Theories of the Information Society, Third Edition - Cryptome

REGULATION SCHOOL THEORY
It will be evident that vertical disintegration is feasible only when there is an
adequate infrastructure of communications and computer facilities of sufficient sophistication
to allow the co-ordination and control of dispersed activities. How else
could Benetton’s 140 or so agents, each with a designated geographical region
for which they are responsible, co-ordinate affairs? This infrastructure – technological
of course but also requiring personnel to provide vital information services
– is regarded as an essential component of post-Fordism for several reasons, all
of which underline the heightened role of information in the new regime. I have
already drawn attention to aspects of it in the discussion of globalisation which
presaged post-Fordism, but several features of the information infrastructure may
be highlighted.
1 It is essential to allow the orchestration of globalised production and marketing
strategies. Several commentators propose that we have witnessed the spread
of a new international division of labour (Fröbel et al., 1980), one overseen by
transnational corporations capable of managing production, distribution and
sales worldwide, and co-ordinating sites in dozens of international locations.
Just as outsourcing depends upon computerised communications which
enable organisations to achieve continuous observation of suppliers and
distributors without employing large numbers of staff in-house, so, too, is a
global corporate strategy feasible only on the basis of a sophisticated information
network. Furthermore, the restructuring process to which we alluded
above, in all its dimensions but especially in its ‘global option’ (shift production
to Manila, component supply to Prague, enter markets in Moscow and
get some facilities in Cork), ‘would have been inconceivable without the development
of information technologies, and particularly telecommunications’
(Henderson, 1989, p. 3).
2 It is crucial to the handling of the global financial trade and cognate information
services that are essential components of a globalised economy. Without
reliable and robust information networks the extraordinary volume and
velocity of share trading, stock market exchanges, inter-bank and bank-toclient
communications, plus associated activities, would be untenable, and so,
by extension, would be the post-Fordist regime of accumulation.
3 It is central to improvement of products and production processes, offering
not just greater effectiveness and efficiency by providing more precise monitoring
and thus better control functions, but also frequent opportunities to
introduce new technologies that are cost-effective and/or enable improvements
in quality (one thinks here of the ongoing automation and mechanisation
manifested in robotic applications, computer numerical control, and
general computerisation of office work).
4 It is an integral element of endeavours to enhance competitiveness in an ever
more intensely rivalrous context. To stay abreast, still more ahead, of the
competition, it is essential that companies are to the forefront of new technologies
– in the words of a one-time Minister of Industry, Patrick Jenkin, the
choice is now ‘Automate or Liquidate’. But the pressure to improve one’s competitive
edge extends to much more than having state-of-the-art computerised
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