Occupational Divisions of Labor and Their Technology Politics: The Case of Surgical Scopes and Gastrointestinal Medicine

Through a case analysis of how medicine's intra-occupational division of labor responded to the development of gastrointestinal endoscopy, this article sheds light on how occupational divisions of labor respond to technological innovation. The article proposes that innovations are introduced into such structures in ways consistent with the cultural scripts that regulate relations and workflows between occupations functional segments. However, these scripts may not be able to regulate effectively subsequent developments, and structural divisions may produce intra-occupational conflict and struggle over market turf A “Trojan horse” metaphor is used to illustrate this process. The analysis developed here poses questions about the current tendency to extol the virtues of occupational divisions of labor, for such structures may lack effective mechanisms for regulating the unintended outcomes of technological change.