Internet Use at Organizations - Essay Example

INTERNET AND COMMUNICATION Affiliation INTERNET AND COMMUNICATION Introduction Compared to any other transformations the internet has proven to be a particularly profound change that has enabled and enforced changes of high significance in any organization employing its full use. The internet’s ability of empowering consumers, supporting the dynamic exchange of information among various departments of an organization, the organization at large and the flattening of organizational hierarchies is enough a promise for bearing forth some new changes (Furneaux & Wade, 2011). This includes newer operational strategies, models of business, modes of delivering service and management mechanisms. All these implying that organizations are to start getting ready to adopt the advanced internet applications that are expected to rise soon. Due to these many benefits, organizations incorporating this change will have to clearly choose its operational strategies on whether or not to align its internet use at both departmental levels and organizational levels aiming at yielding high production levels. (1) Do you think that Internet use at the departmental level requires different guidelines from those used at the organizational level? Why or why not? Will or can it boost production? Internet use at any organization ought to be decentralized. To elaborate this, we need to put into consideration on how organizations were like before the advent of internet technology. During the genesis of internet use at various organizations, almost every other employer at different departments was hardly in a position to have any of the internet related computing devices at their disposal (Bullmore & Sporns, 2012). The type of data usage was determined by the mainframes run by the organization where the center staffs were having control over the input and output at each and every step of the whole process. Upon request, the trained personnel that were able to program these mainframe machines were able to generate data along with information needed by the organization, for example in the processing of payrolls. It is essential to note that most of the staff at different departments was ignorant when it came to this new way of processing data as it was only a task left for the Informational Technology (IT) departments in the organizations. As a result, the ignorant individuals became frustrated on the usage of this new technology. Recently, internet use at organizations has been shown a decentralized trend contrary to the later where it was centralized. As internet hardware and software became more cost efficient and reliable, organizations realized the need to make this process of internet use to be of independent in nature (Petter&DeLone, 2013). The inquiry, therefore, is to whether internet use may be centralized or decentralized; in my opinion the whole process should be concentrated as per the reasons discussed below and how positively they affect production. This is to mean that the advantages of having one central organizational internet use guideline far much outweigh its disadvantages and also is of a better choice compared to decentralizing the whole process. With the departments in an organization having similar guidelines on internet use compared to those at the organizational level, there is a sense of uniformity. Through being uniform, the group avoids problems related to duplication of data that may bring about confusion (Gubbi et al., 2013).This is clearly a boost to the production levels. It also enables those specified with the task of managing the whole organizations internet use to be specialized. By being specialized, it means an increase in production as they can do their works more efficiently. Contrary to when the organizations guidelines on internet use were different with those at the departments as it would lead to varied capabilities that may not be highly efficient compared to when operating as one unit with similar goals. Having similar guidelines as a whole in the organization creates a sense of consistency. And by this we mean that any of the employees in the organization can move among many departments in the organization and at the same time be able to use the same existing technology setting without having to be constrained by ignorance. Through this, productivity is guaranteed to increase as there are no restrictions on internet use at the various departmental levels but rather similar guidelines for each and every member of the organization to use. Therefore, organizations web guidelines should be uniform to all the departments in the organization. (1) How might networking trends at the departmental level align or conflict with communications trends at the organizational level? Why or why not? Departmental networking trends in an organization deals with building relationships amongst the different departments with a common goal to meet (Bullmore & Sporns, 2012). This is a way to have these units operate as one unit to meet their one similar goal that, in fact, led to them being in the coalescent. Departments in an organization may decide to have their unique networking trend that has its effect on many other things revolving around the group as a whole. Of primary concern is the impact of these trends on the communication patterns of the entire group. Communications patterns though involve the various media used by organizations to convey their goals to their employees or clients (Xu, 2011). At the departmental level, and organizations department may, for example, decide to come up with a network through which they form let say a cooperative financial union of their own. Members from the various departments are then faced with the objective of making regular contributions to the network so formed to meet its daily running costs. To the departments a clean motive through which they expect to better their life and improved standards of living by pooling of resources. Even though this may be a good financial network created, the network does have effects on the general communication trend that the organization as a whole has in operation. An organizations communication is broadly categorized into two that is internal communication and the external communication. The internal communication constitutes the communication within that particular company. This could be done through the use of business meetings, interviews, conference or even presentations. Internal communication is of an excellent way to make announcements and therefore showing an increased trend of the organizations general productivity (Gubbi, Buyya, Marusic, & Palaniswami, 2013). Based on the particular type of communication, it can be further classified as horizontal or vertical communication. Where horizontal communication involves communication between peers, the vertical communication involves communication amongst different hierarchies of the organization (Petter, DeLone & McLean, 2013). When an organization adopts the horizontal type of internal communication, the pattern has got its effects on the networking trends of its departments. For example, as per the networking as mentioned above pattern, the system allowed various departments to be able to pool their resources. By having a horizontal type of communication, it means other members belonging to different hierarchies are not involved in their network trends and for this case the financial system. This practically implies that the organizations networking trends at the departmental level are in conflict with the communications patterns at the group level (Furneaux & Wade, 2011). This is because not all members of the whole group are fully involved in both processes aimed at achieving optimal productivity. While on the other end, had the organizations internal communication be of vertical nature then it would have meant uniformity with the networking trends at the departmental level. Conclusion Embracing the use of the internet is one fundamental goal that any organization in existence should strive to achieve. But of primary importance is how to incorporate the utilization of this new technology so as to let it blend perfectly with the organizations set goals. Initiating programs though to ensure optimal strategy to use when dealing with use of the internet at departmental level and at the group level may be frantic; it is keen to arrive at a measure that will result in something productive. Finally, when embracing new networking trends, organizations ought not to forget about the need to consider the type of communication it majorly involves when it comes to passing of information to its members. With all that being considered, then it would mean a general increase in productivity for the organization. References Bullmore, E., & Sporns, O. (2012). The economy of brain network organization. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 13(5), 336-349. Furneaux, B., & Wade, M. (2011). An Exploration of Organizational Level Information Systems Discontinuance Intentions. Mis Quarterly, 35(3), 573-598. Gubbi, J., Buyya, R., Marusic, S., & Palaniswami, M. (2013). Internet of Things (IoT): A vision, architectural elements, and future directions. Future Generation Computer Systems, 29(7), 1645-1660. Petter, S., DeLone, W., & McLean, E. R. (2013). Information Systems Success: the quest for the independent variables. Journal of Management Information Systems, 29(4), 7-62. Xu, L. D. (2011). Enterprise systems: state-of-the-art and future trends. Industrial Informatics, IEEE Transactions on, 7(4), 630-640. Read More