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This article investigates the impact of the labor market on the design and selection of productive techniques within manufacturing plants. The investigation is based upon open-ended interviews conducted in 1964 and 1965 with engineers and with personnel and industrial relations specialists in manufacturing plants and at corporate headquarters. The efficacy of adjustments in productive technique as a mechanism for achieving structural balance in the labor market may be questioned on several grounds. The study does suggest that, in attempting to explain the degree of structural balance which has been achieved, and in assessing the capacity of the economy to affect such balance in the future, attention must focus upon other adjustment mechanisms. The study also suggests mechanisms inherent in the process of technological change itself which may facilitate market adjustments. As a result, the interviews suggested that the supply of such specialized ability and hence the pace of technological change is constrained by the number of managerial personnel who can be accommodated on the plant floor without disrupting current production.

Human engineering is generally concerned with the design of human tasks, systems, and environments so that people can work and live safely, comfortably, and effectively. Although the field has been primarily identified with military and aerospace systems, it has lately been focusing on broader societal problems. Many human engineering principles can easily be generalized to cover the design of certain features of environments for the aged. However, the most effective use of human engineering in this area will require research to supply better information about the aged, their needs, capacities, and limitations. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The historical development of the concepts of community and community organization are examined in the light of their treatment in the literature. For the concept of community, five approaches are seen and discussed: (1) regulatory, (2) integrative and structural-functional, (3) ecological, (4) monographical, and (5) political-stratificational. The working definition of community offered Is "the aggregate of all the institutional means available to some given groups in interaction toward the accomplishment of an aggregate of all the institutional ends." For the concept of community organization, where theorists and activists are attempting to conceptualize this multiformed area, it is shown that its present state is rapidly changing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]