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Organisational Theory

Technology

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Technology

Objectives:

• Introduce the concept of technology

• Discuss common assumptions about technology

• To understand the relationship between technology, organisations, management and employees.  

• To explore how the different perspectives view technology.

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Thinking about TechnologyA critical exploration of the claims and counterclaims of the relationship between technology and progress.

‘Why do we take so little for granted in the social sciences and so much for granted in the natural sciences?…what happens when you apply the scepticism normally reserved for social relations to technology?’ (Grint and Woolgar, 1997, 37).

Technology does not emerge from an objective exercise in problem solving.

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Defining Technology

‘Technology’ is a fairly new word—coined by Jacob Bigelow, Harvard professor, in the 1820s.

Roots of the word are much older:

• Techne (Greek): art, craft or skill

• Teks (Indo-Euro): weave or fabricate

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Defining TechnologyModern Definition 1:

‘A system based on the application of knowledge, manifested in physical objects and organisational forms for the attainment of specific goals’

Assumption:

– that technology comes about in order to meet an organisational or social need.

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Questions concerning technological innovation

Do technologies comes about in order to meet an existing need? Keyhole surgery to cut costs?

Do we (creators) find ‘needs’ for a new technology? Transistors replace valves – miniaturisation?

Are technologies invented for practical purposes?Related to 1?

Are technologies invented for the ‘challenge’ or for symbolic purposes? Hydrogen Bomb? Logos?

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Defining TechnologyModern definition 2:

‘A system based on the application of knowledge, manifested in physical objects and organisational forms for the attainment of specific goals which maybe for practical reasons, symbolic reasons or for reasons of generating profit’.

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Technology and ProgressA modernist duality: Common (modernist) assumptions:

• Technological change is usually one of continuous improvements of existing technologies.

• ‘We’ can always make things better and faster.

• The progressive element of technology makes it a unique human endeavour.

• Advances in technology bring positive advances to an organisation.

• An organisation’s level of progress can be measured in its advances in technology.

Does the evidence support these claims? Totally? Partially? Not at all?

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Myth 1: Technology is ‘progressive’ Critical theorists and postmodernists argue:

Technology is a subversive force:

– Technological change can be a subversive process that results in the modification or destruction of established organisational roles, relationships and values.

Examples:1.Early 1800s, British manufacturers in the textile industry wanted to introduce new ‘more productive’ machines.Workers objected for fear of its impact on their jobs and skills.Formation of the ‘Luddites’ to destroy the ‘subversive’ technology.

2. China Today: the concept of toxic progress –polluted air and water.

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Myth 2: Technology can ‘fix’ all problemsSolving one problem generates new problems?

Car accidents seat belts, air-bags

Hyper active kids Retalin (prescription drugs)

Heroine addiction methadone

Graffiti resistant paints

Dangerous jobs robotics

Global warming carbon capture and storage/geosequestration

‘Ugly people’ cosmetics/cosmetic surgery

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The Appeal of Technocracy:The myth of rational and objective leadership?

That organisations can be governed by engineers and technical experts (scientific managers) who attempt to solve workplace problems’ based on technical/scientific principles.

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The deficiencies of the technocratic delusion

• Technology is often a source of organisational problems.

• Goals for organisations are not always clear and often contested by various stakeholders (workers versus managers).

Technology is value-laden: not objective– it serves to benefit someone.– It is informed by those who control the institutional means for its

creation– The techniques produced embody (objectify) the values and

perspectives of individuals engaged in their production. – Humans are not as quick to change behaviour as a new

machine or computer chip.

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Technological Determinism‘The assumption that technology determines—that is leads directly to—a particular form of society or organisation’ (Grint, 1998).

• We are the ‘servants’ of technology rather than its ‘master’ (‘Frankenstein Monster’)

• Generally rejected by classical modernists (control of), SI (constructed by), CT (used by hegamons) and PM (Tech-Human interface)

The technological imperative: technology as a cause of organisational structure – we select then accommodate it.

– Robert Blauner concludes in his research on work in American industries that:

‘technology more than any other factor determines the nature of the job tasks performed by blue collar employees and has an important effect upon a number of aspects of alienation’ ?

MODERNIST APPROACHES: structural typologies

Types of technology: (Perrow)core technology – unit/organisation level (Woodward, Thompson)

supporting technology – task level – task variability (TV), task analysability (TA)

Two-by-two matrix TV (high, low) against TA (high, low)

Thompson’s Typology:

Distinguish between long linked (mass production continuous processing), mediating (bring people together for exchange) and intensive (coordinating two or more specialised abilities)

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Woodward’s Industrial Organization (1965): A Modernist approach

Organisational form reflects production technologies Production Type Production and

Technological characteristics

Organisational structure

Unit and small batch production (shipbuilding)

Made to order. Unpredictable. Diverse products.

Specialised & flexible technologies

Highly skilled labour.

Structure: Flat, flexible

Control: Committees, teams. Skilled workers maintain some control over machines.

Mass production

(automobile)

Routinised & predictable

Conveyor & Assembly line

Automated (robotics)

Unskilled

Structure: Vertical, bureaucratic, specialised

Control: Managerial control of machines

Continuous production

(chemical)

Continuous flow & automated

Highly technical, computerised

Structure: vertical & organic

Control: committee, technicians monitor and manage production.

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Child’s Strategic Choice:• Technology is a consequence of organisational structure and

management’s ‘strategic choice’

• An organisation can shape technological change through their ability to affect the supply and demand for a particular technology.

• An organisation responsible for a sizable portion of an industry can greatly influence the technological development of the industry as a whole when it creates (or refrains from creating) new products. For example, Microsoft.

• A technology might be selected not because of its innate superiority, but because it meets the needs of the power holder within that organisation.

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Symbolic Interpretive Approaches:Technology as socially determined

technological changes are themselves socially engineered and all human relationships (including organisational relationships) are derived from and ultimately determined by cultural and/or social relationships rather than technological aspects.

SI: Expanding the Definition• Because technology is socially constructed Symbolic

Interpretivists expand definition beyond physical objects to include symbols – words, images, metaphors and beyond task to include interactions between people and technologies.

• Broadening the study of the socio-technical interface• Special interest in New (computer) technologies:• Stochastic – more open to producing the unexpected –

reliability an issue• Continuous – in ways never imagined by modernists• Abstract – operator removed from technical operation• Tight coupling –human agency/technology

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Social Construction of Technology

Symbolic interpretive approaches focus on how technologies are ‘constructed’ through interaction.

Reject modernist notion that technology:– determines organisational design– develop according to a particular ‘logic’,

process or universal law.

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Social Construction of Technology

Influences on technological design and use: institutionalisation

• Market control (mimetic pressure)– Beta versus VHS, Microsoft versus Apple

• Social acceptance (normative pressure)– 1890s cars interpreted as ‘green’ alternative to horse-drawn carts

– Today cars associated with environmental destruction.

• Government policy (coercive pressure) – Criminalisation of hemp in 1937 allowed for DuPont’s synthetic fibres.

• Gender (normative pressure)– Bicycle

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Social Construction of TechnologyApplication/focus of SCOT as an analytical tool:

• Identify the different interpretations of technology.

• Analyse the problems and conflicts these interpretations give rise to.

• Correct the design features of the technological artifacts.

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Social Construction of Technology: conclusion

Technologies have different meanings to different groups.

“..technology is not a pure application of science; it is co-determined by social, cultural, economic and technical factors in the environment that contextualizes it” (Hatch and Cunliffe, 2006: 155).

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Critical TheoryBraverman and Labour Process Theory: power over

Harry Braverman’s key arguments:

• Links Taylorist work redesign processes to Marxist class analysis.

• Through the process of deskilling and work degradation, all employees are finding themselves in a similar disempowered and alienated position.

• All work is becoming the same and workers are becoming extensions of machines.

• Under the ‘logic’ of capitalism ‘deskilling’ is a universal process and the skilled craft worker is becoming extinct.

• Through ‘deskilling’ workers have lost control over the production process and are largely powerless to stop any workplace changes (e.g. technological change, the hiring and firing of workers, managerial decision-making, shift rosters, speedup, etc.)

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Postmodern Conceptions of TechnologyFocus of research:

the relationship between technology and ‘self’ in organisations and the emergence of the techno-human interface.

• Technologies of control (e.g. self-surveillance, discipline, focus on performance rather than values).

• Technologies of representation: technologies used to represent individuals and work processes:(e.g. electronic systems to identify performance and make managerial decisions about merit and promotion among employees).

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Postmodern Conceptions of Technologytechno-human partnerships

Cyborganisation

– A hybridised organisation: a techno-human construct

• An organisation who has been taken over in whole or in part by computer or electromechancial devices (computers, software programmes, phone systems, copier machines, etc.).

• An organisation determined by both machine and human intervention.

• A techno-organic organisation

Dangers:

• Human misuse and abuse of technology

• Organisational members serve the technology instead of the technology serving the organisation.

• Organisational members often expect more from a technology than it can deliver.

• Human and social elements become subordinated to technological capacities and/or imperatives.

Actor Network Theory: Techno –human equality?

• Knowledge product of interactions – machines, people, buildings, concepts, written documents

• Network not the actor that performs the act – humans just another element (Networks of relationship between human and non-human actors)

• Networks are fluid and largely invisible • Two key assumptions:• Social world is materially heterogeneous – socio-technical ordering• Elements of network do not have an independent existence -

principle of rationality

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