Impact of ICT on Work and Organization



Impact of ICT on Work and Organization

Introduction

The information technology and communication technologies (ICTs) are today accelerated development in production and in services. In addition to the new activities which they carry, ICT is a factor in the evolution of social relationships, jobs and occupations. They accompany a series of transformations on the strategy, content and organization of work, forms management, forms of consultation and negotiation.

Discussion & Analysis

The key role of customs in the introduction of ICT in organizations

Control functionality of the tools

Immersed in projects to improve the functionality of applications, computer scientists sometimes lose sight of the realities. When tools are in place, they can forget the difference between the potential functionalities of tools and features actually controlled and implemented by users. Those responsible for the deployment tools do not include still notion of learning time needed to appropriate tools (Hines, 1993). For computer, the availability of tools associated with a short training considered sufficient time for users, learning takes place in time. However, there is not always followed in time (responses to questions users after testing, recalls some features, supplements explanation for more advanced functions).

Relevance of the features of the tools developed

The developers of ICT tools perform their work according to the representation they are the work and needs of users. This representation is often incomplete and sometimes erroneous, and tools, in place, are not always functional in the context of work. The question is the same as in the draft technical designs of machinery or industrial equipment, the design choices sometimes prove inadequate to real work situations.

Uses technology and value-added tools

When users use some of the functionality of the tools, there is still question of the usefulness of the use made of it. Again, the situation is mixed: equal to technology, there are uses for greater or lesser value. Exploiting the potential of ICT tools to improve performance involves need some changes in working methods. The emergence of uses is still an innovation process combining joint work organization and features of the tools used. We observe high-contrast situations following companies (Pausch, 2008). In some companies, with rudimentary network (shared files a server, Outlook email, software production management), there are uses "Advanced". Users are then very voluntary applicants of ICT tools. However, improvements are observed in most forms of work carried out as tools themselves. In other cases, despite significant efforts to deploy ICT tools rather advanced such as Intranet or other tools to access shared information bases, the results are not always up to the expectations of the promoters, nor technologies used, or users are wondering what they could do tools, or the use made of the tools is very "instrumental", i.e. the working methods change slightly to take advantage of potential tools (Schoemaker & Russo, 1993).

The new role for IT in project management

The ability for users to develop specific applications live in their needs or the needs of their services based on the tools available encourages new uses. The most innovative uses most often result from an iterative process ...