Organization follows Technology ? LO13223

Rol Fessenden (76234.3636@COMPUSERVE.COM)
Sat, 12 Apr 1997 23:30:44 EDT

Replying to LO13177 --

Do you think that

* organizational change follows technological changes?

I assume you are asking if organizational changes are driven by
technological changes.

My opinion is that organizational change occurs in reaction to some
change, either consisting of new skills, new processes, new technologies,
or some combination. I cannot think of any instance when organizational
change forced technology change.

It may also be that a new conceptual perspective drives several of these
to occur in conjunction with each other. For example, when Ford
implemented assembly lines, the concept of assembly line and highly
specialized work drove new organization, new skills, new processes, and
eventually new support technologies.

Today, however, when technology is changing at such a high rate, it is
hard to imagine how a new concept of work could get ahead of technology,
and drive it in a new direction. Probably others here know more about
that than I do.

--

Rol Fessenden 76234.3636@compuserve.com

Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>