Publications
Publications
- January 2018 (Revised May 2018)
- HBS Case Collection
AT&T: Managing Technological Change and the Future of Telephone Operators in the 20th Century
By: Daniel P. Gross and William R. Kerr
Abstract
By the 1930s, AT&T dominated the American phone industry, serving 10 million telephones and employing over 100,000 switchboard operators. But beginning in the mid-1910s, the company began changing from manually operated switchboards to mechanical switching systems that were faster and more cost-effective and did not require human operators. By the 1930s, the changeover has been completed or is underway in most American cities with over 50,000 people. The rollout of the new technology is garnering a good deal of public attention, not just for the unfamiliar new “dialing” process that customers are required to learn, but also because of the mass layoffs of the women who served as operators. The job cuts have even resulted in reports from the Department of Labor and Congressional hearings. As the rollouts continue across the country, AT&T questions how to handle the layoffs and the reaction to the new system.
Keywords
AT&T; Bell Telephone; Phone Lines; Phone Operators; Mechanical Switching; Layoffs; Technological Change; Transition; History; Innovation and Invention; Technological Innovation; Information Technology; Disruption; Change Management; Communications Industry; Telecommunications Industry; United States
Citation
Gross, Daniel P., and William R. Kerr. "AT&T: Managing Technological Change and the Future of Telephone Operators in the 20th Century." Harvard Business School Case 718-486, January 2018. (Revised May 2018.)