Essay on Information Technology
&
Organizational Efficiency
Excerpt from upcoming book
Legal Note & Copy Rights: Copyright © 2020 Firend Alan Rasch
All rights reserved.
Reflections of a practitioner
Technology always played a role in tipping the balance for human existence. Modern technology as we know it today, most defiantly has changed the nature of human interaction, from the way we live to the way we work. Throughout history, the story of human existence has been one of adaptation to the environment and innovation of tools and techniques.
Technological innovation is defined in this book as the creation and development of processes, procedures, techniques, products, services or a new methodology. Technology and innovation has created a brand new paradigm and social order. We are only beginning to experience this social order with all its intrinsic worth and disruption to natural human order. Innovation is an essential element of human nature. That is, the quest to make things better, more convenient, easier, faster or cheaper. The learning curve tends to cause human kind to improve the “way” of doing things as they start doing it, which is a key driver for innovation. The inseparable interaction between society and technology has shaped people’s destiny throughout the ages and has always defined social order. This is no more evident than the invention of the machine, and the start of the first industrial revolution. Innovation of the machine has taken over through the development of modern technology, and the invention of systematic social order has disrupted simple coexistence forever.
Although technological innovation brings convenience to life, yet at the same time, it greatly complicates and disrupts human life. This desire to innovate however has not always been driven by the desire to improve the ways and conditions of human conditions. Throughout history, greed and the desire to dominate others has always been a key force behind innovation. Such motives have inflicted a tremendous amount of anguish on fellow human beings, and since the start of the first industrial revolution, the systematic destruction of nature, and now the natural order of things. Wealth and power tend to be primary motivators, throughout the ages in the development of innovation. This was evident in the Mongols’ utilization of silk, better bow-making and horsemanship skills, in the domination of what was known then as the civilized world.
The twenty and twenty first centuries are no different. Modern human achievement is a story of evolutionary large-scale destruction that history has ever known. Our quest for improving productivity, reducing cost and increasing wealth continues to contribute directly and indirectly to the creation of new technological social order. It is an inherent attribute of the evolution of humankind.
Wealth creation is, however, the dominant motive and ample feature of modern industrialized society. Mass production, mass consumption, mass transportations, mass communication, mass media and education are the direct causes of the innovation of machine and the industrialization. Today, and since the start of the third industrial revolution of information technology, we are entering an era of mass innovation that is giving birth to the fourth-industrial revolution. This is an era characterized by a rapid acceleration in technology-based innovation and rapid destruction of long established business models. Existing norms, businesses processes and long-established norms of interaction will no longer exist, in the face of this rapid interruption. The human and collective social cost is still unmeasurable, and in many ways unpredictable. Where will such rapid acceleration of ideas, disruption and change take us? no one seems to have a full and comprehensive answer.
Throughout history, cost has always been a fundamental concern for organizations. While product innovation provides firms with better margins, process innovation helps firms reduce the costs of production (Schilling, 2013). Technology then significantly contributes to cost structure and helps overall return on investment. Nevertheless, technology is still judged on the bases of its efficiency and effectiveness. This book present to the reader and students of technology a collection of cases, particularly of organizational concern with improving efficiency and behavioral work processes. This is probably gave birth to project management as we know today. As project management gain momentum in modern organizations, and work becomes project-based in the post-COVID 19 work environment, it is essential to understand not only the root causes of project management, but the nature of technology, innovation and process management. These forces will continue to shape our lives in this century as far as the management discipline is concerned. I attempted to start this book by laying out a brief foundation of technological innovation and efficiency as the driving force behind project management. The short cases presented herewith are an example of that quest for efficiency through application of different or better technology. For my M.B.A. students, I attempted to develop the understanding of certain fundamental principles of the philosophy of technology, innovation, and process management, prior to handing-out the lessons gained from each case study. While noticing that most students of project management enjoy learning from successes and failures of other projects, this is something entirely dependent on the experience of the learning environment and the limitations of peers and instructor’s experience. As such, an attempt was made to provide as many diverse cases as possible to make the point that organizations everywhere around the world are in a similar position. That is they attempt to use technology to improve organizational efficiency, effectiveness and competitive standings.
Technology and Innovation
Technological innovation will continue to be the primary source of creation of wealth for the modern firm. The volume of commercial exchange will continue to double on annual bases as more and more individuals and businesses get connected. With mobile and Internet of Things (IOT) devices becomes more socially acceptable and adaptable, it creates in return a new platform for transactions, connectivity and communication. Such platforms will be heavily utilized and exploited by both modern organizations, and the neo-entrepreneur. This paradigm shift in exploitation of new technological applications will significantly advance and multiply the effect of wealth creation in the new economy.
The neo-entrepreneur is a characteristic of an increasing segment of the global population. This new segment is very technologically savvy, adaptable, creative, innovative, disruptive, and wealth creating. No longer a business needs to carry inventory, nor it needs to have physical presence. An entire economy is being created online and growing rapidly ranging from online banks to online vendors and everything in between. This is only a modest glimpse into the future. No one is certain as to which technology will dominate our daily interactions in the fourth industrial revolution.
Either way, rapid changes in processes and technological innovation will continue to shape and dominate the 21st century, and redefines all aspects of our daily lives. Such new paradigm-shift will happen regardless of our capacity to adapt to change, intelligent machines, intelligent systems and robotics, that will inevitably dominate our existence in the coming decades.
Why are we attracted to modern technology?
At this stage of human existence, we are experiencing a phenomenon of “human submission to technical imperialism”; an unprecedented occurrence in the level of technological control of our lives. This phenomenon will continue to evolve as technical devices succeeded in miniaturization and lowering cost. This means that we need to find new models (or understandings) to explain the phenomenon of technical domination of our lives, to enable us to predict future impact of this phenomenon on the existence of not only modern organization, but impact on human life. It might be useful to ask ourselves such questions as: why modern man is attracted to this growing technological development? There are number of potential explanations for the attraction of modern man to technology. One answer might be human quest to escape to a simplified mini space. The reductionist nature of human mind produces predisposed notion that gives us a world in miniature form. Modern technology tends to combine the world of communication, news, business, politics, culture, art, and sports and reduce it to a miniature size and present it in a convenient form. The pace and speed of technology is impressive to the human mind.
Technology gathers and presents the past, the present and the future, brings together individual and groups, communities and nations, institutions and industries, inventions and entertainment, it gathers problems and solutions, combines reality and fantasy in all languages known to people. Technology provides an opportunity to escape from the real world at any given time, and an opportunity access any aspect of the world at any time.
This is still mind boggling to most of us. A new startling experience that we are still trying to fully come to terms with. Technology gives us a sense of control over ourselves, our time and over others. It provides us with a sense of empowerment. While some view this as scientific progress, others are calling it the end of humanity as we know it. Technological crusaders attempt to push the idea that technology increases the ability to solve problems through the application of scientific methods. The primary objective of all scientific progress is to overcome the difficulties faced by people, and to secure a prosperous happy life through technological advance.
While the counter argument is that the cost of such technical advancements, obliterating life as we know it (people and the environment). Others argue that such advancements will lead us to unpredictable future, whereby the human race will be the net loser. Martin Heidegger (1954) criticized the prevailing definition of technology as a tool and means to achieve our objectives, as per the anthropological definition.
Anthropological technology thinkers provides number of arguments; one of which avers that modern natural science was born and is one of the concrete applications, thanks to inventions of the leading humanitarian conquests that made technology associated to civilization and can-not be assessed only by linking its contribution in the evolution of human culture.
It is precisely this anthropological technological descended character that “human achieve utmost benefit” (Heidegger, 1954). The aim is to give the unifying principle of the history of technology, which includes all stages since the first man-made primitive ax to the modern time, that they are all tools and means of production. German sociologist Karl Max Weber (1920-1864) described the technical and bureaucratic era of modern technology in light of the spirit of capitalism as an "iron cage”.
General Theories of Innovation
There are several theories have been developed on how technological innovation takes place. Among the most accepted theories is “Innovation Diffusion” theory and “Innovation Translation”, which draws on the sociology of translations.
Diffusion theory explains that a technological innovation contains information where its adoption will reduce the uncertainty of the potential adopters. There are four main elements of any theory of innovation diffusion: characteristic of the innovation itself, the nature of the communication channels, the passage of time, and the social system through which the innovation diffuses (Rogers, 1995). On the other hand, innovation translation views innovation through proposed Actor Network Theory (ANT). This theory describes that focus on the technical aspects of an innovation and to treat ‘the social’ as the context in which its development and adoption take place is a common approach to researching innovation in Information Systems. Hence, this approach will have only the ‘most appropriate’ innovations adopted, and that only those ‘sensible people’ who make these adoptions go on to prosper, assume that all outcomes of technological change are attributable to the ‘technological’ rather than the ‘social’ (Grint & Woolgar, 1997).
There are several places where technological innovation could take place. It could be either be products innovation or process innovation. Schilling (2013) argues that while product innovation gives firms margins, process innovation will help firms to reduce costs production. Schilling further proposes that there are numbers of benefits gained from technological innovations. These include increasing GDP, enhancing communication and mobility as well as improving medical treatments. Well-crafted strategy is required to improve a firm’s innovation success rate. An innovation project from a firm required to have its own objectives and resources. The modern firm then, should also leverage its core competencies to achieve its innovation targets.
The advancement of Internet has made it the major tool for communication by people today. The creation of several social media platform such as Facebook, Instagram and google has created a network society that increased sociability and civic engagement in all cultures.
Apart from that, it has been utilized by micro and small business as a low-cost marketing tool. People spent time on social networking sites more than time spent in other digital tool, and the number of social networking users is higher than users of other digital tools (Castells & Annenberg, 2014). Google for instance, amongst others, has been testing their self-driving cars that are meant to be fully autonomous, which do not require human intervention other than initial instruction to the car (O'Brien, 2015).
Uber on the other hand started out with limousine service and recently been moving in different directions, attempting to redefine transportation and human existence. New technological services are able to transform urban transportation forever.
Not all innovative ideas will become successful new products. The development process starts with a broad range of inputs and it is gradually selected and refined to create one project that can be pushed to rapid completion and introduction. An organization need to examine wide range of ideas by expanding its knowledge-base and access to information, so that there will be an increment in new ideas and products numbers.
Moreover, given the fact that resources are scares, once an organization decides on an idea and starts to invest its valuable resources, there are no assurances that new investments will yield success in the marketplace. Thus, an organization can be eliminated from the marketplace as a leader, if two-year’s worth on investment in a given idea fails to takeoff, or to be accepted by consumers. A study conducted by the Royal Dutch Shell showed that the average lifespan of a Fortune 500 company is 40 to 50 years. The lifespan of being a leader in the market is even shorter than that.(1) The Blackberry case below, is a classic example of how one company being a leader in the phone and gadget business is taken over almost overnight by rivals. Nokia is an ample example of a leader in the cellular phones and gadget business being wiped out by rivals. It is a myth in business to be a dominant player in the marketplace for a long time, unless one enjoys the advantage of monopoly, regulatory protection and infinite access to resources (funding). This is especially true today in an era of fast changing disrupting technological innovation, and companies being bailed out by the government, given financial support to maintain their market position.
Innovation and Creativity
Innovation may be understood in different ways to different people. Innovation could mean the new bond of things, which also means innovation, new perceptions, new utilization of method that the (act of creating). In general, invention created by new technology has been misunderstood to refer to only ideas from society with new significant value and result in large changes or transformation. In other words, it refers to causing social significant changes, whereby creating new value by incorporating a completely new technology and approaches unknown before.
To modern organization however, innovation is understood as the prompt response to fierce market trends and changes, to continue to maintain a competitive advantage, by way of constantly revamping, redefining and discovering new processes and activities. Innovation to the ‘intellectual’ mind could mean multilateral review to achieve new reality, creative problem solving or division of creating high-quality ideas. Innovation as a by-product of creativity is also a mixture of imagination and reality to find a new idea new way or new thing that can be applied and used (Ivancevich et.al, 1997).
Ivancevich, et.al, (1997: 548) asserts that creativity stems from internal and external sources. While Kotler (2000: 511) distinguished between the internal sources of creativity and internal capabilities of self-owned patented R&D and between innovation acquired or licensed through the purchasing of business units or an entire organization. Drucker, (1998) viewed innovation as accidents, failures, inconsistencies, process needs, changes in the industry or the market. External sources are demographic changes, changes in cognition and new knowledge.
Amatil (1998) contends that creativity comes from three elements: experiences, intellectual knowledge, and artistic inner motives, and thinking skills and ethical interactions. While Hunger & Wheelem (1998) outlined seven distinguished sources for innovation: unpredictable events, repulsion, the requirements of production processes, changes in industry or the marketplace, demographical changes, cognitive and mood changes, and new knowledge.
Innovation originates from different sources such as individual creative people with ideas they want to bring it alive, research efforts of educational institutions such as universities, governmental laboratories and incubators, private non-for-profit institutions and organization, and most importantly, private industries with firms working on research and development and new start-ups. Traditionally, industries and firms have sufficient resources such as funds talent, facility, manpower, well established management system, and market share to drive innovation activities and create new product and services. However, it is important to keep in mind that innovation stems from the contribution of varying faculties. The ability to harness the intellectual contribution of different sources of knowledge and innovation usually lead to the development of innovation.
Creativity
Creativity is the human ability to generate new and useful concepts, theories and ideas, as the basis for creating new reality, ways, methods, products or services. Creativity in essence is not accepting status quo. Creativity as basis for innovation to assists individuals, organisations, and communities to generate new ideas and to produce new work. New means in different form, methods and ways from the existing methods, processes and ways that are not known before. A reinvention however, is a process of reinventing, born again by a founder attempting to improve, redesign, or redefine the existence of invention already exists.
Individual creativity includes the ability to solve a given problem in non-traditional ways, by way of analyze and new findings to an existing or anticipated existence of problems. It is a way of thinking differently in novel ways. Personal traits such as self-efficacy, willingness to innovate or resolve problems are important to any creativity process. Levels of knowledge can prevent a person from coming up with creative solutions. Intrinsic motivations mean that individuals are to be more creative if they feel passionately about a given task.
If creativity then, the invention of new ideas beyond the ordinary, with the condition of it to be useful ideas, creativity then may also bring destruction and damage. Such creativity is viewed as a form of sabotage and destructive. Hence, generally we refer to the innovation of new and better ways to reduce costs or to enhance life as good ideas or loosely as being creative. Organizational creativity is important to fully unleash employee’s creative potentials, by creating the necessary environment as well as the needed platforms to harness their creative ideas, while supporting and rewarding such creative initiatives and the creation of ideas. This process starts with a review of organization’s structure, routines and incentives that drive individual’s creativity.
Industrial innovation can also be viewed as the implementation of creative ideas and translating them into devices or process with. Innovation could originate from a specialized individual with the ability to generate new products and processes (this will be driven and solely the task of Artificial Intelligence “AI” and machine in this century). An inventor has an unusual enthusiasm in theoretical and abstract thinking for problem solving. Certain personal traits of inventors are reflected in mastered multiple disciplines, curiosity in tackling problems, questioning the previous assumptions and constantly seeking new solutions and knowledge. Inventors do not actively attempt commercialize their work. Many novice and innovative work are intended for serving humankind. Thus, people with entrepreneurial skill attempts to profit from their innovation, or they innovate for the sake of profit making.
R&D
One of the main drivers and sources of innovations stems from research and development (R&D). Research covers both basic research and applied research. Basic research is solely a study for deep understanding of a topic or field without any commercial application while applied research is directed towards a specific need with increasing understanding of the research subject. University research is traditionally emphasizing conceptual research with the purpose of creating theoretical work. However, leading universities and educational institutions started adopted applied research and collaboration with firms and industry for commercialization of products and services (Walden University is a prime example of a pioneer in their PhD program). Development activities cover the applications of knowledge to production of devices, materials or processes. Organizations normally tends to invest in R&D with percentage of revenue generated from sales, as a long-term strategy focusing on product improvement and increasing product lifecycles. New processes and innovation enable firms with the needed competitive advantage necessary to survive or get ahead in the marketplace. Product differentiation strategy on the other hand allows modern organizations to monopolize existing markets by way of innovative product differentiation. The coming cases will serve as illustrative of the concepts presented previously.
Final note, Birkinshaw & Hood (2001) assert that the creativity of workers is a function of the administrative office worker (knowledge worker) create and attract good ideas while management should encourage such effort. In the opinion of (Lynch, 2000: 499) however, that distinguished organizations stem from the needs for customers, which provides new market opportunities and develop organizational progress through the diagnosis of technological developments in surrounding environment. For Blind (2004: 391) the sources of creativity stems from expected and unexpected successes and failures of external events and lack of congruence with what actual reality is to be.
References
International Business Times. (2014). Retrieved October 22, 2015, from Hydrogen Fuel Cell Vehicles: Toyota, Honda, Hyundai Are Committed, But Mainstreaming HFC Cars is a Huge Challenge: http://www.ibtimes.com
Brookings. (2015). Retrieved October 22, 2015, from 10 New Innovations that Could Change the World: http://www.brookings.edu
Scientific American. (2015). Retrieved October 22, 2015, from Top 10 Emerging Technologies of 2015: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/top-10-emerging-technologies-of-2015
Castells, M., & Annenberg, W. (2014, September 8). MIT Technology Review. Retrieved October 22, 2015, from The Impact of the Internet on Society: A Global Perspective: http://www.technologyreview.com/view/530566/the-impact-of-the-internet-on-society-a-global-perspective/
Grint, K., & Woolgar, S. (1997). The Machine at Works - Technology, Work and Organization. Cambridge: Polity Press.
O'Brien, M. (2015, October 26). San Jose Mercury News. Retrieved December 19, 2015, from Google, Tesla, others wait for DMV's self-driving rules: http://www.mercurynews.com/news/ci_29027362/google-tesla-others-wait-for-dmvs-selfdriving-rules
Rogers, E. M. (1995). Diffusion of Innovations. New York: The Free Press.
Schilling, M. A. (2013). Strategic Management of Technological Innovation. New York: Mc Graw Hill.
Times, F. (2015, October 5). AFRWEEKEND. Retrieved December 2015, 2015, from Uber steers focus towards carpooling: http://www.afr.com/news/world/uber-steers-focus-towards-carpooling-20151004-gk1652?stb=twt
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