How do techno-organizational paradigms change after fundamental shifts in frame conditions? The case of flexible automation in eastern Germany. Paper presented at EUNETIC-Conference

This article examines the question how far, in the concept of diversity - expressed as different resulting trajectories of techno-organisational paradigms - individual firms bring their experiences and modes of behaviour to bear in times of fundamentally changing background conditions. Using secondary data, the ISI investigated how far the experiences gained in enterprises by planners and workers under the centrally planned economy of the GDR are included in the structuring of new development paths in comparison to the West German reference situation. Modernisation using little capital, on the basis of flexibility and cooperation skills acquired at shopfloor level in former times, is obviously not the path upon which East German enterprises have engaged. The traditional pattern seems to tend to be present more in firms where former East German decision-makers and planners still retain their influence. New concepts, as they are being intensively discussed in West Germany, can also be fo und in the re-organised firms.