New Technologies, New Modes of Regulation: Some Spatial Implications

Abstract

New technologies can be implemented by means of intensified polarization of skills or by means of increased responsibility (involvement) for workers. These outcomes may be associated with rigid or flexible forms of wage contracting and with individual or collective forms of negotiation. Three classes of models emerge, labelled here neo-Taylorist, Californian, and Saturnian. In terms of industrial organization, new technologies tend to engender specialized firms and vertical quasi-integration, together with territorial integration or disintegration. These different tendencies give rise to distinctive patterns of regional development namely, specialized productive areas, local productive systems, and system-areas.