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• Chapter | High-Skilled Migration to the United States and Its Economic Consequences | 2018

  Digital Labor Markets and Global Talent Flows

  John Horton, William R. Kerr and Christopher Stanton

  Citation:

  Horton, John, William R. Kerr, and Christopher Stanton. "Digital Labor Markets and Global Talent Flows." Chap. 3 in High-Skilled Migration to the United States and Its Economic Consequences, edited by Gordon H. Hanson, William R. Kerr, and Sarah Turner, 71–108. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2018.  View Details

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• Case | HBS Case Collection | January 2018 (Revised May 2018)

  AT&T: Managing Technological Change and the Future of Telephone Operators in the 20th Century

  Daniel P. Gross and William R. Kerr

  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; disruption; layoffs; technological change; Transition; History; Innovation and Invention; Technological Innovation; 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.)  View Details

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• Teaching Note | HBS Case Collection | May 2018

  AT&T: Managing Technological Change and the Future of Telephone Operators in the 20th Century

  Daniel P. Gross and William R. Kerr

  Keywords: AT＆T; Bell Telephone; phone lines; phone operators; mechanical switching; disruption; layoffs; technological change; Transition; History; Innovation and Invention; Technological Innovation; 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 Teaching Note 718-518, May 2018.  View Details

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