Building the Trident Network: A Study of the Enrollment of People, Knowledge, and Machines (Inside Technology)

Book Description

In Building the Trident Network, Maggie Mort approaches the United Kingdom’s Trident submarine and missile system as a sociotechnical network. Drawing on the sociology of scientific and technical knowledge and on actor-network theory, Mort recounts how the Trident program was stabilized in the United Kingdom and brought into "successful" production. She uncovers the nature of this success by retelling unofficial histories of Trident, of production roads not taken, and of potential technological "distractions." The production of Trident, she shows, was not inevitable but contingent and problematic.

Using material from interviews and local texts, Mort explores the emergence of a counternetwork in the form of a workers’ campaign for alternative technologies. She develops concepts of "disenrollment" and "absent intermediaries," in which redundant workers and marginalized technologies serve to discipline and reinforce the dominant network as production shrinks. She also examines the maintenance of the barrier between the technical and the social/political in this context. The management of uncertainties within the Trident production program emerges as critical to its successful completion.

Customer Reviews:

Maggie Mort's Building the Trident Network.......2003-07-26

In this book, Maggie Mort examines the history of the Trident submarine program in Britain from early 1980s to 1998, focusing on the management and workers of Vickers Shipbuilding and Engineering Ltd. (VSEL) and particularly the shipyard operations in Barrow.

The Trident is a large submarine designed to carry eighteen submarine-launched ballistic missiles tipped with multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle (MIRV) nuclear warheads. Tridents would replace the smaller Polaris submarines in the 1980s to provide a less vulnerable sea-based nuclear deterrent force for both the Britain and United States. Trident technology was complex and therefore very expensive.

The idea of building the submarines in the early 1980s was attractive to the management at VSEL because of the potential for profit. They assumed, as most people did at the time, that the Cold War would not end soon. British equity investors endorsed this view by rewarding VSEL with a high and growing stock price. As a result, the management of VSEL progressively divested itself of other businesses to focus most of its efforts on building Tridents.

A major argument in the book is that the closing of the Trident building program in 1998 brought considerable hardship to the workers of Barrow, but that this was not an inevitable outcome. A group of workers called the Barrow Alternative Employment Committee (BAEC) argued forcefully for the diversification of VSEL activities in order to avoid overdependence on defense contracts. Mort examines carefully in Chapter 3 the BAEC's claims that VSEL could have remained diversified by investing in non-defense technologies such as radomes and the Constant Speed Generator Drive (CGSD). The latter was basically a gearing system that allowed ocean-going vessels to generate their own electricity directly from the diesel engines that powered the propulsion system rather than using separate generating systems. Mort shows how this technology was jettisoned in a rather cavalier manner by a management not wanting to be distracted from its military mission by profitable commercial activities. The correctness of the BAEC's views and the stupidity of management decisions regarding CGSD in hindsight lead Mort to conclude that things did not have to work out the way they did.

However, there are other aspects of the argument that are worthy of comment. One of the problems that Mort addresses in Chapter 4 is how the majority of workers (other than the BAEC members and their allies) were convinced not just to go along with the divesting of civilian businesses but also actually to invest themselves in the shares of the newly privatized and defense-contract-dependent VSEL. The British government under Margaret Thatcher was keen to privatize state-owned enterprises like British Shipbuilders, so it proposed a management/worker buyout of the Barrows works as one of the ways to convince the unions that they had a stake in the success of the Trident program. The government hoped that having a financial stake in the firm would reduce the propensity of the workers to engage in strikes. Ironically, the workers invested in the shares and then immediately went on strike for better wages and working conditions. They had purchased the shares for their potential appreciation and sold them when the price went up. Although the workers remained stakeholders in VSEL, they did not remain shareholders for long. However, even though this tactic failed to prevent strikes and other union activity, it succeeded in scuttling efforts of groups like the BAEC to get the rest of the work force to question the overdependence on defense contracts in Barrow.

There is a brief but good theoretical discussion in Chapter 1 of the social construction school of thought in the science, technology and society (STS) branch of sociology. The influential writings of David Noble, Langdon Winner, and Bruno Latour are discussed briefly. Mort herself stresses the concept of "enrollment" by which she means the process of involving individuals in large technological projects. Her interest in not just in enrollment, but also in "disenrollment," as when workers are laid off when demand for a new technology declines or when they lose faith in or become marginal to a given project.

In sum, this book represents a solid effort to understand the path not taken in a large and important technological effort. Its generalizability to other large technology efforts may be limited to some degree by the exotic nature of nuclear submarine technology and the importance of the sudden and rather unexpected end of the Cold War for the events described in the book. Nevertheless, there are all too few books on technology that adequately consider the importance of the views of the workers who are part of the overall effort and particularly of the potential role of dissident labor groups like the BAEC.

A Military-industrial network and its alternatives.......2003-03-10

Maggie Mort's actor network analysis of the history of Britain's participation in the Trident submarine program is an important book. It is a slim volume of only 217 pages and I hope its manageable scale will encourage its wide circulation. I suspect Ms. Mort will be surprised to learn that my first reaction to it is to wonder just how we have come so far from John Kenneth Galbraith's New Industrial State. Firms in Galbraith's analysis were oligopolistic, autonomous institutions vying for market share (and not profit maximization) which wrested power away from owners (entrepreneurs/shareholders). What has happened to his view, extremely plausible in1967, that the large corporation had evolved beyond the "fictional person" created in the act of incorporation to become a genuine "organism" for which the prime imperative was institutional survival? Unfortunately, the answer is perhaps captured in that most famous line of the philosopher of my generation, Pogo; "We have seen the enemy and he is us." The ownership of capital by pension funds, insurance companies, and public institutions such as universities and hospitals has submerged Galbraith's evolving organisms in a sea of share trading based on quarterly reports that nourishes the institutional needs for cash flows and endowment growth. This cannot be more clearly demonstrated than it is by Mort's analysis showing the concern for corporate health that coming from the labour force in and clashing with a management interest limited to shareholder value. The story of the construction of the Trident network is the story of the destruction of a complex corporate organism by a "successful" management that did, in fact, increase shareholder value and create an image of the inevitability of the path followed. .

Of course, enrollment into networks depends on translating many interests, so Ms. Mort's book also brings many other issues into focus. The book chronicles the progressive narrowing of a formerly diverse, creative, and complex marine engineering operation at Barrow into a single purpose tool of cold war nuclear confrontation capable only of building submarines to carry Trident missiles. Mort explores the logic of "core business" versus diversity, an issue that much recent industrial strategy makes crucial. Her story proceeds mainly through analysis of network construction by workers at Barrow who were attempting to preserve diversity and technical capacity in the face of the "baroque technology" of nuclear submarines. In this, she demonstrates clearly and forcefully how much labour history has to contribute to the analysis of large-scale sociotechnical systems. The story of the Barrow Alternative Employment Committee is fascinating and its intersection with the nuclear disarmament movement intriguing. A further important theme is analysis of technological roads not taken. The constant speed generator drive and the VSR3 radome are significant actors in this story.

Book Description

In Getting Down to e-business with AS/400, author Bob Cancilla combines his expertise with real-world business examples to show you how to successfully develop and deploy e-business applications with the IBM AS/400. Each of the 25 chapters will take you step-by-step through the Internet, teaching you all the major issues, concepts, and technologies necessary to implement an AS/400-based e-business solution. If the Internet is going to revolutionize the way you do business, this new book is a must! Getting Down to e-business with AS/400 is the one resource that cover's all the individual Internet technologies together in one place. It explains the many products that work together to make the AS/400 a Web server. In addition, it will help you develop a comprehensive Internet plan and teach you how to design and build an e-business Web site that can revolutionize your business. Turn to this book again and again to become the resident expert on: Available software for your AS/400 and how it fits into your overall e-business plan, browsers, domains, firewalls, proxy servers, Network Address Translation (NAT)and web servers, Email with Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP), POP3, and Domino, the AS/400 HTTP server, Net.Commerce, Net.Data, and Common Gateway Interface (CGI) programming, Telnet and 5250 emulation via the Internet, internet security, how to develop a comprehensive planning guide for your AS/400 Internet project, programming for the web, designing e-business AS/400 web sites, web-based graphics design, the basics of HTML, and much more!

Customer Reviews:

You really can get down to eBusiness.......2000-07-08

For anyone looking to get a great understanding of what eBusiness is really all about this is the book for you. Covering all sorts of different aspects from page design and layout, to webserver setup and dynamic page and content generation you really cant go wrong.

It is full of examples you can use, so that within a couple of hours you can get dynamic access to your information without the need to really tax your mind. Just how it should be! It shows that eBusiness is more than just technology, its about bringing many different processes together. And best of all you get to really make use of your AS/400, although it equally fits any other platform in all the concepts it covers.

Average customer rating:

Common Sense Purchasing: Hard Knock Lessons Learned From a Purchasing Pro

'Must Read' Supply Chain Book!

OUTSTANDING READ... Dr. Tom is a real pro!

An Outstanding Supply Chain Book-Must Read

What this book is REALLY about!

Common Sense Purchasing: Hard Knock Lessons Learned From a Purchasing Pro

Manufacturer: Apollo Solutions
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
Management | Management & Leadership | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
General | Small Business & Entrepreneurship | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
General | Business & Investing | 4-for-3 Books Store | Stores | Books
Management | Management & Leadership | Business & Investing | 4-for-3 Books Store | Stores | Books
General | Small Business & Entrepreneurship | Business & Investing | 4-for-3 Books Store | Stores | Books
All 4-for-3 Deals | 4-for-3 Books Store | Stores | Books
Similar Items:

The Sourcing Solution: A Step-By-Step Guide to Creating a Successful Purchasing Program

The Incredible Payback: Innovative Sourcing Solutions That Deliver Extraordinary Results

Handbook for Buying and Purchasing Management

The Purchasing Machine: How the Top Ten Companies Use Best Practices to Manage Their Supply Chains

Balanced Sourcing: Cooperation and Competition in Supplier Relationships

ASIN: 159457250X
Release Date: 2004-02-19

Product Description

Common Sense Purchasing is a no holds barred practical guide to purchasing and negotiations success. If you don't like consultants, buzzwords and theory this book is for you. Straight forward and to the point you will not be able to put it down until you have finished the purchasing journey.

Customer Reviews:

Common Sense Purchasing: Hard Knock Lessons Learned From a Purchasing Pro .......2007-09-16

I perform the purchasing function for a small business. I thought this book would be helpful as an instruction manual for improving how our company makes purchases. It was not. The book was geared toward large companies with large purchasing departments. There was little to no instruction on how to actually improve how you make purchases, mostly how to tell staff how to follow company wide purchasing guidelines. I would not recommend this book for small business owners or those without large purchasing departments.

'Must Read' Supply Chain Book!.......2007-02-25

Dr. Tom has written a classic for anyone who wants to establish relationships along the entire supply chain. His straight-forward manner and stories are outstanding! I particularly enjoyed all the parts about building supplier relationships and tales of purchasing department bureaucratic culture. An excellent reference book for all levels of professionals. If I could give it six stars, I would!

OUTSTANDING READ... Dr. Tom is a real pro!.......2007-02-21

Dr. Tom has written a brilliant supply chain book on relationship building. His writing style makes the concepts clear to novices and experts alike. His practical advice is both enjoyable and pertinent. It is a very easy read and I could not put the book down until I was finished. This is a must read for any supply chain, purchasing or contracting professional. I rate it 5 stars. Dr. Tom's background is as equally impressive as his scholarship.

An Outstanding Supply Chain Book-Must Read.......2005-04-28

Just an outstanding purchasing field manual! Most consultants and academic folks will hate this book! They can't stand low cost common sense techniques. The book has many simple common sense approaches to purchasing. Unfortunately common sense is all too rare in purchasing. At our company we don't even want to hire purchasing folks who are certified. We have to spend too much time deprogramming them! The style is eclectic because the author wanted to emulate the chaos of a typical purchasing day. Many bureaucrats can't get this book and just mindlessly pan it. The key point is that relationship building with suppliers is essential. There is no roadmap for this effort other than hard work and getting folks to trust each other.
I personally experienced Dr. Tom's one day workshop on Reengineering Purchasing which was the best experience of my purchasing career bar none. Most of the high priced junk that consultants sell today is smoke and mirrors like spend analysis, reverse on line auctions, portals etc. Bottom line Dr. Tom hits it on the head, "It's about getting world class suppliers and building strong relationships." This is where the quantum leaps are. Many companies are enamored with technology and lose sight of the strategy. Any purchasing dummy can learn tactics and be a fire fighter. The strategists are rare but their gains can be enormous. Dr. Tom is a true and dynamic strategic thinker whose ideas are timeless and right on. Buy this book and use it. Make everyone in your department read it and discuss it.

What this book is REALLY about!.......2005-01-20

I bought this book, in no small part, because of the rave reviews that it's gotten on this site. Now that I've spent half of my day thoroughly reading this 76 page gem, I'm kind of astounded by what's been written about it. In spite of my rating, I don't consider it to be a bad book. If you're the manager of a purchasing department within a large manufacturing firm looking to reengineer your operations, I recommend that you read it. However, if you're looking for sound advice on general purchasing practices, look elsewhere.

This book seems to have been thrown together fairly quickly. It contains numerous typos, and poorly drawn cartoons that add little to it. Nonetheless, the author does dispense some practical advice on modernizing a purchasing organization, and how to sell the plan to affected individuals. He principally focuses on computer automation, developing procurement card programs, and developing "strategic relationships" with suppliers. This last notion refers to his belief that strong business relationships should be forged with important suppliers to get them more fully involved in meeting the company's needs (automatic inventory replenishment and the like). On the whole, the book seems to be more about modern (late 90's theory) operations management than about purchasing, but at least the points that the author does make seem sound. Unfortunately, the book is too short to be of much use as anything but a checklist for people trying to reengineer organizations. At least it's good for that.

As far as the personal stories gleaned from years of purchasing experience are concerned, I could only find two, which collectively took up a whopping half a page. I'm not suggesting that the author didn't rely on his extensive experience to write the book, but he principally just states the "facts" as he sees them, and provides precious few examples to illustrate his points. More vexing still, is that the man probably could have taught his readers a great deal about purchasing, but chose to write about other things instead. I've little doubt that there are people out there who can greatly benefit from this book, but they probably number in the thousands, which is probably why it's called "Common Sense Purchasing" and not "Common Sense Modernization of a Purchasing Organization".

Average customer rating:

Great for new board members

The Guide to Successful Destination Management (The Wiley Event Management Series)
Pat, CMP, CSEP, DMCP Schaumann
Manufacturer: Wiley
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
Hospitality, Travel & Tourism | Industries & Professions | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
Running Meetings & Presentations | Skills | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
General | Travel | Subjects | Books
All Titles | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books
Business & Investing | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books
Travel | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books
Similar Items:

Art of the Event: Complete Guide to Designing and Decorating Special Events (The Wiley Event Management Series)

Event Entertainment and Production (The Wiley Event Management Series)

Corporate Event Project Management (The Wiley Event Management Series)

Professional Event Coordination (The Wiley Event Management Series)

The Business of Event Planning: Behind-the-Scenes Secrets of Successful Special Events

ASIN: 0471226254

Book Description

Get the most comprehensive guide to destination management!

From tours to transportation, from entertainment to local rules of etiquette, the destination management company (DMC) is the premier resource that utilizes the right venue, location, speaker, and vendor to ensure a highly professional and successful program. Choosing the right DMC can make - or break - an event. Written by an experienced destination manager and endorsed by the leading association of destination managers, The Guide to Successful Destination Management provides a one-stop resource for hotel and resort destination managers and meeting/event planners who want to find the best DMC for their customers.

Throughout the pages of this book, event professionals learn how to identify, select, work with, and evaluate the DMCs that will most benefit their guests and their organization. From planning a simple meeting for a board of directors to a major citywide event, The Guide to Successful Destination Management clearly covers all the critical resources and outlines the necessary steps to ensure successful decisions every time.

The Guide to Successful Destination Management features:

Association of Destination Management Executives' (ADME) Accepted Practices and Guidelines
Advice and guidance on everything from food and beverage to risk management and ethics
Sample forms, letters, and contracts
Real-world case studies
A practical ethics quiz

Customer Reviews:

Great for new board members.......2007-01-04

This book is a wonderful resource for those who are joining their first non-profit (or any) board of directors.

Customer Reviews:

Useful but Limited.......2001-07-31

I work as a consumer advocate for the Department of Insurance in Florida, and my office has to deal with a large number of complaints and requests for assistance from the Hispanic community in this state. While I found this book very useful in some ways, there were some drawbacks, at least from my point of view.

For one thing, it is not a general dictionary of insurance terms; it would be better described as a general dictionary of life & health insurance terms. While there are some terms from property, casualty and marine insurance in the book the overwhelming preponderance of the entries deal with life and health insurance, and fairly basic terms on P&C issues and particularly on P&C claims handling were missing.

Secondly, many of the terms included seem to be almost literal translations of the English. Sometimes this is necessary because there is no Spanish term (e.g., MEWA's), but this only brings to the fore the fact that insurance procedures, and the resulting terminology, vary considerably from one country to another.

In connection with this, it appears that the Spanish terms included in the book are based primarily on Mexican usage, and the user should be aware that the terminology may be quite different for the same thing in other countries. There are a considerable number of terms that are rather common in the Hispanic world which I did not find in the book, such as "franquicia", "caduco", "rescate", etc.

Having said all that, the book does fill a gap between the standard business dictionaries, which often appear to not even know what a word means in English, much less being able to define it in Spanish, and more specialized books which will bowl you over with detail. You can use it effectively in the office and on the street, and agents involved with the Hispanic community will probably find it useful.

The title is correct.......2000-09-18

The word for securities is bursatiles and the word for insurance is seguros. Despite the comments of another reviewer, the title of our book is correct. In fact, if one would look at our dictionary series they would know that we have both and insurance and securities dictionary. Thank you.

Diccionario Bilingue De Seguros/Bilingual Insurance Dictiona.......2000-07-28

I don't understand how this book can be so good if its title is incorrect. On its cover it appears as translation for seguros "securities" but so far I know seguros is "insurance". If anyone could someway explain this to me, I would appreciate it. My e-mail is: imex@sinectis.com.ar Thank you very much!

Diccionario Bilingue de Seguros.......2000-06-03

This dictionary is a must for bilingual insurance agents. I found it very helpful in translating words that I previously could not. I seriously recommend it, especially with the recent growth of international commerce and trade.

Average customer rating:

Great Overview

History of the International Chemical Industry: From the "Early Days" to 2000
Fred Aftalion
Manufacturer: Chemical Heritage Foundation
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Company Profiles | Biography & History | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
Production & Operations | Management & Leadership | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
General | Industries & Professions | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
General | World | History | Subjects | Books
General | Science | Subjects | Books
History of Technology | Technology | Science | Subjects | Books
Similar Items:

The Chemical Industry at the Millennium: Maturity, Restructuring, and Globalization

Shaping the Industrial Century: The Remarkable Story of the Evolution of the Modern Chemical and Pharmaceutical Industries (Harvard Studies in Business History)

Chemistry and the Chemical Industry: A Practical Guide for Non-Chemists

Chemicals and Long-Term Economic Growth: Insights from the Chemical Industry

Value Creation: Strategies for the Chemical Industry

ASIN: 0941901297
Release Date: 2005-06-01

Product Description

Fred Aftalion's international perspective of the history of chemistry integrates the story of chemical science with that of chemical industry. This new edition includes events from 1990 to 2000, when major companies began selling off their divisions, seeking to specialize in a particular business. Aftalion explores the pitfalls these companies encountered as well as the successes of "contrarians"--those companies that remained broad and diversified. He uses BASF, Dow, and Bayer as examples of true contrarians.

Customer Reviews:

Great Overview.......2007-01-09

A good overview of the history of the development of the chemical industry. I include part of this information in my High School Chemistry classes to give the students some historical perspective of the science. Nice to have a good chunk of it in one reference.

Books:

Books Index

Books Home

Recommended Books