Managing Computers in Large Organizations

Managing Microcomputers in Large Organizations
http://www.nap.edu/catalog/167.html
About this PDF file: This new digital representation of the original work has been recomposed from XML files created from the original paper book, not from the
original typesetting files. Page breaks are true to the original; line lengths, word breaks, heading styles, and other typesetting-specific formatting, however, cannot be
retained, and some typographic errors may have been accidentally inserted. Please use the print version of this publication as the authoritative version for attribution.
THE ORGANIZATIONAL ISSUES 12
approach encourages a much more permissive environment so that individuals
may develop many more uses and roles for micros within the organization.
Until recently, information processing meant an essentially
institutionalized structure in which the individual had little choice in what he or
she did in minute-to-minute applications—what the psychologists of the
workplace call nondiscretionary work. This is changing. Information processing
is making labor very discretionary. Such a shift raises a number of questions.
What is an organization's management policy on microprocessors? Do they
become a symbol of this transformation, the unleashing of imaginations, the
extending of an employee's capabilities? Or are they in essence controlled?
These two approaches represent fundamentally different management styles and
philosophies, and organizations must analyze them thoroughly before adopting
one or the other.
We should not assume that the same approaches and management
philosophy applied to information technology up to this point can or must apply
in the future. Most of the literature, as well as most management approaches,
treats information processing as a support function. In many cases it is still a
support function, but in more and more organizations it is becoming a line
activity. It is essential to recognize this change. No longer is it a question of
thinking about an orderly or a cost-justified approach to information processing.
That is not how personal computers (PCs) are justified or bought. They are
bought through every conceivable means for all kinds of applications. Only a
minimum number of these purchases are justified according to the sort of highly
developed methodology that exists for conventional data processing.
Microcomputers are also being purchased in gigantic quantities, with farreaching
implications. The stand-alone personal computer is a transitory
phenomenon, but it happens to dominate at the moment. The most recent
surveys indicate that only about one-fifth of micros now in use are connected to
larger systems. This obviously will change, and it will become the norm to put
these micros into many kinds of informal as well as formal networks.
We must also recognize that the microprocessor joins the game while there
are five loose pieces on the organizational playing board. These pieces and their
relationship to management decisions
Copyright © National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.