The New Digital Society's Impact on the Free Labor and Society Way of Doing Things - Literature review Example

UNIVERSITY NAME NEW DIGITAL SOCIETY ESSAY PAPER STUDENT NAME & REG. NO: COURSE NAME & CODE: SUPERVISOR SUBMISSION DATE ANALYSIS AND INFLUENCE OF NEW DIGITAL SOCIETY Introduction The issue on how labour is managed in the new digital society has changed tremendously, something that that greatly influence the society at large in way of doing things. The concept of free labour which was previously a key element of cultural economy is changing the pattern of world trade, thus need to be carried out in a context that is properly managed so as to generate wealth for nations to give their citizens a better quality life and also create the much needed opportunity for economic growth for developing nations. This essay will try to analyze the essay of Terranova about “Free Labor: Producing Culture for the Digital Economy’ in Social Text”, and look at how it has influenced on community readers and how people perceive it and way it change how a problem is conceived (Terranova , 2000, pp. 33-58). The dynamics of life nowadays has made work to become a basic to the human coexistence, though, labour these days is no more unorganized group that is ready to obey without detest or protest on terms of employment (Terranova, 2000). Management has to handle workers at present as individuals with conscious minds as well as members of organized social groupings, which are well-informed on their working rights and possess strong bargaining power. Work establishes what we ought to do in our daily life and preoccupies much of our thoughts. It enhances our interactions and aid in defining our sense of identity as it offers us with material necessities of life and attainment of civilization. Bray et al (2011) emphasizes that work allocation and remuneration, together with its organization and management are of significance importance, how these are carried out in any gainful employment explains much more about the perceptions and ideals we embrace as a society. For this reasons, the aim of changing and keeping sound industrial relations is not only to focus in resolving disputes but also to safeguard the cooperation among the workers in the ways of industry. In any industry, the issue of maintaining smooth industrial relation is not an easy task. Most industrialized nations and leading corporations around the world find themselves struggling to establish and maintain effective management of the workforce relations in their systems. Each country and industry has sought to find a working solution, based upon its economic, social and political environment. Several forces of change are reshaping operation of labour in firms and businesses, they include globalization, glamorization latest technology, techno cultural society, political arenas, and economic structures, and rising competition, each of which influences digital media industry either positively or negatively (Brenner, 2007). This has forced most organizations to focus on the significance of knowledge as the basis of competitive advantage. A number of firms are aware of existing technology based systems that support short-term competitive advantages and only benefits the workers and their knowledge. However, knowledge has always been a valuable asset to most people and organizations; few understand what knowledge management is, and what it entails. According to Brenner (2007), the level of development in the modern world has greatly improved especially with the increased rate of innovation and growing technology. Everyone in the modern world is impressed at how the level of technology is increasing so fast because they benefit from it in very many different ways. Owing to the fact that most people have the urge to make things easier in the modern world, everyone is turning towards the direction of Information technology because online seems to be the future of everyone and everything. The web is viewed as the future of most activities in the world today since currently it serves as a very useful tool even though it also has some intimidating proposition. Virtual innovation came to its peak in the late 1990’s since this is the time that most people in the world became more interested in computers and internet. The public is more optimistic towards venturing into the virtual world businesses because it seems to be more promising and that the public was interested in getting access to more information and more ideas. The rate of market growth in late 1990’s was quite slow and most people anticipated that the virtual world would be improved to bring about development through technology. For sometime this was not the case but later on it became evident that the technology would contribute a lot to development in the world. The virtual bubble has highly contributed a lot to increased levels of technology and thus development came about easily even though it had taken sometime. The world had been waiting for the level of technology to increase for a while and more virtual entrepreneurship was being waited upon (Brenner, 2007). The management has a vital role to play in ensuring sound industrial relationships, for positive development of their relations with workers. The management should maintain good personnel relations and handle employees with dignity and respect. Workers should be given a listening ear on matters affecting them at the workplace and where possible be accepted to participate in decision making. Management must create good working conditions, and make employees feel accepted at work. They must conceive a proper remuneration system, for a satisfactory wage and salary plan that fits into the efforts of employees. In general, new technology will pose different effects both to organization and workers. For example, introduction of tea harvesting machines by Tea Cup increased the efficiency in the harvesting process and saved time. The use of machines meant that workers who had been employed in harvesting division will be rendered jobless. The trade union came in for a collective bargaining. This forced the organization absorb energetic team to other divisions and retrench the old staffs. All this interventions by management was to enhance efficiency in its operation after acquiring new machines (Kaufman, 2005). Management of work performance is perceived by many as a best roll out an open forum to join the workers and management on one platform of sharing their views and opinions on the general operation of the company. This helps in pin pointing issues that could hinder effective progress of the organization. Such meetings could unite both parties as one team with a common goal, hence improving the overall performance of both the firm and the workers. At the present time, governments of respective countries and States have played a key role in controlling industrial relations. But the extent of their involvement has been based on the social and economic status of its people in conformity with the political system in place. For example in the case of Australia, The National Employment Standards (NES) as stipulated in Part 6 section 761 of Fair Work Act 2009, encloses some employment terms conditions that should be observed by the employers. This helps in defining expectations of different interest groups in a labour market. For example, the maximum working hours in every week is supposed to be 38 hours plus any realistic extra hours that attracts bonuses. Flexibility in working arrangements is also allowed to allow parents with school going children to fit into work schedule as they also meet their parental duties like child care. Parents are accorded up to 12 months unpaid parental leave by their employers in addition to maternal or paternal leave. There is also annual leave of four weeks that is paid for every employee and additional one week for some shift workers. Public holidays will earn employees paid leave unless agreed upon by the two, which is between employee and employer. The introduction of Web servers like cloud computing and Google has improved interaction of workers and community at large. Social networks have contributed a lot a lot to the culture which children are being raised in the modern world in both negative and positive ways. In previous years the society could easily monitor how their children and adolescents were handling themselves and through doing this they were able to bring up their children in a way that they wanted to (Kaufman, 2005). They were able to bring up children who were respectful, obedient and who listen to pieces of advice when given to them by elders. This is one of the approaches that parents took towards bring up their children and their children grew up to become responsible adults. In the modern society it has become very hard to monitor the behaviors of teenagers because they are able to talk about their private lives openly without fearing who is monitoring them. In Facebook or Google, teenagers share a lot about themselves and this is quite different as compared to the previous years where people used to fear discussing their private information to the public (Brenner, 2007). They update their status on an hourly basis talking about how they got drunk, how they want to have sex and these are things that people used to fear in the previous years. Facebook and other social networking sites that portray people’s personal information create a very big threat for the future society because teaching moral behaviors to children will be a very big challenge. The rapidly growing level of technology has made it very hard for parents and teachers to control the information that their children receive. One of the ways in which parents used to help their children to have moral behavior was through teaching them to live a private life where they were taught not to display their personal information to anybody that they did not know and this is contrary to what is happening in the modern world because children and adolescents do not fear disclosing their personal information to strangers. Conclusion In conclusion, the new digital society has greatly influenced the free labor and society way of doing things. The organizational change in terms of culture has not been seized, which results from the norms and values practiced within a group or organization as well as from informal activities. If such is the case, the manager who implements the change must anticipate the resulting resistance. Bray asserts that behavior change entails understanding and willingness to implement the new ideas. This type of change is an effort to redirect and improve employees’ attitudes and image, or paradigm, skills and knowledge bases. For example, the organization may, through manpower or human resource development and training, be able to change performance behavior ultimately determines success or failure of organizational change. References Bray, M., Waring, P. and Cooper, R. (2011), Employment Relations: Theory and Practice, McGraw-Hill, Sydney. Brenner, S., 2007, Law in an Era of Smart Technology, Oxford: Oxford University Press Kaufman, B.E. (2005). The Social Welfare Objectives and Ethical Principles of Industrial Relations. Champaign, IL: Labour and Employment Relations Association, pp. 23-59. Perlman, R., & Hughes, J. J. (2008). The economics of unemployment: a comparative analysis of Britain and the United States. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sloane, P. (2012). A Lesson in Innovation: Why did the Segway Fail? Retrieved from http://www.innovationmanagement.se/2012/05/02/a-lesson-in-innovation-why-did-the-segway Terranova, T. (2000) ‘Free Labor: Producing Culture for the Digital Economy’ in Social Text, 63, Vol. 18, No. 2, summer 2000, pp. 33-58. Waring, P. (2000). The Future of Bargaining Structures in Australian Employment Relations Work Futures Conference, Cardiff Business School 15th Annual Employment Research Conference Cardiff, Wales September 6-7th. Read More