The heads under which the impact of technology can be discussed are as follows:
1) Technology and Society:
Perhaps the most striking influence of technology is found on society. Practically every area of social life and the life of every individual has been, in some sense or the other, changed by the developments in technology.
i) High Expectations of Consumers:
Technology has contributed to the emergence of affluent societies. Affluent citizens want more of many things than more of same things. New varieties of products, superior in quality, free from pollution, safer, and more comfortable, are produced and supplied to the affluent sections. This calls for substantial investments in R&D. One important compulsion for investing in technological advances in Japan is its customer’s high expectations regarding design sophistication, quality, delivery schedules, and prices.
ii) System Complexity:
Technology has resulted in complexity. Modern machines work better and faster no doubt. But if they fail they need the services of experts for repair. They fail often because of their complexity. A machine or a system is composed of several hundred components. All parts must work in tandem to accomplish a desired task. Reliable performance of each part therefore assumes greater significance.
Also there is interdependence of systems. Failure of power supply, for example, will cause dry water taps, closed petrol bunks, suspended elevators between floors, dark streets, dark houses, no television and radio broadcasts, closed retail establishments, and so on. A localized problem in a power house balloons into regional problem affecting thousands of people.
iii) Social Change:
The role of technology on social change may be observed in more than one way.
a) There is the change in social life, which results from a change in a technological process. Thus an invention may destroy the economic basis of a city, displace thousands of workers, yet the same invention may result in the creation of a new city somewhere else and create even more jobs than it originally destroyed.
b) Besides uprooting population, technology directly changes the patterns of their social life, for instance the family, the sensitive recorder of all types of change, alters with technological development. An invention may open new employment opportunities to women, radically change hours spent at work and in the family, increase available leisure time, open jobs to youth, and deny them to middle- aged or old workers.
c) Though social differences tend to be ironed out, status differences are likely to be created by technological advancement in developing countries. Technology flows to less developed countries mainly through multinational companies. With vast resources at their command, multinational corporations have carved out places and images for themselves distinct from local companies.
d) The way we cook, communicate, use media and work are affected by technology. Even the language we use is changing, terms that until recently were not even part of our lexicon such as superconductivity, computer engineering, robotics, unmanned factories, miracle drugs, space communications lasers, fiber optics, satellite networks, e- business and electronic funds transfer have become common place. New terms continue to emerge as new products are introduced or improved – always with the anticipation that there will be a newer, faster, and better innovation in the market any day.
Concepts like house-husband, surrogate mother, and domestic partner all represent changes in society.
2) Economic Effects of Technology:
Developments in technology also have significant economic implications,
i) Increased Productivity:
The most fundamental effect of technology is greater productivity in terms of both quality and quantity. This is the main reason why technology at all levels is adopted. In a hospital the objective may be qualitative, such as maintaining life with electronic monitoring equipment regardless of costs. In a factory, the objective may be quantitative in terms of more production at less cost.
ii) Need to Spend on R&D:
Research and Development (R&D) assumes considerable relevance in organisations as technology advances. In this context, firms are required to consider, decide and take action on atleast six issues.
a) The allocation of resources to R&D.
b) Technology transfer, the process of taking new technology from the laboratory to the market place is equally important.
c) Time factor is important in R&D.
d) As new technology comes in, the old technology needs to be abandoned.
e) The firm must also decide on its own R&D or to outsource technology, and
f) The final issue relates to the decision on product innovation or process innovations.
iii) Jobs tend to become more Intellectual and Knowledge- oriented:
With the advent of technology, jobs tend to become more intellectual or upgraded. A job hitherto handled by an illiterate and unskilled worker now requires the services of an educated and competent worker. A clerical post in an office now demands the services of an expert in computers.
iv) Problem of Techno Structure:
Not only jobs become more intellectual and knowledge-oriented, even the incumbents tend to become highly professional and knowledgeable. An organisation that has adopted the latest technology is flush with scientists, engineers, MBA’s, college graduates, and knowledge workers as teammates. Though such an organisation can boast of a progressive and modem outlook of its personnel complement, the problems such an enterprise has to face on this account are serious, to say the least.
a) Motivation of such employees, for instance, is a difficult task. Such mundane incentives as attractive remuneration, job security, and just treatment, hardly inspire the enlightened employees to, work more. They are instead motivated by opportunities which offer challenges or growth or achievement.
b) Secondly, retaining such employees for long is a difficult job.
c) Thirdly, constitute, what Galbraith calls, the techno structure of a modem organisation. The techno structure tries to control the organisation through influencing management’s decision-making. While there may be nothing wrong in making decisions prompted by the techno structure, the problem lies in the social effect that is involved.
d) People constituting techno structure are experts, no doubt. But they are more action-oriented and are yet to learn social problems of business decisions.
v) Increased Regulation and Stiff Opposition:
A by-product of technological advancement is the ever-increasing regulation imposed on business by the government of the land and stiff opposition from the public. The host government has the powers to investigate and ban products that are directly harmful or hurt the sentiments of a section of society. Import of animal tallow has been banned by the Government of India because the alleged mixture of tallow with vanaspati oil hurt the feelings of Hindus.
vi) Rise and Decline of Products and Organisations:
Change of technology, therefore, is a norm and not an exception. This poses another problem to business. A new technology may spawn a major industry but it may also destroy an existing, one. Transistors, for example, hurt the vacuum-tube industry and xerography hurt the carbon-paper business.
3) Technology and Plant Level Changes:
The impact of technology at the plant level is also significant.
i) Technology and Organisation Structure:
Technology has considerable influence on organisation structure, length of the line of command, and span of control of the chief executive. Where companies use technology, which is fast changing, matrix structures are more common. Some companies use a matrix even though the rate of technological change is not fast. Besides technology, other factors that have their influence on organisation structure are history and background of a company and the personalities of the people who founded the firm and managed it subsequently, but the impact of technology is considerable.
ii) Fear of Risk:
There is always the fear of risk. A research- oriented company like DuPont, which was responsible for adding totally new dimensions to the textile industry with its introduction of synthetic fibres beginning in 1939, was unable to manage technology without great risks and some subsequent failures.
iii) Resistance to Change:
The manager of a given business unit shall face resistance to change. New -technology poses new problems which may not be to the liking of the organizational men. The resistance to change is often psychological.