cannot replicate the pressure under which most workplace activities happen. Nor can they afford up-to-date high-tech equipment in classrooms and labs. We would argue, however, that schools can provide a valuable foundation for the development of skills that support this kind of work-based learning.
Based on case studies of production workers and professionals, Stasz, Ramsey, Eden, Melamid, and Kaganoff (1995) identified work-related attitudes and "new" generic skill areas--problem-solving, communication, and teamwork. Schools can give learners practice in these new skills by providing authentic learning situations such as project-based work. Projects present learners with everyday problem-solving situations, require them to come to decisions collaboratively, and compel them to communicate and share knowledge effectively. The present study supports the practical value of such authentic learning practices. Our findings further suggest that more emphasis be placed on the integration of cognitive abilities with perceptual and manual skills into learning practices.
Finally, we offer a brief note on workplace attitudes. Though employees' ethnolinguistic diversity was not the primary focus of this research, we observed how a firm behaved toward its ethnolinguistically diverse workers. The management created a climate that encouraged workers to use their indigenous ways of interacting in order to assemble high-quality products. We suspect that management and worker attitudes toward diversity at this site may not be typical of other work sites. Given the continued demographic shifts in this country, we argue that such attitudes should be fostered through on-the-job training and through high-quality instruction in diversity both at school and in the workplace.
[8] We thank Hervé Varenne for highlighting this point.
