Information and communication technologies

INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES

In this era of modernisation, Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) play a vital role in businesses and firms of all sizes. The term ICT has progressed and evolved to include many aspects of computing and technology, and has indeed become very distinguishable. In this essay, the ways in which the introduction of ICT affects power relations in the workplace will be discussed. First, a definition of the phrases ‘ICT’ and ‘power relations in the workplace’ will be provided. In what follows, I will establish the particular effects that ICT directly brings to the workplace – namely surveillance, a change to organization structure, increased communication as well as how it skills and deskills workers. Explanation on how these effects subsequently affect power relations in the workplace will then be provided.

The Information Technology Association of America defines ‘ICT’ as “the study, design, development, implementation, support or management of computer-based information systems, particularly software applications and computer hardware”. ICT involves converting, protecting, transferring, keeping and receiving information. This is all done with the aid of computers and software.

On the other hand, ‘power’ refers to the ability to translate influence or make a difference. The actions of one person affect that of another. According to Foucault (1988), within the field of power relations, what one person does affects a second, which affects a third, and so on. The characteristic of power relations is that, as agents in the structure, some men can more or less determine other men’s conduct, but never exhaustively (David Owen, 1994). Power relations precipitate all “the strategies, the networks, the mechanisms, all those techniques by which a decision is accepted and by which that decision could not but be taken in the way it was”. Foucault goes on to say that “Power relations are multiple; they have different forms, they can be in play in family relations, or within an institution, or an administration – or between a dominating and a dominated class”. In this essay, it can be summarized that power relations in the workplace means the ability to affect how other people within the workplace do work.

Communication and Organization Structure

The introduction of ICT has allowed us to interact at almost same speeds – a matter of seconds – regardless of whether we are a few meters or a few miles away from one another. In the past two decades following the birth of utilities like e-mail and ultra fast internet connections, the workplace has experienced a significant change in operating procedures and structure due to this advancement in communication capabilities.

Firms are now able to function on a transnational basis. Managers from firms are able to operate from their home countries without having to incur the financial, physical and opportunity cost of leaving their home country (or at least less often). The ability to communicate over distances and at such great speed has allowed managers to run things thousands of miles away on a real time basis. The complexity of a firm may change from that of vertically complex to horizontally complex due to the ability of managers on top of the hierarchy to communicate with more people at a greater ease. The need for extra layers of hierarchy to delegate tasks becomes unnecessary because of better communication technology.

Workers at the lower end/bottom of hierarchy may find it easier to pitch ideas because there may be less ‘red tape’ to go through before their idea can be proposed. On the other hand, CEOs may find that instructions are conveyed to their subordinates more clearly and effectively because these instructions need not be passed on to too many levels of management before it reaches everyone.

The ability to communicate with ICT may also affect the ‘centralization’ of a firm. A centralized firm is one where decisions in the organization are concentrated at one point. The introduction of ICT will become a catalyst to the decentralization of a firm (John Bratton, 2007). With ICT, it is much easier for senior management to solicit information and ideas from workers down the hierarchy. This is because, as mentioned, the means of communication make conveying and soliciting an idea much simpler than before. Prior to this, a physical meeting with high level management would be needed to pitch an idea; which means that it would virtually be impossible for a low rank worker to contribute any ideas to the firm. With the improved ability to communicate amongst workers and management, senior management might be willing to give more decision making autonomy to workers since their input would be more accessible. This has a major impact on power relations in a firm because communication may allow for control to be relaxed as decision making input may come from both sides of the hierarchy.

Having said that, the extensive use of e-mail and electronic communication in the workplace means people seldom ever have to meet (Argyll and Cook, 1976). Not physically meeting takes away the ability to analyze the personal construct of others (Adam – Webber, 1981). Personal construct theory deals with a range of professional social skills that enable people to analyze interactions from different perspectives and make judgements about people’s personalities and meanings. These skills are drawn from physical interaction with individuals. The effects of this are adverse because little or no consideration will be taken about workers’ feelings and personality.

Deskilling and ‘Enskilling’ Argument

Deskilling is defined as a reduction in the proficiency needed to perform a specific job, which leads to a corresponding reduction in the wages paid for that job (Bratton, 2007). In the Taylorist context, the deskilling argument focuses on the division of mental and physical labour and the breaking up of complex tasks into smaller, more discrete ones. The ‘logic’ of capitalist production requires the constant transformation of techniques of production. This involves an increase in mechanization, automation which results in the displacement of skills (Penn & Scattergood, 1985). The workforce becomes even more degraded and deskilled.

For instance, fast food or retail outlets have electronic tills that scan, calculate and tell the cashier how much money to return to the customer as change. The cashier’s job is repetitive, relatively simple and easy to keep an eye on because everything is electronic. The main goal of this is to not only ensure worker efficiency but to increase the degree of control the management has over workers. Very little is taken into consideration about worker satisfaction or fulfilment. Harry Braverman notes that the goal of the labour process under capitalism is to generate managerial control for maximization of efficiency and profitability (Glenn and Feldberg, 1979). Due to the fact that workers under this condition only concentrate on specific tasks, they lack the skills to do things out of their job requirement, perhaps because they have neglected and hence have forgotten about those skills.

On the other hand, let us consider the ‘enskilling’ argument. Enskilling is described as changes in work often involving technology that result in an increase in the skill level of workers (Bratton, 2007). Many individuals would have been retrenched due to technology making certain manual jobs automated. However, for those who still have their jobs, their job scope would have increased. ICT enables more people do more things. For instance, an editor in a publishing house in the 1970s would only have enough expertise and minutes in a day to be in charge of reading and editing hand written manuscripts whilst having to send them back and forth to the author through traditional postal mail.

With ICT, manuscripts may be written, edited, and transmitted digitally; which saves time. ICT also makes it easy enough for the 21st century editor to acquire other hands on skills such as video editing and graphic design; tasks that would have formerly been left to specialist in those fields. In addition, one would be would be required to exercise many other discrete competencies such as copy editing, marketing skills and negotiating ability (Barry, Chandler, Clark, Johnston, Needle, 2000).

Here, it is possible to notice an increase in skill variety, task identity and task feedback. The increased skill of the worker allows managers to give more autonomy to them. This effectively means that management may loosen its control over workers relaxing power relations between management and workers. However, some have argued that this ‘enskilling’ of workers allow managers to control workers to a higher extent because tasks are now centralized on less individuals compared to when they were spread out over large amounts of people in scientific management.

Conclusion

I have displayed how the introduction of ICT to the workplace has caused an increase in worker surveillance, a greater capability to communicate and the ‘enskilling’/deskilling phenomena. I have then shown how the mentioned effects of ICT have affected power relations within the workplace by altering the magnitude (increase and decrease) of control, authority and influence management has over workers.

Адрес публикации: https://www.prodlenka.org/metodicheskie-razrabotki/324565-information-and-communication-technologies