Patterns of Work Reorganization in the Course of the IT Industry's Internationalization - Annotated Bibliography Example

Annotations of Ideas from Prescribed Readings Name Institution Name Course Name and Code Date 1. Feuerstein, P., 2013. Patterns of Work Reorganization in the Course of the IT Industry's Internationalization. Competition & Change, 17(1), pp.24-40. The author discusses the IT industry and presents information in the changing dynamics of IT industry in terms of organizational structure and labour requirements. IT industries continue to seek cheap labor, and many IT companies are opening product and manufacturing facilities in low-wage countries. It means that the developed countries with high-wage are affected while the internationalized business has to address changes associated with control and organization of IT work. Through reviewing two case studies, the author states that the IT industry does not develop homogeneously or uniformly rather drivers of reorganization due to dynamic variables influences institutional settings and patterns of internationalization of the offshore destinations. The author also discusses formalization and standardization as other variables that influence IT industry offshoring. Competition and changing environmental dynamics forces organizations to change strategic approaches to introduce cost cutting measures and strategies. Labour is the most contributing cost in the service and product industry, and cutting the costs reduces the prices of the products and services. However, before offshoring the operations, formalizing the processes is important to ensure it reflects the internal requirements of the organization and also adheres to defined standards. The author clearly raises these fundamentals, since, these fundamentals guides the operations in IT industry. The author also raises issues of competency, organizational structure, service level agreements, global value chains, strategic management of the IT processes e.g. planning and executing, labour force organization, and regulatory frameworks. These factors influence the IT industry decisions, and the author raises and presents work reorganization and strategies in numerous organizations to understand the processes of offshoring. The author also presents the internal dynamics of an organization, which dictates the direction and approach of the labor force in advancing operational requirements at a firm. 2. Banerjee, D., 2006. Information technology, productivity growth, and reduced leisure: revisiting “end of history”. WorkingUSA, 9(2), pp.199-213. The author discusses work and leisure requirements, and the relationships between these two factors. The author traces the historical changes in the labour industry and variables influencing the decisions. For example, overtime payments were aimed at increasing working hours while “ideological” shifts played a crucial role. The author presents three shifts at work, at home and coping with emotional consequences associated with the second shift. The second shift is associated with the delegation, hurrying and forgoing some important homework and focusing on at workplace duties, which results in emotional consequences. The employers continue to adjust the working conditions to increase the working period and reduce costs of labour. For example, changing names of organization positions negates the benefits of such positions. The information and communication industry has to adjust because of the changing organization and industrial requirements. Automation and mechanization of the processes mean that employment opportunities fluctuate depending on the positions sought. For example, the ICT manufacturing facilities have been automated while ICT-using sector such as programmers is still manual (cerebral). Whether manufacturing or services sector, the ICT knowledge workers have to worker harder and utilize the leisure time to accomplish the working requirements because of falling incomes and lack of appropriate protection from regulatory bodies. According to the author, the wages keeps fluctuating, but the worker's knowledge will balance, which will reduce and stabilize the wages in the future. The ICT workers will also continue to suffer because it lacks protection from unions and other regulatory institutions because of difficulty in categorizing the tasks and duties. The article clearly highlights the challenges associated with developments and fuzzy nature of the boundaries between work and leisure. The demands of the workplace and home forces employees to work more to address the home requirements. For example, lack of clarification of positions and autonomous nature of the ICT industry does not afford the workers with a mechanism to demand their respective rights and obligations. 3. Van den Broek, D., 2002. Monitoring and surveillance in call centers: some responses from Australian workers. Labour & Industry: A Journal of the Social and Economic Relations of Work, 12(3), pp. 43-58. The author discusses the labour situations in call centre industry and focuses the study on Australia. The article presents information on managerial control and employee resistance in accomplishing assigned duties and obligations. The author analyses the importance of technical systems development in influencing management control through distributing, assigning and reviewing the employee behaviour and performance. Through the use of two large telecommunications companies, the author collected information from customer service representations. Analyzing the information, the use of monitoring and surveillance can be viewed as a strategy towards totalizing labour control. The introduction of technologies such as VDU telephone and ACD systems increases control and management of the employees. Through the control process, some of the employees may accept while other may resist the managerial directives. Even though the author concludes the managerial control is not total, the author presents numerous strategies that CSR creates resistance or reluctantly comply with these directives. These internal and external constraints were taken informally, formally, individual or collectively. Advancement in technological use creates mechanisms to monitor and control the employees. For example, the number of callers and the received calls can be documented easily and analysed through the use of technology. Employees are gauged through response to the caller requirements and entire behaviour throughout the communication process. The aspect of managerial control is important, but the effectiveness of the control is still questionable. Numerous mechanisms and modalities may be employed, but resistance is unavoidable. It illustrates the strategies which companies employ to reduce the overall labour costs. The aim of organizations such as the call centres is to reduce labour costs, and through managerial control, the costs can be reduced, but the forms of resistance can reduce the benefits gained through reduction of costs. Connections from the Journal Articles Feuerstein (2013), Banerjee (2006) and van den Broek (2002) discusses the diverse nature of information and communication technology. The historical aspect taken by Banerjee (2006) illustrates the changing requirements in the world and the need to understand the issues and challenges associated with information technology. The lack of clear characterization of the employees and their respective positions with an organization creates challenges in determining remuneration and labour requirements. In information technology sectors, numerous employment opportunities exist, which are new in nature resulting in fluctuating wages and salaries. Banerjee (2006) states that the cost of labour will continue reducing because of knowledge acquisitions and more employees having the knowledge to create and operate the information technologrequirements. The organizational structure in the form of salaries and the management control and resistance are becoming important components of the IT industry. For example, van den Broek (2002) states that resistance in the information technology industry is common, and resistance is employed in different perspectives. The continuous development means of management control through different tools and frameworks ensures employees behaviours and character are continuously analysed. In addition, the internationalization of the business forces an organization to formalize and standardize the business operations. The decision to pursue the developing countries because of the cheap labour also affects the wages and the operational requirements. The inclusion of information technology creates additional challenges for the regulatory organizations and institutions. The position of IT specialists is fuzzy because of the name given to employee positions at the workplace and lack of standardized compensation framework. The management of an organization can employ basic comparison approach and decide to offshore the operations without analysing the wider impact on the organization and employees. For example, IT industry is not unionized preventing the IT employees from having a single approach to advance and champion their respective labour needs. Read More