| Abstract: | Reviews the book, Technologies nouvelles et aspects psychologiques edited by Larocque, Boulard, Fabi, Larouche, and et Rondeau (1987). The following review is from a book including a few English chapters, but mostly written in French. The intention in publishing this English review by Natalie Kishchuk is to make French publications better known to readers of both languages. The book seems mistitled--only four chapters out of twelve touch more than very tangentially on new technologies (those by Larouche, Fischer, David-MacNeil, and Laville). Given that the book contains proceedings of the fourth annual conference of the Association de psychologie du travail de langue francaise, which had the theme "Les conflits générés par les environnements en évolution: aspects culturels et dynamiques," it is not surprising that most of the chapters in fact focus on organizational change processes. In sum, this book is probably best viewed as a collection of discrete readings loosely organized around some general organizational themes, rather than as a summary of the state of knowledge about the psychological implications of technological change. Although there are interesting and novel ideas contained in many of the chapters, the book as a whole, being such a mélange of styles and approaches, is less successful than one would have hoped. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved) |
