Managing the Adoption of New Technology

David Preece

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781351141543
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Economics
• Subtopic: Economic Theory
• Index: Economics

Originally published in 1989 this book gives an overview of the empirical work on new technology objectives, together with an analysis of management strategies for adoption at the corporate, technological and people levels. It also reviews previous work on the extent to which staff at different levels, and from different specialism, are involved in decision-making, as well as the adoption process more generally. The book looks at different approaches to analysing organizational contexts and provides a framework for studying the stages of the adoption process. The book includes case studies - two in financial services and two in engineering contexts.

1

Introduction

The genesis of this book and the research upon which it draws is to be found in certain conversations – both ‘casual’ and more formal – into which the author found himself increasingly drawn in the early 1980s. These conversations occurred in such places as public houses and clubs, private houses and formal organizations, conference suites, and institutions of higher education. The people involved included personnel managers, industrial relations managers, engineering managers, computer managers, office managers, shop stewards, trade union branch officials, local government officers, and students and lecturers of management and business. The subject of the discussions centred around the social, organizational, economic, and industrial relations aspects and effects of technological change. The term ‘new technology’ did not tend to be used all that often; people were usually talking about specific types of technology, such as that being adopted, or about to be adopted in their own organizations or organizations of which they knew, and it was clear what the particular type of technology was in the context of the discussion. Of course, there was often an awareness that technological change was occurring on a wider front – across industries and nation states – and that a number of interested parties had policies and attitudes towards such change; the government in the sense of encouraging it and financially supporting its introduction in some instances; the trade union movement in supporting its introduction, and arguing for the share of its members in the benefits accruing from the adoption of the new technology, as well as for the non-displacement of workers in the process; employers via such forums as the CBI embracing the new technology as a, if not the, major way in which companies were to become or remain competitive and profitable.

Whilst, then, there was this ‘general awareness’ at the time on behalf of the people referred to earlier, they commonly believed that they were operating in unchartered territory. They knew, of course, that technological changes had been taking place over a long period of time, and therefore that there was nothing novel about the present situation in that sense, but at the same time there was also a feeling that somehow the ‘texture’ of the current changes and their implications were different, and indeed that the social and organizational aspects and effects of these changes could not be predicted on the basis of experiences with previous technological changes.

On the basis of their, sometimes common, sometimes conflicting, interests and concerns, then, these people were searching for information and help with managing the introduction of new technology, or with responding effectively to such change (from, for example, a trade union perspective). What advice and help could an organization analyst at that time give to such people? Both managers and trade unionists alike could be pointed to the pamphlets containing new technology policy-statements and guidelines of the TUC and certain unions, as well as the CBI. Some studies had been conducted in the engineering industry by researchers based at the Science Policy Research Unit at Sussex University, and publications were emerging from the Technology Policy Unit at Aston University.¹ In addition, a few books had been published by the early 1980s which looked at the broader social, economic, and political aspects of technological change, such as those by Jenkins and Sherman, and Barron and Curnow.² Enid Mumford at the Manchester Business School had been arguing for some time for a participative approach to computer systems design.³ This approach can be located in a socio-technical perspective on job- and work-restructuring, which in turn is part of a broader West European and American interest in forms of ‘work humanization’ and ‘quality of working life’.

Notwithstanding the above, it was difficult to provide people with a ‘practical’ orientation towards the managerial, social, organizational, and industrial relations aspects of new technology with a list of suitable reading. There were a number of reasons for this:

(1)The simple dearth of suitable texts in this area, especially readily-accessible ones.

(2)The concentration of many of the available texts on a macro-level of analysis – that is, on national and international trends and developments, with emphasis on the political and policy-making aspects at this level. Whilst these studies are obviously important, they often have a limited usefulness for managers and trade unionists at the level of the individual enterprise.

(3)Some of the texts either had no, or only a very restricted empirical base, or were limited in their scope and coverage of many of the social, organizational and industrial relations issues. At this time, little research had been done on what was actually happening in various organizations. Or, the focus might be on the job design and organizational structure aspects of new technology introduction, without a consideration of the industrial relations perspective.

Many people interviewed by the author were concerned with having the following sort of questions answered: ‘What should I/we do to get new technology successfully introduced into our organizations?’; ‘What are some of the potential problem areas in adopting new technology?’; ‘What effect can aspects of context, such as the state of the company’s product and/or labour markets, have on the “success” of the changes?’; ‘Are there particular ways of introducing new technology which are more likely to gain the acceptance of the people affected than others?’. Questions such as these pointed to the need for analyses of the managerial, social, and organizational processes involved in new technology adoption, located in the relevant social and economic contexts, and also firmly grounded in the specifics of particular firms at particular points in time, in terms of organizational structures, strategies and cultures, and employee relations frameworks.

Whilst, clearly, every organizational issue has an element which is specific to that particular organization, a central thesis of the present book is that one can learn from history. Here ‘learning from history’ means learning from other people’s experiences of adopting and introducing new technology into organizations. If the internal and external contexts of the particular organization concerned are described, a judgement can be made as to how close that context is to one’s own organization, and thus as to how relevant the findings might be. Major problems arise precisely when the context is not described, for then one is in no position to make such an assessment. This is a major drawback of many of the ‘how to’, descriptive texts on introducing new technology into organizations. They provide ‘shopping lists’ of how managers should go about this job, without any attempt to locate the particular practices/policies recommended to social, economic, organizational, and industrial relations contexts. Hence, managers are left with ‘recipes for action’, without being able to judge on the basis of the advice provided in the text whether this would be the appropriate approach to adopt in the specific circumstances of their organization. In short, many of these texts are normative, ahistorical, and suspended in an organizational world which appears almost bereft of major organizational, people, and employee relations problems.

It was in order to attempt to at least provide some answers to the questions being posed, at a level which would capture some of the complexities of organizational behaviour, whilst also being specific enough to be meaningful to interested parties, that the research reported in the present book was first undertaken.

A pivotal thesis of this book is that in considering the adoption of new technologies in organizations, and the structural and processual aspects and effects of those changes, account must be taken of why, how, when, and by whom those particular technologies were introduced. This is to argue that it is crucial to examine how that particular technology came to be considered in the first place, and with what aspirations it was adopted. This entails taking account of who was involved in the process, and at which particular stages. These considerations form part of the ‘importance of history’ argument already referred to above. But it is much more than this. It is to argue that technology has an effect on people’s jobs and experience of work; that there are often choices from amongst different types of technology to be made; that there are different ways in which the technology can be adopted and introduced, and that these make a difference; and that managerial assumptions about people and work are built into and affect technological change. So, for example, before one studies the social effects of a particular type of technology, after it has been introduced, one must first of all analyse the process via which that technology came to be adopted. (The distinction between new technology adoption and introduction is discussed in detail in Chapter 3. Suffice to say here that adoption is the pre- introduction stage and involves initiation, progression, investment decision, planning, and systems design.) This involves, inter alia, looking at which particular people are involved in the process, how they perceive, and what their intentions are for the new technology. For example, are such people aware of, and if so how do they take into account, the implications of new technology for the experience of work of the people whose jobs will be affected by it? Are they aware of organizational constraints and possibilities? Do they adopt a form of ‘technological determinism’, where the social effects are seen as following automatically and unalterably from the technology?

A particular feature of the case studies presented later in the book is that they show that finance, engineering, technical and computer specialists dominate the origination, progression, and systems design stages of new technology adoption. The ‘people specialists’ in organizations – personnel, training, and industrial/employee relations staff – tend only to be involved (to the extent that they are involved at all) when introduction is about to take place, or indeed actually after introduction. There are indications, however, that in some cases a form of ‘organizational learning’ may be taking place, in the sense that, with the next new technology adoption, such staff are involved earlier and more directly, in order to better plan and provide for employee and organizational aspects of the change process. It should also be stated here, however, that there appears to be a good deal of variation, not just within organizations over time on these matters, but also across different organizations. In one of my case studies personnel specialists played a key role in new technology adoption, albeit a ‘low profile’ one, in ensuring that the infrastructure was supportive of and would facilitate the technological change.

It is important now to explain what is understood here by new technology. First of all, it should be noted that all technology was ‘new’ at some point in time. The hand-tools of so-called primitive man were presumably ‘new’ when they were first introduced. Likewise, so was the steam-driven printing press, following its introduction in 1814. ‘New technology’ per se has become a term of common usage over recent years, on behalf of managers, trade unionists, politicians, and academics alike. In the majority of cases, the allusion of the word ‘new’ is to computing and information technologies of the miniaturized, microelectronic, microprocessor-based variety (as contrasted with the early types of computer mainframe, which would not be regarded as ‘new’ technology in this sense). This is what constitutes the essence of new technology. A working definition involves microprocessors and microelectronics as applied in the manufacture of products (or ‘Advanced Manufacturing Technology’ – AMT); the products themselves; the capture, storage, analysis, and transmission of information (sometimes supply called ‘Information Technology’ – IT); and the provision of services to customers. This definition does not include all possible usages of microelectronics and microprocessors – for example, medical applications are not included – but does encompass the major varieties which will be examined in the rest of this book.

Buchanan and Boddy have stated that the features which make technologies ‘new’ are the following: ‘the combination of the pace and scale of innovation, their abilities to handle information, control physical work operations, consolidate several functions into single machines, and integrate stages of production and administrative processes’.⁴ Key advantages of new technology, as Child has noted, are its cheapness, reliability, compactness, speed of operation, accuracy, and low energy consumption.⁵

Technology is new, then, which incorporates microelectronics and microprocessors. This does not therefore mean that it is new in a time-related sense, for example, of having only just been invented, or first adopted by a ‘user’-organization, say in manufacturing. Numerical Control (NC) machine tools have been around since the 1940s, but are still new in terms of the definition. Take-up rates of a given new technology both across and within different countries and sectors are also relevant here, for whilst the particular technology might have been available for a number of years, it is still ‘new’ to an organization or sector which has adopted it for the first time. Some new technologies have had a quicker and more extensive penetration than others to date – for example, word processors as against NC.⁶

Given that new technology is inherently flexible (essentially because of its programmability, re-programmability, compactness, and speed of operation), it is of particular interest to study the specific ways in which it has been adopted for use in organizations. In principle there would appear to be an open-endedness at the adoption stages, especially the earlier ones, in relation to this matter. This provides opportunities for certain people – those who do get involved at these stages – to imprint their ideas, objectives, and perspectives on the technology, and the connecting and surrounding infrastructure of work and employment. Those exercising control in organizations – higher management and technical specialists in the main – can obviously tailor the technology to serve their interests and strategies, perhaps in the name of ‘the organization’s objectives’. The extent to which certain people do get involved in this way (and others are excluded, either by intention or default), will form part of the subject matter of Chapter 4. The particular objectives that are set, and strategies pursued, will be examined in Chapters 2 and 3. All these matters will also be addressed in the case studies which follow in Chapters 5 to 8.

OUTLINE OF THE BOOK

The book is divided into three parts. The first part consists of an overview of previous empirical findings on new technology objectives, along with a discussion of some key issues raised in this area (Chapter 2); an analysis of managerial strategies in relation to new technology and cognate organizational matters, along with the derivation and presentation of a model of the stages of new technology adoption (Chapter 3); and an examination of who gets involved in new technology adoption, in what respects, and of the external and internal (within the organization) contexts of adoption, with particular reference to the latter’s relevance for the nature and quality of employee involvement. Involvement through trade unions, consultation, and job design are particular areas of focus in this chapter.

The second part consists of four case studies of new technology adoption. Two of these are of the adoption of branch office ‘online’ terminal systems, linked to the head offices of these two building societies. This, then, provided an opportunity to look at the application of new technology in services, along with a consideration of IT applications. The other two case studies w...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• 1. Introduction
• Part One Adopting New Technology
• 2. New Technology Objectives
• 3. Adopting New Technology – Managerial Strategies
• 4. Adopting New Technology – Involvement and Contexts
• Part Two: Case Studies
• 5. Bramley Building Society
• 6. Park Hill Building Society
• 7. Don Ltd
• 8. Meadows & Butler
• Part Three: Conclusion
• 9. Conclusion
• Appendices
• Bibliography
• Index