The Management of Technology, and Women, in Two Electronics Firms in Malaysia

Abstract

In Malaysia’s current state of industrialization, the issue of cultural and social stigmatization of women workers is no longer relevant. The empirical picture shows that, with increasing automation, more emphasis and concern about appropriate human resource management strategies have been used upon labour. This chapter indicates that in the capital-intensive electronics industry, management has been quite successful in eliciting consent from their workers to cooperate and to be in step with every new technology introduced. It looks at the evidence of changing technology at the workplace and documents management strategies that are currently being employed to either ‘control’, ‘contain’, ‘empower’ or to ‘self-enhance’ labour. By doing so, it assesses some of the current impact upon women workers, brought about by the adoption of new technologies and contemporary human resource management tools. All of which are issues that labour unions and feminists might wish to be aware of in order to set new agendas for the movement.¹