The Impact Of Information Technology On Organisational Behaviour: An Essay.

Role of Information Technology in Supporting Managers

Since the beginning of the early 20^th century, the world has been facing a revolution due to the expansion of technology. However, the global competition is increasing the volatility of the market while limiting the products and services lifecycle. In order to encounter these growing challenges, the management authority of the organisation has laid an increased focus on the role of information technology.

Information technology has emerged from the initial phase of the automatic back office accounting functions and data producer in the assisting management decisions. These processes were fixed inside modern complex structures that consist of numerous application and databases channels. Therefore, in a private business organisation, IT grew consistently. Based on the role of information technology the literature review is based on the impact that IT operations has on the business performance and organisational behaviour.

Information technology refers to the activities and operation associated with the computation of technology like networking, hardware, software use of internet and technological tools used in the organisation. As stated by Tarhini et al. (2015), IT has been illustrated as the hardware, software, management of database and information related technologies that are generally used for storing, processing and delivering information.

Tarhini et al. (2015) stated that information technology functions are used to support the managers of the organisation while helping them to provide direct control over the business processes and employees. On the contrary, Shaikh and Karjaluoto (2015) stated that as the managers may oversee the resources of coordination, it might be difficult for the managers to coordinate with the business functions across various projects. For mitigating these difficulties, IT is one of the major innovation that is frequently adopted by the organisation. 

However, with the growth and change of the organisation, managers and employees are becoming increasingly dependent on information technology. Mishra et al. (2014) states that organisations nowadays implement and apply the use of technology for finding the solution in case of complicated business issues and to enhance management decision-making. Moreover, it helps in improving productivity and quality of the organisational culture. Moreover, Binder (2016) asserts that IT is the most powerful weapon that opens up several effective opportunities for the organisations to accomplish their mission and objective in an efficient way.

Organisations today spends more than 50% of the new investments on IT-related operations to enhance their operations, product and services. As stated by Ingebrigtsen (2014) IT has a link between the business model and critical drivers of organisational success. Supporting this, Duffield and Whitty (2015) stated that several organisation have been unsuccessful with their IT-related investment due to the IT aligned business.

Impact of Technology on Organisational Culture and Productivity

For instance, Toyota that has highly flourished its competitive edge by creating well-established business processes and information technology processes that helped them to promote agility, effectiveness and quality. The systems used by them could respond instantly to the customers and the changes occurred in the marketplace while operating closely with the suppliers.

As an effort to supervise the quality, cost and efficiency, the company observed that there was an opportunity to use information technology in enhancing business performance. Not only Toyota, these processes of information technology has helped several organisations to increase customer satisfaction by making it easier for the consumers to buy appropriate products and select options they demanded (Limbu et al. 2014).

Apart from these, the impact of information technology on organisations services and performance has been investigated by several studies. Most of the studies revealed that IT has a vital role in enhancing the quality and quantity of information due to its potential adoption and innovation of processes. However. Different organisation allocated their resources in a different way that helps to expand their objectives and helps to allocate increased resources on IT services to perform better than other firms do.

The major objective of this study is to investigate the nature and impact of technological change on the organisational behaviour. Technological change and establishment is not an innovative phenomenon rather it is a characteristic of human history. This study does not emphasise the industrial revolution but it ensures that the growth of technology has highly influenced the organisation. The fact here is that innovative technology refers to a specific set of changes that have occurred since the period of the 1970's brought down by the establishment of microchips within the organisation. 

According to DeLone and McLean (2016), there is a link between technology and organisation that was first demonstrated by Joan Woodward in the year 1960’s. This was found based on the research that focused on the production of technology who was first to observe the organisational behaviour from the technological perspective. In this context, Lebek et al. (2014) found that with the increase of complicated technology, there are number of management levels and employees that increased.

Figure 1: Impact of information technology on employee performance

(Source: Duffield and Whitty 2015)

On the contrary, Maiga et al. (2014) stated that the relationship between individuals and technology has been identified long ago, but the impact of information technology on organisational behaviour has become increasingly apparent in the current period. As stated by Wamba et al. (2017) information technology can be used to broaden the manager’s span of control. The hierarchical structure of the organisation comprises of social structures that are usually based on domination and control through programs, and objectives.

Challenges Faced by Organisations in Adopting Technology

Therefore, an organisation that tends to use computer-based information technology has the capability to eliminate middle management thereby helping them to broaden the span of control by increasing flow of communication across the various department. Prasanna and Huggins (2016) argued in this context stating that these may as well make an organisation more complicated and decentralised in formation. Alongside these complicated issues, it has been found that 25% of the employees feel more committed after implementing information technology, 20% of them feels they are motivated to work with increasing levels of flexibility and opportunity.

Figure 2: Impact of information technology on organisational productivity

(Source: Prasanna and Huggins 2016)

However, development of information technology is not just confined to computing and electronics.  From all technological changes that are seen within the organisations, information technology is the most accepted and richest one in all organisation. Therefore, it is not possible to cover the entire field of the use. However, present-day use of information technology falls under two major categories; the first one is technology associated with manufacturing and technology associated with administration. As a terminology, information technology is widely used in all types of computer including hardware, software, telecommunication operation and official requirement.

The current managers working within the organisation have the responsibility to introduce and incorporate innovative techniques and skills to manage the employees for obtaining high proficiency. Moreover, the employees as well need to be supported in bringing change in the growth of career and working style. Therefore, changes are needed to be made simple and easy for bringing success amongst everyone.

However, Maiga et al. (2014) stated that research in this context reported that there are several organisational as well as technological factors that restrict the adoption and use of information technology in an organisation.  According to DeLone and McLean (2016), there is evidence on several aspects like the size of the organisation, resources, management support and innovation that tend to affect the adoption of technology.

Figure 3: Challenges faced by the organisation while adopting information technology

(Source: DeLone and McLean 2016)

Apart from these issues, the change taking place due to the implementation of technology within the organisation is not only related to financial challenges but there are also several political and cultural challenges faced by the organisation. However, most of the challenges are faced by the organisation due to the insufficiency of financial resource and incompetent staffs that may as well suppress the growth of technological innovation.

The Need for a Sustainable Organisational Culture

Therefore, it is necessary for the organisational to welcome technology in an enthusiastic way for building a sustainable organisational culture. Duffield and Whitty, (2015) states that before the society finds a suitable solution to deal with social factors with greater speed. The concerned authorities of the organisation need to act vigilant and need to employ changes in their way of working with the growth of information technology. All these issues can be easily resolved by carrying out regular meeting and interdepartmental consultation with the employees. Moreover, the management needs to take care of the future growth of the employees and should provide them with the best facilities such as training and other courses during their job interval so that they can become compatible with technological changes.

Conclusion

Therefore, it is evident from the above review of literature that cultural gap is the major barriers in between IT and organisational performance. However, it is the concerns of the organisation to manage and introduce communication policy about the upcoming technological changes taking place within the system. Otherwise, all the system are likely to be influenced, therefore, concerns are needed to be kept from the initial stage. 

Apart from these issues, it is significant from the study that informational technology has and potential influence on the structure of the complicated organisational operations, management and operation of the organisations, communication processes and performance of the employees.

Most of the organisation are characterised by bureaucracy and hierarchical system of management. Therefore, with the growing complexity within the organisation, it is more important to adopt efficient technological communication. However, in the conclusion, it has been identified that the issues have not been researched sufficiently. Therefore, it is necessary for conducting more in-depth studies for examining the cultural and structural factors that inhibit the implementation of information technology within a specific context. Research that will be conducted in the future need to evaluate the role of information technology in changing the structure and behaviour of the organisation.

Reference

Binder, J., 2016. Global project management: communication, collaboration and management across borders. Abingdon: Routledge.

DeLone, W.H. and McLean, E.R., 2016. Information systems success measurement. Foundations and Trends® in Information Systems, 2(1), pp.1-116.

Duffield, S. and Whitty, S.J., 2015. Developing systemic lessons learned knowledge model for organisational learning through projects. International journal of project management, 33(2), pp.311-324.

Ingebrigtsen, T., Georgiou, A., Clay-Williams, R., Magrabi, F., Hordern, A., Prgomet, M., Li, J., Westbrook, J. and Braithwaite, J., 2014. The impact of clinical leadership on health information technology adoption: Systematic review. International journal of medical informatics, 83(6), pp.393-405.

Lebek, B., Uffen, J., Neumann, M., Hohler, B. and H. Breitner, M., 2014. Information security awareness and behaviour: a theory-based literature review. Management Research Review, 37(12), pp.1049-1092.

Limbu, Y.B., Jayachandran, C. and Babin, B.J., 2014. Does information and communication technology improve job satisfaction? The moderating role of sales technology orientation. Industrial Marketing Management, 43(7), pp.1236-1245.

Maiga, A.S., Nilsson, A. and Jacobs, F.A., 2014. Assessing the interaction effect of cost control systems and information technology integration on manufacturing plant financial performance. The British Accounting Review, 46(1), pp.77-90.

Mishra, D., Akman, I. and Mishra, A., 2014. Theory of reasoned action application for green information technology acceptance. Computers in human behaviour, 36, pp.29-40.

Prasanna, R. and Huggins, T.J., 2016. Factors affecting the acceptance of information systems supporting emergency operations centres. Computers in Human Behavior, 57, pp.168-181.

Shaikh, A.A. and Karjaluoto, H., 2015. Making the most of information technology & systems usage: A literature review, framework and future research agenda. Computers in Human Behavior, 49, pp.541-566.

Tarhini, A., Arachchilage, N.A.G. and Abbasi, M.S., 2015. A critical review of theories and models of technology adoption and acceptance in information system research. International Journal of Technology Diffusion (IJTD), 6(4), pp.58-77.

Tarhini, A., Hone, K. and Liu, X., 2015. A cross?cultural examination of the impact of social, organisational and individual factors on educational technology acceptance between B British and L Lebanese university students. British Journal of Educational Technology, 46(4), pp.739-755.

Wamba, S.F., Gunasekaran, A., Akter, S., Ren, S.J.F., Dubey, R. and Childe, S.J., 2017. Big data analytics and firm performance: Effects of dynamic capabilities. Journal of Business Research, 70, pp.356-365.