The Impact of Technology Insertion on Organisations

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collar labour. Specifically, they conclude: ‘. . . rather than being aggregate labour-saving,
increases in IT tend to be labour-using’.
It seems that whilst there are many specific studies showing a loss <strong>of</strong> jobs, overall
assessments such as those made by the US Congress Office <strong>of</strong> <strong>Technology</strong> Assessment
[123] conclude that ‘technology was probably generating more jobs than it was
destroying’.
It would appear that predicting the impact <strong>of</strong> manufacturing technologies is much more
straightforward. As far back as the 1950s, Woodward [124] developed a measurement
scale on which firms were characterised according to the technical complexity <strong>of</strong> the
manufacturing process. In this instance, high technical complexity indicated that most <strong>of</strong>
the work was carried out by machines, whereas low technical complexity meant that
workers play a greater part in the process. Woodward found that the number <strong>of</strong>
management levels and manager to personnel level increased as technological complexity
increased. In non-manufacturing industries, where the output is less tangible, the
relationship between manpower levels and technology is much less predictable.
6.3 Distribution <strong>of</strong> Power and Control
It has long been assumed that IT will lead to flatter organisational structures and the
sharing <strong>of</strong> power. However, Zub<strong>of</strong>f [125] and Lohr [126] have found that the ‘paradise <strong>of</strong>
shared knowledge and a more egalitarian working environment is just not happening. If
power is not shared, it is because management does not want to share authority and
power’. <strong>The</strong>y each conclude that this is a result <strong>of</strong> organisational culture, rather than
technology.
Studies by Fukuyama and Shulsky [127] examined the relationship between
disintermediation (removing the middleman), flat organisations, and centralisation on
behalf <strong>of</strong> the US Army. <strong>The</strong>y found that the conventional argument that IT will lead to
flatter organisations is dependent on a single function <strong>of</strong> middle management: the
aggregation, filtering, and transmission <strong>of</strong> information. In other words, if all information
travels through middle management layers there will be centralisation <strong>of</strong> power.
Advances in IT suggest that flattening is desirable, since IT facilitates the automation <strong>of</strong>
much <strong>of</strong> this work. This research found that if the role <strong>of</strong> managers in an organisation is
primarily information processing, then information-processing equipment might replace
them, and organisations will become flatter. If, on the other hand, there is more to the
manager’s role than information processing, then linear predictions about flattening <strong>of</strong> the
organisational structure are too simple.
Again it would seem that there is evidence to support both centralisation and
decentralisation arguments. In fact, an international study <strong>of</strong> the effects on power
distribution [128] found every possible outcome across an array <strong>of</strong> case studies:
centralisation, decentralisation, lateral transfer across departments and no impact at all.
6.4 Job Enrichment vs Deskilling
One common theme <strong>of</strong> new technologies in organisations is that they aim to substitute
machine technology for human labour. Automatic Teller Machines (ATMs), for example,
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