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How have managers handled the industrial relations ramifications of information technology? There is a diversity of approaches within an overall framework of employee acceptance of the need for technological change. However, the introduction of new technology is rarely handled strategically in the industrial relations area, and there is much to be learnt from approaches adopted by a small minority of mostly foreign‐owned organisations. The authors conclude by asking whether or not patterns will change in the 1990s.

This paper sets out to examine the link between technological change and continuing training at a workplace level.

The paper hypothesises that workplaces subject to technological change have an increased demand for skills, which induces an increased provision of training. UK data from two waves (1998 and 2004) of the Workplace Employment Relations Survey (WERS) are used to investigate this hypothesis.

Workplaces undertaking technological change are more likely to train their workers and also to provide more days of training per worker. Team working is also associated with a greater number of days spent on training, as are the setting of training targets and the keeping of training records. Training intensity decreases with an increasing share of part‐time and manual employees. Conversely, where workplaces face difficulties in filling skilled vacancies, they provide more days of training.

The WERS training questions refer only to core experienced employees which, since this group may vary from one workplace to another, may not give a completely consistent measure of either absolute or relative training provision. Because the WERS panel (1998 and 2004) excludes both the dependent variable (training intensity) and the variable of interest (technical change), the analysis is restricted to cross‐section estimation. Causal implications of this analysis should be regarded as correspondingly tentative.

The findings suggest that one way to induce firms to provide more training is by enhanced incentives for firms to undertake more rapid technological change. In addition, if the current global economic downturn persists, evidence that operating in a declining market is associated with the provision of fewer training days may be of particular concern to training professionals and policy makers.

The paper provides empirical evidence concerning the interaction between technological change and training.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse if introduction of new technologies and work practices are negatively related to the employment opportunities of immigrants.

A representative plant-level panel survey merged with register data is used. Random effect regression Tobit models are estimated. The dependent variable is wage costs share of immigrants at the plant. The important explanatory variables are measures of new technologies and work practices.

The results show that workplaces where employees use personal computers intensively and have broad autonomy hire fewer non-western immigrants who have not been raised in Norway. The negative relationship is especially strong for low-skilled non-western immigrants.

The estimation framework for studying this topic is new. The paper also presents original evidence on the relationship between characteristics of the “new” economy and demand for immigrant workers.

Existing research suggests that the competitive advantage provided by technological development depends to a large extent on the speed and coordination of the technology’s implementation, and on how adoptable the technological applications are considered. While accepting this argument, the authors consider the explanatory model to be inadequate. This study aims to contribute to the theoretical discussion by analysing institutionalised industrial relations and other organisation-level factors, which are important for workplace restructuring and societal change.

The analysis is based on a representative nation-wide work and working conditions survey (N = 4,100) from Finland, which includes a variety of themes, including practices, changes and well-being at work. Changes are understood as organisational changes, focusing on modern technologies such as robotisation and digitalisation.

The results indicate that occupational division at workplace (low-skilled vs high-skilled occupations) affects job insecurity and acceptance of technologies at work. The characteristics of workplaces, such as the employees’ participation and involvement in the development of the organisation, play a significant part in both the acceptance and the implementation and outcomes of the technological transformations in the workplace.

The research provides new and interesting insights into working life practices. Furthermore, it reveals how technology acceptance and employment perspectives relate to working conditions and lessons learned from past reforms.

The authors consider current theories such as technology acceptance model at the micro level and that way rationalise the need for this study. This study shows the importance of individual, organisational and wider contextual factors in technology acceptance.

The influx of mainland capital to different media sectors in Hong Kong has been commonly seen throughout the last decade (Leung, 2019). While the changes in ownership have been shaping the ecology of Hong Kong’s media industry, the rapid development of digital technology such as the internet and social media has also been important in the industry’s transformation. This study aims to investigate how and to what extent technology has shaped the Hong Kong media work culture.

Alibaba, the powerful e-commerce conglomerate, has sought to advance its development in the media industry and leverage its technological expertise by acquiring the century-old Hong Kong English-language newspaper, the South China Morning Post (SCMP) in 2016. This essay, by using the SCMP as a case study, focuses on the workers and their use of technologies in their daily work practices, which offers an alternative lens to investigate the influence of a Chinese tech ownership in transforming a Hong Kong media outlet’s culture.

This case study illustrates how the implementation of Alibaba work culture at the SCMP through technological application remained minimal over the four years following this Chinese tech giant’s acquisition, whereas a Silicon Valley-style start-up culture and techno-organisational gaze were profoundly found at this workplace and received both acceptance and resistance by the employees.

This study results in a revealing unique type of techno-organisational culture change that deviates from the previous Chinese organisational studies within and outside the Chinese contexts.

This paper reports on a year‐long research project undertaken by the authors and a group of sponsoring corporations to explore the future of work and thereby the workplace. Experiences, ideas and data were shared to address questions about the changing nature of the workforce itself, new workplace designs, new technology capabilities and the economics of supporting and leveraging knowledge workers. But this paper does more than report on specific findings, it interprets, predicts and offers the authors’ personal perspectives in order to share with readers their own views of the issues and challenges facing facility managers today as they prepare their organisations for a changing and very different world of work in the near future.

New Zealand’s future has been linked to the growth of a “knowledge economy”, specifically the growth, development and integration of scientific and technological advancement in our economy, through new and existing enterprises. Consequently, NZ must address how current and future generations of science, engineering and technology practitioners (at all levels) will have opportunities to develop the requisite skills and knowledge they need to contribute fully to “knowledge” enterprises. Reflecting on the current NZ industry‐based engineering training, an analysis of the factors contributing to the levels of training is presented. In response and with a view to improve the culture of training and learning in NZ enterprises, a shift from the standardised training approaches often associated with unit standards, to adopting a “problem based learning” model for workplace training is proposed. The implications for educating workplace trainers to deliver workplace training based on this model are also discussed.

This research contributes to current debates on automation and the future of work, a much-hyped but under researched area, in emerging economies through a particular focus on India. It assesses the national strategy on artificial intelligence and explores the impact of automation on the Indian labour market, work and employment to inform policy.

The article critically assesses the National Strategy on AI, promulgated by NITI Aayog (a national policy think tank), supported by the government of India and top industry associations, through a sectoral analysis. The key dimensions of the national strategy are examined against scholarship on the political economy of work in India to better understand the possible impact of automation on work.

The study shows that technology is not free from the wider dynamics that surround the world of work. The adoption of new technologies is likely to occur in niches in the manufacturing and services sectors, while its impact on employment and the labour market more broadly, and in addressing societal inequalities will be limited. The national strategy, however, does not take into account the nature of capital accumulation and structural inequalities that stem from a large informal economy and surplus labour context with limited upskilling opportunities. This raises doubts about the effectiveness of the current policy.

The critical assessment of new technologies and work has two implications: first, it underscores the need for situated analyses of social and material relations of work in formulating and assessing strategies and policies; second, it highlights the necessity of qualitative workplace studies that examine the relationship between technology and the future of work.

The article assesses an influential state policy in a key aspect of future of work–automation.

The policy assessed in this study would have significant social and economic outcomes for labour, work and employment in India. The study highlights the limitations of the state policy in addressing key labour market dimensions and work and employment relations in its formulation and implementation.

This study is the first to examine the impact of automation on work and employment in India. It provides a critical intervention in current debates on future of work from the point of view of an important emerging economy defined by labour surplus and a large informal economy.