Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!mailrus!ames!pasteur!agate!violet.berkeley.edu!skyler
From: skyler@violet.berkeley.edu
Newsgroups: comp.society.women
Subject: The Technical Core in Computing Firms
Message-ID: <11101@agate.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: 18 Jun 88 18:59:09 GMT
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Approved: skyler@violet.berkeley.edu (Moderator -- Trish Roberts)
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During the debate, I mentioned the term "technical core."  Some people
didn't know what I meant by that.  In this posting, I want to define
that term and talk about why it's an interesting issue in regard to
women in computing.  This article moves a little fast, but I didn't
want it to be too long, so please bear with me.

Organizational theorists talk about the "technical core" of
complex organizations.  Theorists suggest that:
"Under norms of rationality, organizations seek to seal off
their core technologies from environmental influences."  (Thompson,
_Organizations In Action_)  That "sealed off" area is buffered from
as much as possible so that those people in the core can work on technical
cause-effect problems (does this program have that bug) and not worry
about the marketing, legality, or any other kind of question.  Other
layers of the organization take care of those questions.

Traditionally, the technical core is isolated as much as possible,
often even physically.  There might be little personnel interchange
between the layers of an organization;  sometimes, managerial positions are
filled from outside the organization (people with MBAs) rather than from
people who have moved through the technical core.  The idea is that
MBAs (or whatever) are trained in the specific skills of management,
or economics, or marketing, or whatever--training an engineer or a
doctor or a computer scientist doesn't have.  

Some have argued that women don't like to be in the technical cores
of companies because 1)  they don't like the isolation; 2)  women
are socialized to enjoy helping people more and, therefore, like to
be involved in those layers of an organization which are involved in
mediation.

This organization is a direct result of Americans' infatuation with
German methods of bureaucracy and "rational organization."  When some
computer firms like Apple got rolling, they were, supposedly, throwing
a lot of doubt on this organization schema.  Apple, and other groups,
were organized so that few people were purely management.  Instead,
the organization was broken into clusters which were managed by someone
who continued to contribute technical know-how.

This kind of organization was supposed to work better because:  it would
prevent the kind of policy catastrophe that can happen when the technical
core is not listened to (the Pinto or Corvair cases, for example;) it
would be more interesting for people; it was necessary in the field of
computers because the field changes so fast that if someone stays out
of technical work for any length of time they are left far behind; it
is possible in the field of computers because the "technical" knowledge
is not so different from the managerial knowledge (does this program
work is a major factor in deciding whether or not the program should
be marketed--more important, say, than the issue of whether or not a
car runs matters in the final decision.)

I know this is moving a little fast, but this is the point I think is
interesting.  If all these various theorists are right--if women don't
want to be in the technical core because it is isolated, if computer
firms do better with this different kind of organization, then, possibly,
computer firms could be the best kind of place for women to work.

So, keeping that point in mind, are the theorists right?

-Trish

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