The Influence of Technological Change on Employee Performance - Essay Example

?Running Head: Sociology of Work The Influence of Technological Change on Organizational Context and Employee Performance and Satisfaction Title Name of Professor Date of Submission Table of Contents Section Title Page Number I. Statement of Intent and Introduction 3 II. Changing Technology and its Influence on Organizational Context and Employee Work Orientation 5 A. Technology, Social Relationships, and Quality of Work Experience 5 B. Technology, Power Relationships, and Conflict Management 6 III. Conclusions and Recommendations 9 IV. Corporate Action Plan 11 References 13 I. Statement of Intent and Introduction Changing technology, in the perspective of social organization of work, is essential to employees’ work experience and to the organization as a whole. Due to the cultural standards which promote the valuing of self-expression, individuality, and independence, it becomes clear why technology can be a root of possible conflict, resistance, and antipathy in workplaces. In the 1960s, the field of industrial sociology showed substantial interest in the ways wherein employees using different forms of technology were expected to behave and think in a different way (Watson, 2003). Therefore, the objective of this paper is to argue and prove that the social relationships of employees with each other, their tendency to get involved in conflict with management, and the quality and value of their work experience would be greatly reliant on changing technology. Technology can be defined in several distinct ways, from limited concepts of hardware to wide-ranging notions that comprise practically anything (Liker, Haddad & Karlin, 1999). However, this paper will adhere to the Tornatzky’s and Fleischer’s (1990 as cited in Liker et al., 1999) definition of technology: “knowledge-derived tools, artifacts, and devices by which people extend and interact with their environment” (p. 575). Although this definition is fairly extensive and comprises ‘social technologies’ (Like et al., 1999) such as independent quality teams and work groups, for the purposes of discussion this paper will focus more closely on process technologies. The nature of a certain technology applied clearly has relevance on its effects. Nevertheless, a group of organizational factors also contribute greatly in forming the effect, even of similar technologies. These organizational factors can be distinguished in several ways. This paper differentiates the organizational perspective, an immobile notion, from employee-directed processes of choosing the technology and the process of implementation. By involving the process of technology selection, this paper will argue that the incentives to implement technology, and the mechanism by which major choices are made, influence how the technology is used and the effect of adopting the technology. Basically, to sum it up, impacts of technology rely on features of the technology itself that intermingle with the organizational context and employees’ process of technology selection and implementation. II. Changing Technology and its Influence on Organizational Context and Employee Work Orientation A. Technology, Social Relationships, and Quality of Work Experience To make the argument of this paper more understandable, let us put side by side two scenarios. This example is adapted from the work of Tony Watson (2003): a car assembly line technology on the one hand, and a skills-oriented technology, such as digital tools, on the other. Digital artists would directly interact with their teammates because of the nature of the job they perform; hence, they will be quite free to interrelate with their coworkers. The social experiences of employees of a car assembly line would be somewhat different. The absence of required skill by the job will imply that there is no skill tradition and consequent interrelationship and the fact that employees are directed by the technology, instead of the other way round, will imply that they do not have that much freedom to interrelate with others although they wanted to. These dissimilarities influence the social gratifications which can emanate from the two kinds of work organization and also have repercussions for the level and kind of industrial conflict participated in. The nature of the jobs, possibly satisfying and exciting in the skills-based case and normally disappointing and dull in the case of the car assembly line, will greatly affect the thoughts, sentiments, and hence ability to perform in specific ways on the side of both groups (Watson, 2003). More sophisticated technologies, such as mechanized production process, are likely to motivate performance and attitudes more in harmony with those of the conventional skilled employee and ahead of those of the estranged and disgruntled factory worker (Preece, 1995). The individual will have a tendency to be conscious of, and consider, the broad nature of the technology they are expected to apply when they form their earlier work orientation. Their later performance, behavior, and attitudes, once in work, may be influenced by more definite variables like the level to which the technology allows them to interact with others, the autonomy it gives them to exercise good judgment, etc (Hodson & Sullivan, 2007). Wedderburn and Crompton (1972 as cited in Watson, 2003, 180) discovered that, even though they were investigating ‘a group of workers with primarily instrumental attitudes to work (Watson, 2003, 180)’, there were however clear dissimilarities of performance, thoughts, and feelings between various units of the organizations studied, and technology was assumed to be the major factor in this. The level of attention displayed in the job, the approach toward management and the extent of grievance incidences were all discovered by Wedderburn and Crompton (1972 as cited in Watson, 2003) to be more discouraging, for example, in the batch production organization than in the continuous flow organization. B. Technology, Power Relationships, and Conflict Management These researchers highlight the relevance of two variables which concern technology: (1) job structuring; and (2) the manner in which the connection between the workers and the managers was formed (Watson, 2003). It is hence not the technology which works on the person. It is the prospect which the technology enables for individual judgment and the function it fulfils in the power relationships between the workers and the managers. The prominent classic study of Blauner (1964, as cited in Watson, 2003, 181) entitled Alienation and Freedom, tried to synthesize a number of the primary variables believed to affect work satisfactions and to connect those to experiences in the workplace in various technological contexts. Blauner (1964 as cited in Watson, 2003, 181) made use of the general notion of alienation to synthesize those variables affecting satisfaction. As he referred to them, the ‘four dimensions of alienation’ were (Watson, 2003, 181): (1) powerlessness, or lack of opportunity for control; (2) meaninglessness, or lack of opportunity to feel a sense of purpose by linking one’s job with the overall production process; (3) isolation or an inability to relate closely to others at work; and (4) self-estrangement or a lack of opportunity to achieve self-involvement or personal fulfillment at work. Blauner employed various research instruments to evaluate alienation described in this manner in four kinds of trade: chemicals, car assembly, textiles, and printing (Preece, 1995). There were four different kinds of technology as well: process technology, assembly line, machine-tending, and craft and Blauner found out that estrangement was quite insignificant in the industries of process chemical and craft printing, significant in the context of machine-tending textile and greatest on the setting of car assembly line (Preece, 1995). Good judgment has to be exercised in order not to make generalizations about the impact of changing technology on organizational context and employees’ work experience based on somewhat actual dissimilarities of experience within confined and precise work contexts and without acknowledging that any specific technology is normally a reconciling force between those who manage tasks and those whose labors are managed (Hodson & Sullivan, 2007). Because the management is usually under persistent pressure to sustain and enhance this control it is can be expected that they will exert efforts to launch technological change as a continuous influence on the evolving organizational context and employees’ work orientations (Liker et al., 1999), specifically, on their current description of their condition and their ability to behave and respond in certain ways. As shown in the discussion above, technology is a key force for the organizational context and employees’ work orientation and work experience. Technology concerns much more than merely the machines and instruments which individuals employ in the workplace. What is referred to as ‘technology text’ by Hill (1988 as cited in Watson, 2003, 183) dominates every facet and organization of work. It is usually difficult to differentiate the organizational from the technological. As argued by Scarborough and Corbett (1992 as cited in Watson, 2003), it is more and more complicated due to ‘the fluidity and interpenetration of technological and organizational forms to know the dancer from the dance’ (Watson, 2003, 183). Hence, we are left with several varying, conflicting points of view shaping different descriptions of the effects of changing technology on work organization. III. Conclusions and Recommendations Perhaps multiplicity is favorable. The rapid pace of technological change is further speeding up and its difficulty intensifies. It is seldom that technological change is ‘independent’ with concentrated influences; more probably, technology affects intricate social networks and functions at times as a reinforcing factor and sometimes as a destabilizing factor that alienates people. As stated by Liker and colleagues (1999), if complicated facts demand complicated theories, even more complicated theories are needed to explain the influence of changing technology. Having built a conducive organizational context, technological instruments and mechanisms should be selected and method and structure should be developed to enable the communication of task-related information, the use of craft and skilled procedures, the support for knowledge diversity, and the motivation for experimentation and risk taking. These features of technological changes in the workplace generate the following recommendations for successful employee-oriented selection and implementation of technology of organizations: (1) Because task related information is crucial to attaining productive results, management should find a means for employees who are assigned to related or identical tasks to communicate important implicit and explicit information. To change the organizational context so that technological use produces new knowledge or ideas, they should allow employees to connect, develop, and articulate ambiguous and conflicting ideas; remove any conflicts in the data; shape up the produced ideas and represent them in a form that opens up the information or knowledge to others; and (2) The use of creativity methods in an organization builds up the creative capabilities and outcomes of employees. Such methods lay bare creativity and reinforce the encouragement of people to innovate. The methods help them to transfer from usual problem-solving approach and allow them to synthesize, adjust, and apply current knowledge to generate innovative outcomes. Hence, management should capitalize on the abilities of the IT instruments to develop the needed creativity processes and educate employees in their application. In summary, this paper finds out significant correlations between technological change and organizational and employee outcomes. Primarily, the studies reviewed show that importance of permitting people in an organization to take part in selecting, planning, and implementing technology. Moreover, the findings of these studies validate the essence of engaging employee attitudes and patterns in the technological change context. It is already recognized that organizational change influences workers in different ways. As a result, the effect of organizational change on the behavior and attitudes of employees has gained significant scholarly attention. Studies show that employee outcomes are linked to how individuals respond or view change. This is relevant because encouraging views of change can improve the realization of these organizational programs. In this paper, employee performance and satisfaction are reviewed when change in the organizational context is brought about by the implementation of new technology. IV. Corporate Action Plan Priority Addressed: Technological Change, Organizational Change, Employees’ Work Satisfaction and Work Performance Goal: To develop an organizational environment that fosters productive interaction between technological change, organizational context, and employees’ performance and satisfaction. Action Steps Persons Responsible Required Resources Promote Experimentation and Risk Taking. The management will encourage employees to experiment with new technologies and be inquisitive. This experimentation allows completely new alternative methods and behaviors to surface, but it obliges as well the management to promote experimentation and engage in risk taking in the intended domains of innovation. Managers, employees, IT specialists, artists, engineers, etc. Computing resources, Internet, decision support system (DSS), computer-aided design (CAD), etc. Develop competences that prevail over technological developments; create stable distribution channels and adaptable production capacity. Managers, HR personnel, production staff, R& D personnel Employees from various departments will be assigned to technological planning and implementation. Managers, personnel from various departments, computer- and IT- specialists Equipment for teleconferences and discussion boards or electronic forums Sustain a learning environment by proactively training with and involving employees in technological selection and implementation. Explain thoroughly the reason for adopting technological change. Managers; basically the entire organization, from the rank-and-file to the high-ranking employees NA Establish a consultation committee that will handle employee complaints concerning difficulties in adjusting to new technologies, and investigate or evaluate the potential strengths and weaknesses of the management in promoting technological change in the workplace. HR personnel NA References Hodson, R. & Sullivan, T. (2007). The Social Organization of Work. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing. Liker, J., Haddad, C. & Karlin, J. (1999). “Perspectives on Technology and Work Organization,” Annual Review of Sociology, 575. Preece, D. (1995). Organizations and Technical Change: Strategy, Objectives, and Involvement. London: Cengage Learning Business Press. Watson, T. (2003). Sociology, Work and Industry. London: Routledge. Read More