Organisational Impacts of Information Systems Use

1. How IT might change a manager's job:

Managers traditionally are information managers. They get information from those working for them, they massage it, format it, add interpretations, etc, and pass it upwards in an organization. Likewise they take information from the top managers and pass it downwards. All of this can change with IT. The information system itself will handle the information sharing. Interpretation is still needed, and managers might do some of that. But information directly from the source where it is created, will always be more valuable than some passed through several layers of people who might distort, change or even lose some of it. Other managerial tasks will change, too. Managing people who you don't see every day is different than managing people sitting at desks near you.

2. Is monitoring an employee's work on a computer a desirable or undesirable activity: i) from a manager's perspective; ii) from the employees' perspective:

From the managers point of view, computer monitoring is a mixed blessing. It is desirable because it is easy. Work done on the computer is accessible, and if it involves repetitive tasks (such as filling in forms) then it is easily measurable. An example is the traditional call center, where agents answer calls from customers. The duration of the call, the number of screens the agent had to use, the number of handoffs of the customer to other agents, etc are all easily measurable. However the numbers don't tell the whole story (not surprising). The quality of the interaction, as measured by how nice the agent was to the customer, how professional, how satisfied the customer was, etc are not easily measurable. So management can easily fall into the trap of measuring those things that are easily measurable, at the expense of measuring things that are important.

Regarding the employees, monitoring work done on a computer is not much different than monitoring any output. Should that monitoring take place covertly, that is without informing employees, then it becomes a different issue from an ethical perspective and in terms of increasing employee stress. Workers tend to work in a way that maximizes what they are monitored and rewarded for. If managers are monitoring them for how quickly they get work done on the computer, managers can expect workers to do things as quickly as possible, even if it means sacrificing quality.

3. E-mail has made communications between individuals much easier. Examples of communication that would be: i) inappropriate, and ii) appropriate, if they only took place over e-mail:

Inappropriate types of communication over e-mail are typically either emotional or lengthy, such as firing someone (emotional) or providing an accounting of details (lengthy). Of course, appropriate e-mails are those that are short, brief answers to questions or continuing dialogue, or those that are done as documentation (in which case lengthy may be required). Also, appropriate e-mails tend to be those that accompany documents transferred to someone else, or that notify parties who have a right and need to know of action that is being considered or that has been taken.

4. It is sometimes argued that team members must meet face-to-face in order to accomplish more complex, meaningful tasks. The following explains the agreement/disagreement to this:

The jury is still out on this question. Answering it should help the students think through some of the issues related to virtual teams. On one hand, an advantage of virtual teams is the cost savings from being able to tap the knowledge and expertise of team members in different locations, possibly at locations around the globe. These members can use advanced information and communication technologies to complete the team’s business. For example, video teleconferencing, with advances that allow costs to spiral downward, can be used instead of face-to-face to convey facial expressions in addition to graphical and textual materials.

On the other hand, it could be argued that at least one or a few face-to face sessions are needed, especially at a project’s initiation to allow team members to get to know one another better and to build the trust to cement team relationships. Sensitive issues can best be addressed face-to-face.

5. Considering the brief description of the zero time organization, the following explains an example of a control system that would be critical to manage for success in the zero time organization:

Briefly describe the zero time organization:
The zero time organization describes the concept of instant “customerization”, or the ability to respond to customers immediately. Common to all of the mentioned designs is the idea of agile, responsive organizations that can configure their resources and people quickly and are flexible enough to sense and respond to changing demands.

An example of a control system that would be critical to manage for success in the zero time organization, with reason why it is considered critical:
It would be critical to manage just about all the control systems to insure success of a zero time organization, so any example is probably good if it is supported well. For example, it would be important to monitor the people, processes and technology to insure that they are all able to respond instantly. It would be important to create evaluation criteria and feedback mechanisms to insure the success of the people when they respond instantly.

Answers can be elaborated from the model of management control activities:

• Monitoring
• Evaluating
• Providing feedback
• Compensating
• Rewarding

Answers can be related to the five disciplines a zero time organization must master:

• Instant value alignment
• Instant learning
• Instant involvement
• Instant adaptation
• Instant execution