Information Technology and the Sociology of Organizations

From perusing the literature there appears to be a tendency to assess the impact of information technology’s adoption to an organization according to either structural alterations that are engendered by the new resources or by the elevation in the organization’ performance, resulting from the transition to computer based information management. Although the former of these two considerations seems to be a proper mode of inquiry, the latter lacks clarity and definitive sense, since the criteria, which one would assume to consist of the quantifiable dimensions of the organization’s output are left undefined and, indeed, somewhat detached from the ethos that have developed in the organization, which might instantiate reflexive awareness among the members of the entity that does not coincide with the imperatives that an alien sociologist might impose as the teleological properties, which can be used to define the metrics associated with organizational performance.

Case in point, in my younger years I would often work in warehouses, typically as a Teamster, during the summer or periods where money was in short supply. From my experiences, the productivity of the organization, which can be delineated as the warehouse, itself, was not a concern of mine or any of the other employees. We only contributed to a level of output that would prevent punitive actions, taken against the union workers. We certainly did not pay notice to improving the efficiency and performance of warehouse to any extent that exceeded the bare necessities, which we calculated as the minimum level of output that would prevent interdiction by management.

Consequently, there were competing interests embedded in the differing practices of the wage-earners as opposed to the management. Therefore, which organization is a sociologist to render in his or her descriptions resulting from his or her observations; the organization as it is understood and interpreted by management, or the organization as it was conceived within the ethos of the laborers? Further, was the warehouse a single organization or was it a network that instantiated relationships between and among its nodes that calls for a far greater level of analytical sophistication than what is conventionally applied within the context of the practice of organizational theory.

Of course, one could contend that the organization is certainly to be perceived according to the managerial interpretive pattern, since their interests often coincide with the interests of the capitalists who have legal claim to the property and materials. This angle of analysis might lead someone to the adoption of a neo-Marxist organizational theory.

However, what are we to make of social events, such as the Homestead riots, where the workers most definitely considered the steel plant to be a resource belonging to something akin to the commons. Carnegie’s claim to proprietorship was in conflict with the laborers understanding of the plant, who did not see themselves as alienated from the commodities being manufactured nor the modes of production used to produce the commodities. The plant was theirs. It was a extension of the community, and the zeal demonstrated by the Homestead residents who successfully outshot the Pinkerton assassins, who were hired too by Carnegies to seize the plant from the union members.

As a result of these considerations, we must reevaluate the core of organizational theory, and the accuracy of the concepts and patterns of interpretation that are typically deployed by organizational theorists when endeavoring to come to terms with social interactions that are thought to constitute social organizations.

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