Man-machine systems: People and technology in OR

This paper provides an exploration of how different understandings of "man-machine systems" have accompanied developments in Operational Research. In particular, the paper will challenge the notion that we are in a position of mastery with respect to technology. Both Hard OR and Soft OR are criticized for a failure to examine adequately the relationship between people and technology. Toward the end of the paper a new way of understanding this relationship will he proposed in terms of technologies of the self or what Michel Foucault called "ethics."