New Technology and Innovation - Essay Example

Running head: SURVEY New Technology within the Land Surveying Profession ___________ ________________________ ________________ New Technology within the Land Surveying Profession Introduction Surveying trade has been defined by the International Federation of Surveyors in the following manner: "A surveyor is a professional person with the academic qualification and technical expertise to conduct one, or more, of the following activities- determine, measure and represent land, three-dimensional objects, point-fields and trajectories; assemble and interpret land and geographically related information; use that information for the planning and efficient administration of the land, the sea and any structure thereon; and, conduct research pursuant to the development of the above practices." Any professional training for this profession normally peruses various data collection techniques, including traditional surveying methods, aerial photography, remote sensing, and the global positioning system (GPS). These data collection techniques go on to support derivation of conclusions in the statistical analysis of measurements, data management techniques ,data quality, adjustment of survey networks, photogrammetry, boundary surveying, land development, and geographic information science (GIS).They also supplant various legal and professional issues involved in such land surveys. Collection of data and numerical crunching of data lies at the core of land surveying practices. While several technological innovations have been successfully adopted in this profession ;the most remarkable have been in the area of developing integrated software to address a host of issues involved in land surveying through development of integrated software packages built on multiple utilities. Some of these software packages are developed on an ongoing basis and as projects with additions occurring every now and then. Such software represents not only a time saving innovation which handles larger amount of relational data but also makes available refined and technical outputs. These packages necessitate a series of changes in the organization adopting them in form of reskilling, training and reorientation of existing practices. Unless these and other organizational changes occur alongside the new technology the practical and operational utility of such innovations cannot be harnessed to full. This paper looks at the various organizational changes that may be required to adopt new technology and innovation. Diffusion versus invention of New Technology Quite dissimilar to the event of invention of a new technology, which though may seem to emerge after a series of tests, trials and experimenting but often appears to occur as a single event or jump, the diffusion of that technology usually appears as a continuous and gradual process. Yet it is the diffusion of the technology that ultimately impacts productivity and operational efficiency. As Rosenberg(1972) stated" in the history of diffusion of many innovations, one cannot help being struck by two characteristics of the diffusion process: its apparent overall slowness on the one hand, and the wide variations in the rates of acceptance of different inventions, on the other." Diffusion of new technology is the process where a host of managerial decisions need to be taken in the backdrop of intricate calculations of economic cost and benefits analysis. Thus diffusion can be viewed as a cumulative or aggregate process involving a series of individual calculations that reckon the incremental benefits of adopting a new technology vis a vis the costs of change, and almost always in an environment featured by risk and uncertainty (as to the future maintainability and utility of the technology ).Once the new technology passes the cost-benefit hurdle decision then its diffusion and adoption process must begin. However prior to that any management must theoretically analyze the structure the structure of each available technology. Each new technology can be categorized into generic categories, on the one hand, and on the other each such technology category can be seen as being composed of a number of features. These features are, in fact, the building blocks or component parts of technology (Griffith, 1999). These features can again be broken down into concrete and abstract categories. While the concrete features can be directly and specifically described; the abstract features must be understood more indirectly or generally (Griffith, 1999).While technology adoption has to take place at all levels of organization it is concrete features which decide operational thrust and the abstract features which define the policy thrust. Thus a clear understanding of concrete and abstract features can help the management align its training and retraining programmes to appropriate audience within the organization. For instance, the concrete features of a communication networks would address the types of hubs, routers and cables used in its construction while the abstract features of it would digress to address the amount of bandwidth inherent in the design, the protocol scheme employed in the network and the selected topology of the infrastructure. Similarly while testing land survey software there may be software programmes which help collect resurvey data and other software programmes which check the accuracy of such data. The successful use of least squares analysis of dependent resurvey data has been discussed in Hintz et al (1988).On final emergence of this package the training in these two aspects may be addressed to differing audience within the organization. Thus all through the discussion human factor is primary target in the diffusion and adoption process of any new technology. For instance, Francesco Caselli and Wilbur Coleman II (2001) looked at computer adoption in a large number of OECD countries during the period 1970 to 1990.Their findings revealed that worker aptitude (measured as educational level), the openness to manufacturing trade, and the overall investment rate in the country were among the important determinants of the level of investment in computers. Similarly consumers when offered new technology adapt more readily to it when education level of consumers are high. This makes many corporations to take up concerted marketing campaigns to educate their consumers about the product and the new technology on offer. Kennickell and Kwast (1997) found evidence amongst US households that role of education, consumer skills and learning was critical in adoption of electronic banking. Almost 70% of all American households used some form of electronic banking in 1995, however only a small fraction of households used the more recent and advanced forms of electronic banking such as bill paying. Thus while adopting or diffusing a technology any commercial organization would have two interfaces to take care of.One, internal-primary comprising of its workers and executives and two, and external comprised of its consumers. For instance, land survey reports generated using new software would not only have additional data crunched into decision variables but the outputs would also tend to be more technical. Any organization successfully implementing the software would also have to educate users of its reports on the new value additions for it to derive any revenue advantage out of it. The adoption process Most organizations need and have a self set raison de etre' for adopting a new technology. More(1992) gives out two fundamental reasons for the adoption. First, the new technology must contribute to strong competitive market differentiation. Second, the new technology must increase or create long-term profit (More, 1992). Increased profits can be defined in a number of ways. Market share, unit sales, price, variable costs, unit margins and fixed costs are direct factors affecting profit margins (More, 1992). Any adoption process of a new technology must commence with an intra top management dialogue on the life of the technology. This has to be a Board level decision. The Board has to reckon holistically all aspects of the proven technology put on its agenda notes. This process of technology adoption can be very complicated. Due to the pace of technological change Board has to buffer for any chances of obsolescence and make ready plans to shift to better alternatives if competitors do so. Firms often adopt technologies that are not yet accepted in the market place in an attempt to outbid competition only to find later that the competition had something better as an offer. Depending upon the complexity and strategic nature of the technology, such firms may find that they face technology lockout. Technology lockout is a situation in which a firm finds itself unable to develop or competitively sell products to a particular market because of technology standards (Schilling, 1998).Once the top management is convinced of the life of the new technology and have vetted it for sot-benefit hurdle test the new technology can be implemented down the line in the entire organization. The actual adoption process is normally broken into three distinct phases. First phase can be called an experimental phase where in the technology is implemented in partial manner so as to ascertain its suitability for the organization. This is distinct from the stage of testing used in the development of the technology itself. This experimental stage checks for suitability of the new technology for the organization. In this stage essentially main executives and operational workers are given an opportunity to make sense out of the new technology. Griffin (1999) refers to this process as sense making. This stage also includes the conscious perception and categorization of the new stimuli and the linking of concrete and abstract features of the technology. After experimentation stage is successfully completed then next stage must be taken up which can be broadly called as a decision making stage. In this stage structured decision are taken to implement the new technology alongside exhibiting the organizational commitment to the new technology. While in most organizations decision phase is gradual and runs parallel to existing systems for long it is often seen that such decisions are not only critical but carry substantial responsibility and accountability alongside given the fact that new technologies are growing at such an explosive rate, out pacing the adoption rate. This results in an ever increasing and ongoing development / adoption gap (More, 1992). Often single chief executives, committees or even full organizations may take such decisions it is important that all such decisions are put down in written and elaborate mandate. As often, the actual sustained usage decisions, when non-mandated, are based solely on attitudinal considerations (Karahanna, Straub, & Chervany, 1999).the third phase comprises the actual implementation phase. It is this phase which is of primary importance. In this phase the organization must ingest the new technology entirely by coming to a thorough understanding of the involved products, processes and systems. More importantly the organization must draw from the experience of other organizations which are either using the same technology or intending to shift to the new technology. Lastly the organization must take up the process of internal transformation- which refers to the adaptation of adopted technologies, products, process and systems to meet the specific needs of the organization (More, 1992).New technology adoption can be risky proposition, as has been stated above. For instance in information systems the implemented projects had a success ratio of merely 40%. (Bikson & Gutek, 1984) In variably the successful internal transformation was jeopardized by internal opposition in the form of attitudinal stiffness in the critical workers or groups of workers to change. Several reasons underlay these attitudes. Major factors included that new technology would result in more automation and thus result in lay-offs, two-the new technology implied that a learning cycle would have to be commenced afresh and there was fear of being found unfit, three-there were expectations that new environment was intended to increase efficiency and productivity and therefore its implementation should commence only after wages have increased, and four -in some cases vested interests felt that new technologies will make for and identify new efficient and technology savvy workers and result in demotion from current positions. These fears and factors gelled together to form an internal attitude that essentially defined low motivation for change and maintenance of status quo.Any management targeting adoption at the workers level has to address this attitudinal and motivational issue. They have to package together the new technology in such a manner that all such fears and blocks to adoption of the new technology are allayed substantially if not entirely. Communication of such intent is critical to any new technology project. In fact, technology adoption fails most often because of incomplete communications (Dieckmann, 1996).Only after this corporate communication targeting attitude to change has been completely conveyed then the human resources function of the organization must induct appropriate audiences for its carefully designed training programmes in new technology. Concrete aspects of training for line and operational staff and abstract aspects for executive and policy contributing staff. This process must be gradual and hasty and mass exercise. Subsequent to training identification of well trained staff from those that either did not comprehend or did not evince keen interest should neither be hasty nor punitive. Instead a redefinition of job cards can be taken so as to assign the latter category functions that continue to be traditional. Similarly pay incetives, bonus and reward systems should be affected only after two or three rounds of training or retraining. Instead of laying off a better policy would be extract other productive work from those that are targets of lay off. Human resources function should also supervise the implementation of a general environment that rewards those that evince keen interest in knowledge and education gathering. The best way to do this is to involve those that have been trained in the training and retraining exercises of others. Some studies have found that large organizations are successful in new technology adoption (Damanpour, 1987) particularly if they also have an internal robust R& D function(Baldwin & Diverty, 1995). In fact the process of performing R&D is one component of the entire learning process. The more focused an organization is on the learning process, the stronger its relationship to new technology adoption becomes (Colombo & Mosconi, 1995).Thus a strong R&D function can help the cause of new technology adoption substantially. References Rosenberg, Nathan (1972). "Factors Affecting the Diffusion of Technology." Explorations in Economic History, Vol. 10(1), pp. 3-33. Reprinted in Rosenberg, N. (1976), Perspectives on Technology, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 189-212. Griffith, T. L. (1999). Technology features as triggers for sense making. Academy of Management Review, 24(3), 472-488. Hintz, R.J., Blackham, W.J., Dana, B.M., and J.M. Kang (1988), Least squares Analysis in Temporal Coordinate and Measurement Management, Surveying and Mapping, Vol. 48, No. 3, pp. 173-183. Caselli, Francesco, and Wilbur Coleman II (2001). "Cross-country Technology Diffusion: The Case of Computers." American Economic Review 91(2), pp. 328-335. Kennickell, Arthur, and Myron Kwast (1997). "Who Uses Electronic BankingResults from the 1995 Survey of Consumer Finances." Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, Finance and Economics Discussion Paper Series: 1997/35. More, R. A. (1992). Managing new technology adoption. Business Quarterly, 56(4), 69-75. Schilling, M. A. (1998). Technological lockout: An integrative model of the economic and strategic factors driving technology success and failure. Academy of Management Review, 23(2), 267-284. Karahanna, E., Straub, D. W., & Chervany, N. L. (1999). Information technology adoption across time: A cross-sectional comparison of pre-adoption and post-adoption beliefs. MIS Quarterly, 23(2), 183-185. Bikson, T. K., & Gutek, B. (1984). Implementation of office automation. . Santa Monica, CA: Rand Corporation. Dieckmann, M. (1996). Making new technology investments pay off. Managing Office Technology, 41(7), 14-16. Damanpour, F. (1987). The adoption of technological, administrative, and ancillary innovations: Impact of organizational factors. Journal of Management, 13(4), 675-688. Baldwin, J. R., & Diverty, B. (1995). Advanced technology use in Canadian manufacturing establishments. Paper presented at the Analytical Studies Branch Research Paper Series No. 85, Ottawa, Canada. Colombo, M. G., & Mosconi, R. (1995). Complementarity and cumulative learning effects in the early diffusion of multiple technologies. Journal of Industrial Economics, 43(1), 13-48. Read More