Understand the Impact of Technology

Understand the impact of technology

The argument is that technology starts out with a purpose, and this purpose either remains, influencing organizations, or it is subject to change driven by society. However the technologies purpose is is input by the producer, than it could be subject to the producers social characteristic, which are shapes by his socio-politico-economic sphere of environment. The impact that technology has on an organization depends on how the managers wanted to employ that particular technology. Technological determinism means that organizations using technology must adapt to the technology employed. This implies that social, political and economic factors, which technological determinism does not acknowledge, play an important role in influencing what is meant by technologies and how it is used. The social influences on the nature of technology are that given an art fact, relevant social groups, which use the art fact, are identified. The one technology can have different art facts use by different social groups; this is the concept of interpretative flexibility. Some social groups have more influence over how the technology is further developed, and the different art facts, can converge to a dominant design through the process of closure. External factors such as advertizing and the entrance of new social groups to support a dominant art fact. It is difficult to say whether a technology was designed with political intent, because in retrospect, the consequences of technology have already occurred, and academic interpretation of these consequences ex post is different from expected consequences ex ante. Many ways in which technology can be used are explained by the interpretative action view. The use of technology can be subject to interpretation, and not just the design. Technological impact on organizations depends on how the organization chooses to interpret the technology. The interpretative flexibility is still shaped by society. The technological and social determinist views appeal to be mutually exclusive; however, they can be linked in the following way. Technology, when first introduced, will have a set of characteristic on how it supposed to be used. Then, as organizations become accustomed to using it, they can accept, reject, and/or modify these characteristics. So the socially constructivist view follows technological determinism. Technology is then developed for a purpose,