Recent orders
Congress Political Science
Political Science
Students Name
Institution of Affiliation
Course Title
Date
Congress
The ultimate responsibility of a member of the Congress is to vote on a wide variety of bills, motions and amendments. Members of the Congress take voting seriously as the overall average rate of participation is around 95% of all votes held. Among the questions that members are asked to vote to include the gun control, school safety, abortion rights, education assistance, environmental programs, social security reform as well as the Medicare costs. Before the major voting, the members get overwhelmed with the different opinions that are sent months, weeks, days or even hours prior to voting. The offices of the Congress receive mailbags that are full of letters, faxes, emails as well as phone calls from the constituents expressing the wide thoughts of their conflicting opinions. The members receive statements from the expert witnesses testifying before the congressional hearings, special interest groups also contribute by sending up the background material. The congressional agencies provide the members with reports and studies while the colleagues in the Congress also send letters to which contain recommendations and the administration weighs in its position.
How a member does decides to vote
The question arising here is how then after obtaining all these materials and information with the conflicting voices, does a member of the Congress make his or her voting decision? People tend to claim that the members prefer voting according to their political affiliations or the special interest groups while others believe that the members vote according to how they deem it to be fit regardless of all the pressure that is put on to them. The decision on voting involves a complex process to which members interact among themselves and a variety of influences including the president, constituents and the party leaders. Special interest groups, the media along with the political contributors are among the groups to which are consulted in the process of decision making. The decision making process is a solo responsibility and therefore cannot be easily categorized, but there are some factors that are usually present during the process of decision making.
Information gathering is an important aspect of the decision-making process. Members become familiar with the main arguments that are being offered by the various sides that are surrounding the public policy issue. The arguments may get based on the constitutional or the legal analyses, on statistics or on the data compilations, on the moral or ethical basis or on the public policy arguments. During the review of the above materials, the members also get to pay attention to factors such as costs of the taxpayers, overall social benefit and the perceived consequences on the future. The members are privileged to obtain neutral objective research and analysis from the congressional research services, a non-partisan in-house of staff experts. The committee reports, editorials, newspaper articles also provide the members with a sense of the main argument surrounding the issue. The members also may choose to rely on the information to which is provided by the advocacy organizations such as special groups or the trade associations based on the issue at hand. The members are accountable to their constituents and others for each vote and are therefore regularly asked to explain why they voted in the manner they did.
Constituency interests are among the factors that influence the decisions of the members. The members tend to spend most of their time in seeking the accurate idea of how the majority of their constituents feel about the prospected legislative proposals and therefore do not fully rely on the correspondence or the calls that made by their offices for they understand that majority of the constituents won’t make the initiative to contact them. The members are also aware that the constituents along with other interest groups with passionate views on a subject will organize mass mailings or calls to which may not apply to the case reflecting the interests of the constituents. Majority of the members, therefore, engage actively to a broad spectrum of the electorate to listen to their constituent’s views, following closely the public views and opinions as they are keenly aware that they have a responsibility to reflect the viewpoint of a majority of their electorate.
The members of the Congress relies heavily on expert opinions as the congressional issues are so many and often so complex and that their wide range may fall outside the individual member’s expertise thus the need to seek for consultation. Consultation with the experts often helps the members to be informed relying on the expert recommendations and colleagues within the Congress and whose judgments and specialization in particular issues are respected.
Political ramifications tend to also contribute to the decision of the members. The majority and minority leadership in Congress make certain that their members fully understand the party’s positions on particular issues supplying their own research and analysis to their members, therefore, promoting specific arguments and positions. The political influence of the president is also very important. The president has a bully pulpit from which the nation’s agenda is set and appealing directly to the American citizens to support his positions.
After considering all the information provided, both from the constituents and from the experts, the member can now make his personal judgment according to what he deems to be right. The core beliefs of the members may be influenced by religious faith or secular ethics. The issues with moral components do not confine the members to partisan categories. Other factors that may influence personal judgment include ethnic heritage, family or gender.
The process of voting is vital as it seeks to represent even the generations to come and that’s why it calls for proper consultation before the implantation of a certain issue. The members have to seek proper guidance in order to arrive at a better conclusion that is free from bias, greed and represents the interests of the constituents to which they get to represent. Members of the public need to be much involved in the decision making as they are mostly affected by the issues passed in the House of Representatives and therefore their vote should count as the majority.
Public Criticisms of Congress
The public criticism on to the Congress has now for a long time provided to some extent to the public as well as notifying the public of the selfish interest of the Congress. It is always obvious that the issue of criticism arises from the wrong things that are done and to which need to be rectified to seem better. One of the biggest public critics on the Congress is the political cartoons to which depict the various selfish interests of the politicians on different occasions.
For one occasion, the Congress from the different states has not united an event that seemed to attract the public interest. It is always good for the political unity for a nation to develop and when a country is divided, the development agendas are always invited creating a rift to progression. In criticizing the act, the political cartoon drew a viper cut down into pieces and displaying the various body parts with the initial of the different states of America. In this critic, the call for unity among the states’ congressmen was evident saying ‘Unite or die”. This has the implication of what can happen in the case of the discontinued unity among the states meaning that the nation may end up crippling economically or even engage in violence.
The public cartoon has not only criticized the unity of the Congress but also to their greedy and self-nature especially the reaction towards salary increment. The political cartoon drew a deep valley with the members of the Congress salivating, trying to find a way to reach the salary increment on the other side but are restricted by the political dangers. The cartoon shows how the Congress tend to be greedy and selfish in that they are led by their own interests and not that of the public to whom elected them to the congress positions.
The media also is not left behind in criticizing the Congress, during the death of Wilbur Mills, instead of the media announcing his achievement, they went ahead exposing an event to when Mils was caught with a stripper calling the legislators a bunch of crooks. The type of critic is good because it lets the members of the Congress become aware that the public is looking at their behaviors very closely and thus they must be well behaved and disciplined.
The Dynamic Legislative Process
The legislative process starts with the main idea that comes from Article 1 section 7 of the constitution. There are basically five dynamic legislative processes in making a bill into a law. The House of Representatives to which is entitled to making laws are two and they include the Senate and the Congress. The first step involves writing the bill and introducing it to the Congress for acknowledgement. At this stage, the members are notified of a certain bill whose presence needs to be noticed. After being introduced, a substitute committee is formed to revise, edit and change the bill where necessary. The committee is entrusted to make the major corrections to the areas that seem to irrelevant as well those that seem to have been omitted during the drafting of the bill.
After the revision, the bill is taken back to the Congress, where a full committee is formed to look at the bill once more. Here the committee looks deeply into the intentions of the bill indicating whether it is of any benefit to the country as well as the community in the American nation. At this stage, the full committee can declare the life of the bill to whether it is qualified to go to the next stage. The bill is taken back to the Congress for debate, here the members set rules for the debate and approves the bill. After the congress approval, the final step involves the president of the United States. The president has to sign the bill for it to become a law such that its implementation can start immediately. If the president declines to sign the bill, it can be taken back to the Congress for further rectification or it may be deemed irrelevant leading to its death. All processes of legislation are similar to the bill has to pass the relevant stages before it becomes a law.
Work Cited
Hibbing, John R., and Elizabeth Theiss-Morse. Congress as public enemy: Public attitudes toward American political institutions. Cambridge University Press, 1995.
Kingdon, John W. Congressmen’s voting decisions. University of Michigan Press, 1989.
Rieselbach, Leroy N. Congressional Politics: The Evolving Legislative System. Routledge, 2018.
DE- AMERICANISATION OF GLOBAL MEDIA DOMINANCE (2)
DE- AMERICANISATION OF GLOBAL MEDIA DOMINANCE
by (Jiali Lao)
The Name of the Class (ALM215 – Global Media)
Professor (Dr Jian Xu)
The Name of the School (Deakin University)
24-May-20
Word Count: 2020 Words
Introduction
Global and cultural hegemony occurs when a structure of the media or culture is dominant and applied in production, distribution, and institutions because they are most preferred (Artz, 2013, p. 336). Hegemony’s main feature is consent, where a particular group or class leads others, and they have accepted to be led using the cultures or media that originate from the group. America has been leading in developments, especially in media structures. Most of the world countries are applying the developed media structures in productions and daily operations, hence making the country dominant. However, recently other countries in Asia have developed new media flows that are highly competing with the Americas developed media. For example, the pan-Arab, which created a transnational media system, the contemporary Chinese media, and the Russian media. Using soft power, Americanisation and media imperialism, the American global press will soon lose its dominance in the world and be replaced by Asian countries’ new global media.
America Global Dominance
America has been enjoying soft power through its global media and cultures, where other nations have been attracted to the developed media systems of the country. The soft power is based on its cultural policies, which has led to the development of the technological media systems (Katerji, 2014, P. 2). The theories of soft power in global communication are in media and cultural imperialism, which led to the emerging cultural dominance of the country. The gained soft power by America led to the new theory of Americanization, where American culture influenced the political and economic wellbeing of other countries without coercion. However, with the global objective of achieving media imperialism, the global expansion of transnational media from the Asian countries will lead to the Asian countries taking over domination of the media systems. The development of global media structures and transnational industries and corporations and the emergence of media products from the Asian countries contest the American media systems.
Growth of Asian Media Channels
American dominance is based on globalization that arose because of the financial dominance that the country enjoyed. The country also has symbolic power in the global media channels, which is also supported by global structures of the economy and information systems. The global media channels have evolved from physical to virtual, with the development of newspapers, T.V. channels, internet, and portable communication devices. America has been at the forefront of embracing new technologies and creating new media platforms. The development of the HBO Channel was a great contribution to America and the world at large (Herman and McChesney, 2004, p. 80). However, as the channel grew, Asia has taken dominance of the platform and is now booming, having contracts granted to exclusive continental rights of films. The HBO Asia channel has taken over the American Netflix, having more subscribers all over the world. Even though U.S. domination existed with much more media platforms in entertainment, news, and social media, Asia is competing closely with developments in the same sectors, but with an added advantage.
China Global Growth
Asian countries, specifically China, is working on improving its infrastructure and platforms in T.V. programs, even though the competition is high. The development of infrastructure and media allows the movement of information from one station to another (Osman, Subhani, and Hasan, 2013). When the system is well developed, the information system is fast and reliable, which attracts users worldwide. China has advanced its infrastructure and platforms, which is a great competition to that of America. Therefore, the T.V. channels for the countries may be having the same advancements, but recent developments apply new strategies and concepts which may make China dominant in global media hegemony. China has the Central China Television, which now broadcasts in six international channels and five languages. It has attracted a global audience with more than 125 million people. Currently, Xinhua News is one of the most influential T.V. channels in Africa (Gagliardone, Stremlau, and Repnikova, 2020, p. 8). The number of subscribers shows a contest in the domination of America. Chinas media is growing globally, and there is much probability for soft power.
Media imperialism due to the global expansion of transnational media in America also led to worldwide media dominance over the world. Transnational media flows allow a strong understanding of the cultural dimensions of the global circulation of media (Christensen, 2013, p. 2401). However, Asian countries are also working towards gaining media imperialism through the worldwide expansion of transnational media corporations such as news agencies, social media, film industry, and media technology firms. Asian countries’ governments are now agitating for media freedom, which encourages the development of transnational media in countries such as China and Russia. Chinese media have rapidly evolved, supported by financial news and transnational influence of the larger ecosystem of information flow. The important elements of the multinational media regime are the media corporations and technology developers who have the core elements of a transnational media regime.
In 2009, China launched the media’ going out’ project focusing on the development of transnational media companies to have unbound communication within the country and with the outside world (Zhao, 2016, p. 30). The development of transnational media encourages media imperialism in China, as technological innovations increase the flow of information. The development of Chinese television channel phoenix is one of the emerging new media that is highly competing with America’s channels to gaining a huge audience. Also, with the development of China threat theory, the country is progressing prominently in economic, technological, and political sectors, leading to growth in the global media (Yang and Liu, 2012, p. 701). China’s ‘going out’ project aims at attaining soft power, and to reverse the media imperialism from the western countries. The development of transnational media is one of the ways where China is aiming at achieving media imperialism. The technological developments will highly contribute towards the objective of dominating the media worldwide, taking the title from America.
Pan-Arab Media Development
America’s trans nationalizing media and culture was expected to remain dominant for a long while due to the developments in technology. However, the increasing importance of transnational corporations and non-state agencies have survived being intact and even paving the way or new agencies (van, 2011). The opportunity leads to more transnational media emerging from other countries. For example, pan- Arab media has developed pan-Arab satellite broadcasting with over 200 channels and an audience of more than 350 million. The satellite has led to a new transnational media system, with a huge audience that can easily overhaul America’s dominance. It has an advantage over the American satellite as it can broadcast content that is highly unrestricted by state-controlled media. The Arab satellite broadcasting has also incorporated western commercial broadcasting models, making it have an advantage over the existing western satellites hence attracting a larger audience all over the world. Therefore, the Arab satellite has the prospect of surpassing the American media, thus becoming dominant in the future.
The pan-Arab media brought about the editorial alignment of Aljazeera, which is one of the most subscribed channels in the world (Kraidy, 2014). With the controversial political postures in Egypt, media companies arose with vibrant media and cultures and the development of the Arab satellite. This emergence has led to 80% television penetration, attracting more audiences due to the high level of commercialization. The commercialization led to the rise of Arab uprisings, which enhances other media and culture in the Arab world. The rise of the Pan-Arab media has rejuvenated a common destiny in the Arab world, leading to the great support of the transnational media in most parts of the Arabic world (Alterman, 1999). The channels are becoming influential across countries in the world. The increasing influential power is likely to lead the American audience to change their preferences, which will make American dominance weaker, leading to the soft power of the Arab global media.
Russia Media Development
Other non-state actors are competing with America to attract the hearts and minds of people in the world (Dale, Smith and Cohen, 2012). They are seeking greater influence and access to global media through the allocation of resources for media growth. Russia is one of the countries fighting for soft power in the global media. It is expected that it will increase interconnectedness through new media. Russia has already gained national media control and has developed the premier soft power instrument, global television empire led by R.T., to improve Russia’s image around the world. The channel has become influential and is penetrating America’s states, such as Washington and New York. As it strives to gain its domination of America, the developed media can easily grow and be viewed across the world. Russian media has been influenced by the political economy, which has led to the globalization of Russian television, especially in the creation of television fiction. The specialization in fiction has led to dominance in the sector and improving with the features.
In the Post-Soviet period, the television station STS emerged, providing entertainment to Russians. The television station grew due to the blending of textual elements and integrating with new technological concepts that have enhanced globalization of the station (Brassard, 2017, p. 81). STS has been consistent and incorporating western majors, which has led to negotiations of complex cultural features, making Russia have a dominant position. The Russian media system is now characterized by the audience and information domination of terrestrial T.V. (Vartanova, Vyrkovsky, Makeenko, and Smirnov, 2016, p. 72). The competition is high, but the audience for the Russian media keeps growing. This fact shows a potential penetration to other countries, including America. Also, there is the domination of central media companies in Russia, within Asia and America as well. There is growth of Russia’s transnational media structures, which will enhance its hegemony in global media. The content and technological structures of Russians media attract more audiences making it prominent throughout the world.
Russian media development is supported by liberalizing media industry in print and broadcasting, cable and satellite T.V., productions of television, search engines, and online media. The industry is developing with more technological breakthroughs such as Runet and mobile telephony (Vartanova, 2020). The developments increase the quality of media in the country to the level of America. However, with the continuous innovations in global media and the technological advancements that occur periodically, Russia has the potential to increase its dominance in the world. In film and T.V. program production, Russia is a significant player, with a high increase in domestically produced films. According to Vartanova, Moscow media executives have common features with their counterparts in London, Paris, and New York in America (Vertanova, 2015, p. 134). The observations show the growth of Russia’s media, getting to America’s level; thus, continued growth may lead to dominance. Also, internet activism in Russia is more connected with social movements in other parts of the world, making its media have the power to dominate global media (Meng and Rantanen, 2015, p. 7).
Conclusion
America’s global media system is well developed and has earned global dominance throughout the world. The country is enjoying soft power as it has attracted a huge audience due to the quality of its global media. However, other countries and authorities are contesting America’s global media by improving its systems to attract more people, which makes them have an advantage over America. The states challenging America include China, Russia, and the Pan- Arab regions of Asia. China launched the media out a project which aims at developing its media to reach many countries in the world. The project led to the development of media corporations and systems to support the objective. Arab media grew pan-Arab satellite broadcasting with more than 200 channels, hence attracting a huge audience throughout the world. Russian media is also developing, especially with the emergence of Russian Television, which has gained lots of followers recently, especially from America’s global media platforms. The countries’ developments are increasing and highly contesting with America’s dominance. Soft power, media imperialism, Americanization, and globalization are the theories behind the growth of the global media corporations and media systems to have control over the world. The developments in the media in the countries will lead to de-Americanization soon as one of the Asian countries gains dominance of global media.
Reference List
Alterman, J., 1999. Transnational Media and Social Change in the Arab World. Transnational Broadcasting Studies,.
Artz, L., 2013. Media Hegemony. Encyclopedia of media and communication, p.336.
Brassard, J., 2017. Russia’s STS Television Network. VIEW Journal of European Television History and Culture, 6(11), p.81.
Christensen, M., 2013. TransNational Media Flows: Some Key Questions and Debates. International Journal Of Communication, 1(7), p.2401.
Dale, H., Smith, J. and Cohen, A., 2012. Challenging America: How Russia, China, and Other Countries Use Public Diplomacy to Compete with the U.S. The heritage foundation,.
Gagliardone, I., Stremlau, N. and Repnikova,, M., 2020. China In Africa: A New Approach To Media Development?. Oxford: University of oxford, p.8.
Herman, E. and McChesney, R., 2004. The Global Media. London: Cassell, p.80.
Katerji, O., 2014. Why U.S. Media Conglomerates Will Continue To Dominate the Global Media Landscape in the 21 st Century, But Only So At a Diminishing Rate. Research gate, p.2.
Kraidy, M., 2014. Media Industries in Revolutionary Times. Media Industries Journal, 1(2), doi: 10.3998/mij.15031809.0001.204
Meng, B. and Rantanen, T., 2015. A Change of Lens: A Call to Compare the Media in China and Russia. Critical Studies in Media Communication, 32(1), pp.1-15, doi:10.1080/15295036.2014.997831
Osman, A., Subhani, M. and Hasan, S., 2013. Asian ascendancy: media in the age of globalization. SpringerPlus, 2(1), doi: 10.1186/2193-1801-2-646
van, M., 2011. Cultural Globalization and Transnational Flows of Things American. The Systemic Dimension of Globalization, doi: 10.5772/18303
Vartanova, E., 2015. Russia: post-Soviet, post-modern and post-empire media. Mapping BRICS Media, pp.125-144, doi: 10.4324/9781315726212-9
Vartanova, E., 2020. Russia. [online] Media Landscapes. Available at: <https://medialandscapes.org/country/russia> [Accessed 22 May 2020].
Vartanova, E., Vyrkovsky, A., Makeenko, M. and Smirnov, S., 2016. The Russian Media Industry in Ten Years: Industrial Forecasts. Westminster Papers in Communication and Culture, 11(1), pp.65-84, doi: 10.16997/wpcc.221
Yang, Y. and Liu, X., 2012. The ‘China Threat’ through the Lens of U.S. Print Media: 1992–2006. Journal of Contemporary China, 21(76), pp.695-711, doi: 10.1080/10670564.2012.666838
Zhao, X., 2016. A review on China’s soft power projection through its transnational media institutions: Conveying discourse of economic responsibilities in media’ going-out’. for(e)dialogue, 1(1), pp.27-39, doi: 29311/for(e)dialogue.v1i1.530
The Impact of technology on organization efficiency
The Impact of technology on organization efficiency
Name
Institution
Course
Date
Recently, various organizations have adopted different technologies in their workplaces. The organizations are also striving to incorporate new technologies into their daily duties. This is evident since in different organizations, there exists different technology departments and sections, as well as information systems departments which are necessary for driving different organizational changes. According to different business weekly reviews, the departments of technology in different organization are crucial to business where they are applied as they tend to educate workforce and increase their efficiency and productivity. This essays discusses the various impacts of technology on organization efficiency and productivity. The paper will cite given examples of how IT has been implemented and used in various organizations to improve their efficiency and productivity.
The main reason for incorporating of information technology in a business is emphasized by Nadler 1992 when he states that Information technology (IT) has greatest influence on an organization as it influences its organizational architecture as well as design. There are different functions of IT ranging from purchasing a computer to incorporating new technologies the organizations. Regardless of the way and magnitude of the technology employed, one factor remains constant that technologies always bring changes to an organization and in most cases, the change is positive. Technology implementation can either act at a means through which change is hastened in an organization or it can be the change itself. No matter the reason for technology incorporation, when it is integrated properly, the implementers always consider organizational structure and its importance.
According to Gerstein 1992, technology has its position in the major component of an organization. Anderson consultants use a model whereby it ranks technologies as of similar attribute, together with workforce and other business processes. How technology and other business process are interconnected is clear and this explains why a process cannot be altered without affecting the other. As the introduction of new technology might change the organization structure, this is not true in all cases. Transformations normally take place in the organizations affecting their operations. Precisely, the introduction of technology to an organization is essential in creating changes for instance job design, office layout, employer-employee communications and relations and even enhance cooperation among the staff members.
One other importance of technology in increasing efficiency comes from the employees. The no6tion of technology introduction is based on the idea that employees with the assistance of technology are able to work independently. According to Jenner 1994, the virtual environment created by IT allows employees to have access to information they need to perform their roles, and through IT, employees are able to access information anytime, anywhere. The workforce are not defined to a specific area to perform their roles as the case with the lack of information. This in the end results to efficient and more cooperative employees thus increasing their productivity and efficiency in the organization and their departments.
In organizations where technology has been applied, it has changed the employee-employer relationships. Through technology, employee pass information quickly regardless of the physical locations of the recipients. IT has also enabled easy sharing of ideas and communications of organizational changes and adjustment thus keeping informed employees at all times. Additionally, technology has changed or improved supervisory relationships. With the assistance of technology, organizational supervisors are able to supervise employees without them reporting directly or having same physical locations. Nadler and Main both concur on this and state that this is a measure to increase supervisors’ efficiency and coverage. According to Jeremey 1994, the improved relationships between employees and employers gives way to “span of communication” which leads to improved communication system and channels. Nadler emphasizes that the system is essential in empowering person and departments r groups in an organization thus increasing organization efficiency. Gerstein 1991 furthers the arguments of Nadler and Jeremy by stating that technology enhances interdependency of departments and employees and this in turn empowers the workforce of an organization. Clearly, the connections created by interdependencies is not possible under traditional settings. This means that the workforce are trained on the use and application of technology and its relations to achieving organization goals and increasing its efficiency. The other essence of technology application is that it creates self-dependent and self-directed employees who work with minimum or no supervisions. The renowned theorist Peter Drucker and Jeremy 1998 summarize the self-sufficiency of the new technology by saving that through it, the workforce get to know their roles with minimal supervision.
The technology use have impacts of an organization’s relationship with customer and managements. The easy with which information is passed either form employer or employee makes the organization to have control over the communication process. According to Jeremey 1998, this is especially true for organizations that may have adopted a vertical integration strategy, but then realizes that it is not essential when they use systems imaginatively. The ease in information sharing and designs transfer can increase outsourcing thus increasing knowledge and skills.
The roles of employees in a business are significantly affected by enhanced technology application and mechanization as means of decreasing process of production. In given cases, the roles of employees are slowly being automated, and this changes the employee’s tasks to be more of supervisory. The roles and employees’ expectations thus change since they no longer perform repetitive tasks, but rather should be able to identify and solve problems arising. Although atomization have its advantages to an organization, others consider it as monotonous as it is performed in one line.
Although as started above that it is not a must for a change to occur to signify a transformation, the arguments by different scholars point to the fact that a change will always be witnessed in organizations where technology is incorporated. In His article, Jeremy talks about wining organizations and says that the organizations will implement structures that can be easily changed as business undergoes transformations and change. Jeremy further states that, the companies will choose to lie with computers apart from their assistances and they will be responsible for shaping strategy and structuring new technology fits. When comparing architecture an organization, Nadler notes that in a business terms, the function of order is to coordinate, control and facilitate communications and this is affected by technology in that given business or company. Technology brings efficiency that reduces the number of employees in an organization. Jeremy further states that the introduction of technologies may lead to disappearance of the workforce. In this regard, Jeremy in other words point out that the main reason for technology implementation is simplify organizational structures. Even the technologies serve different functions, the advantage that it improves the coordination and supervisions and this reduces the hierarchical structures in organizations. As a matter of fact, companies which employ technology tend to move to flat structures, with absence of hierarchical structures. However, companies should be cautious as flat structure might not be applicable to any organizations (Jeremy, 1998).
The implementation of technology can be a boom to the organization and also be part of transformation in improving the performance of the organizations. However, there also exists other disadvantages and limitations of various technology processes and systems. A thorough consideration and testing out to be taken prior to implementation of such technologies and this helps reduce such pitfalls.
Taking a specific example, in Union Pacific Railroad, information technology was main score element. The main purpose was to do away with unwanted middle management to increase competence and thus improve customer service. Union Pacific Railroad would not have achieved this suppose they had not implemented new technologies to centralize their operations. This resulted to consolidation of major customer services in the company into National Customer Service Center in ST Louis. This as a result improved the company’s customer relations and resulted to increased sales.
Various organization are discovering that technology can stimulate improvements in different departments and in the company as whole. Technology, as argued by different scholars is responsible for creating self-directed employees. For example West Coast Energy Company realized that the former support provided by the employees was not in line with the way the company carried out its businesses. The company after trying and failing implemented technology and it worked. This highly increased the efficiency ad further reduced the cost of employing other staff to do the work.
From the arguments and discussions, it is clear that technology is essential in any organization and in its transformations and performance. While technology is considered a progressive and way of enhancing the company’s productivity and efficiency, it can be disastrous to a company when proper precautions are not taken. Organizations that successfully implement technology in their operations improve in their performances. Jenner 1994 emphasizes that as a result of technology improvement and implementation in different companies, technology leads to high flexible, dynamic and better firmed workforce.
References
Gerstein, Marc S., David A. Nadler, and Robert B. Shaw, Organizational Architecture, Jossey- Bass Publishers, San Francisco, 1992.
Goff, Leslie, “Smart Staffing” Computerworld, Vol 28, October 31, 1994, pp. 99-100.
Greene, John F., and Garfield D. Rees, “Work Teams Help Independents Make Best Use Of Technology” The Oil And Gas Journal, Vol 90, Oct 19, 1992, pp. 49-53.
Jenner, Lisa, “Are You Ready For The Virtual Workplace?” HR Focus, Vol 71, July, 1994, pp. 15-16.
Main, Jeremy, “The Winning Organization” Fortune, Vol 118, Sep 26, 1988, pp. 50-55.