Technology in the workplace: benefits and challenges

Technology in the Workplace

The last thirty years have seen a dramatic transformation of the workplace, because the advent of ubiquitous personal computing and the inter-connectivity offered by the internet has meant that practically every workplace increasingly depends on information and communications technology at every level of its operation. Prior to the 1980s, computers and software were generally designed for specific applications, and were not found outside of a few math and science-intensive industries. However, as technology has become cheaper, computers have become more generalized, while software for nearly any task has been developed. As a result, the technological innovation of the last few decades represents a shift the scale and scope of which has not been seen since the Industrial Revolution (Harpaz, 2005, p. 570). In terms of organizational behavior in the workplace, this increasing reliance on technology presents both a boon and a challenge, because while new software and technology, when implemented well, offers the potential for increased efficiency, precision, and communication, it simultaneously introduces new avenues for inefficiency, waste, and human resources conflicts. By examining case studies regarding the integration of new technologies into a variety of industries alongside more general considerations of technology's influence on organizational behavior, it is possible to identify certain general best practices that will allow organizations to improve the functioning of the workplace while minimizing the risks associated with untested or novel technologies that might otherwise detract from organizational cohesion.

To begin this examination of technology in the workplace, it is necessary to first consider the human element, because all the technology in the world cannot improve an organization if human variability is not first taken into account. This is especially important because of human beings' particular tendency to react and adapt in unexpected ways, such that the most carefully laid plans may be rendered obsolete. In particular, one must consider the role of human emotion and psychology in organizational behavior, because this psychology can frequently run counter to those practices and attitudes most conducive to efficiency and precision. While human psychology has always been a crucial element of organizational behavior research, only recently has the full range of human emotion and experience been considered a necessary topic of study, because previous work tended to ignore the extreme complexity of the human animal in an attempt to easily quantify and categorize workers; even the term "human resources" reflects this trend, because it suggests that individuals can be considered in strictly numerical, concrete terms like any other resource (Rafaeli, 2004, p. 1343). Thus, as Rafaeli (2004) notes:

for organizational students and scholars, the idea of people having emotions -- a psychic and physical reaction subjectively experience and physiologically involving changes that prepare the body for immediate vigorous action -- is confusing and disturbing [because] organizations are about organization, about control. (p. 1343)

Previous considerations of emotion were limited because "in the interest of control, both management and scholars would prefer to tightly delineate the emotions that can enter the work setting;" for example, while "employees have always been allowed to be happy or content," anger or frustration were considered emotions unacceptable in a work environment (Rafaeli, 2004, p. 1344).

However, if one approaches these "negative" emotions from a broader perspective, it becomes clear that rather than undermining control and organizational coherence, they can actually contribute to the overall endeavor. Anger can be a powerful motivator, and frustration is often the seed that germinates into innovation. Furthermore, less dramatic emotions and activities that are frequently viewed as disruptive or harmful can actually be beneficial in the long-term. For example, things as simple as doodling or daydreaming born out of boredom, while frequently viewed as distractions, have actually been shown to stimulate areas of the brain that are important for seemingly unrelated tasks, ultimately increasing efficiency and employee contentment in the long run; perhaps the most frequently cited example of this is Bill Gates' tendency to doodle constantly (Russo, 1998, p. 39). These new insights into human emotion demand an entirely new approach to ostensibly counterproductive behaviors and tendencies, because new technology and practices have demonstrated that what might be counterproductive in excess can actually contribute to productivity in moderation and within a well-organized framework.

The recent recognition of emotion's role in organizational behavior has led to the development of the notion of "emotional labor," meaning "organizational requirements from employees to regulate their emotions in a way that will promote organizational goals," and the idea of emotional labor has serious consequences for the application of technology in the workplace, mainly because this technology has disrupted a number of traditional structures and boundaries (Rafaeli, 2004, p. 1349). Where in the past employees and management could rely on a relatively distinct work/non-work boundary that would help individuals to regulate their emotions according to what was expected inside and outside the workplace, new technology, and particular mobile communications technology, has meant that the traditional physical and temporal boundaries between work and non-work no longer exist (Harpaz, 2005, p. 570).

As a result, individuals increasingly view their work as a more integrated aspect of their overall life, leading to what one might call emotional diffusion, wherein individuals are more willing to bring the full range of their emotions to bear when dealing with workplace issues. For example, the advent of e-mail, instant messaging, and text messaging has broken down traditional communication barriers, allowing for more rapid communication but bringing with it a tendency towards informality and the danger of misinterpretation or miscommunication. This is only one of the examples of the mixed blessings technology brings to the workplace, and by examining case studies from two different industries will allow one to better understand not only the general impact of technology on the workplace, but also the best practices and attitudes to ensure that new technologies contribute to, rather than detract from, ideal organizational behavior.

The first case study comes from 2011, and examined organizational citizenship behavior in the information technology industry itself. Organizational citizenship behavior denotes those behaviors that contribute to the overall functioning of the organization but which are not part of the formalized system of management, and is an increasingly important element of the workplace as new technologies allow individual employees to function more autonomously, and thus outside the usual system of oversight, including reward and punishment. The information technology industry offers the ideal location in which to study the relationship between technology in the workplace and organizational citizenship behavior for two reasons. Firstly, as would be expected, the information technology industry is by nature on the cutting edge of technological integration in the workplace, and secondly, the information technology industry actually has notably lower levels of organizational citizenship behavior than other industries (Moore & Love, 2005, qtd. In Chou & Pearson, 2011, p. 1).

While the 2011 study ostensibly focused on the demographic reasons for this markedly lower interest in organizational citizenship behavior among information technology professionals, it actually revealed a number of important insights into the relationship between organizational behavior and information technology itself. Most important in the context of this study was the finding that better familiarity with "new it related knowledge and skills" did not actually correspond to higher levels of organizational citizenship behavior (Chou & Pearson, 2001, p. 8). One might expect that familiarity and comfort with the most relevant technologies would actually increase communication, loyalty, and cooperation, because individuals would be able to use new technologies in the workplace seamlessly, without having to deal with the frustration and hindrances that frequency come with learning new skills, but in actuality, this familiarity and comfort with new technologies actually correlated with less organizational citizenship behavior.

Although the study does not go into the possible reasons for this correlation (as it was merely an ancillary discovery somewhat unrelated to its core focus), based on the other findings it seems reasonable to presume that familiarity with new technologies and skills, particularly in the information technology industry, actually led individuals to view their own success apart from that of their organization (Chou & Pearson, 2011, p. 8). In other words, the sense of autonomy offered by familiarity with new technologies seems to have discouraged commitment to the organization as a whole, because information technology professionals did not view themselves as dependent on their organization, and thus felt free to leave or else only give their organization the bare minimum required to satisfy formal systems of participation, reward, and punishment. While this phenomenon has only recently been considered in organizational behavior scholarship, anyone who has seen the stereotype of the isolated and ostracized it department in countless movies and television shows will recognize it immediately.

One must be careful when analyzing the results of this study, because at first glance it might appear as if some level of intentional difficulty in adopting new technologies could be beneficial for organizational behavior by forcing employees to become more dependent on the organization (analogous to the planned obsolescence of many technologies that forces consumers to repeatedly upgrade). While this might be a tempting means of reducing turnover, this is a dangerous position to take because it essentially sacrifices efficiency and employee contentment in the name of reducing turnover, and in the long run frustrated, under-skilled employees who nevertheless have been with an organization for a long time are not ideal. Instead, organizations must strike a balance between the autonomy and independence offered by technology in the workplace and the need for employees to have some level of formal and informal commitment to the organization as a whole. Just as seemingly counterproductive activities such as doodling, daydreaming, or, in the information age, surfing the internet, can actually contribute to efficiency by offering employees productive mental stimulation, so too can the autonomy offered by technology contribute to the organization as a whole, so long as that autonomy is framed within the context of organizational behavior.

In order to encourage this autonomy while simultaneously ensuring a cohesive workplace, organizations might be well served by better integrating seemingly disparate departments, in order to better wed employees' individual success to the organization as a whole. While this flies in the face of traditional notions of top-down organizational control, it makes sense when one considers the idea in the context of the organic, unstructured kinds of interactions allowed by information and communications technology. As discussed above, technology in the workplace has opened up space for more frequent and less formal modes of communication, and by encouraging this kind of communication across traditional departmental or managerial boundaries, organizations could encourage more organizational citizenship behavior while still reaping the benefits of more autonomous, proactive individuals. Furthermore, increasing this kind of interdepartmental communication can reduce managerial ambiguity and feelings of isolation, two factors that have been shown to contribute substantially to counterproductive behavior (Yang & Diefendorff, 2009, p. 260).

The second case study under consideration here comes from the financial industry, and examines the relationship between information technology investment and productivity. This study is particularly useful for considering the influence of technology on organizational behavior, because it attempts to directly confront a major problem in organizational behavior scholarship; namely, the notion of the "productivity paradox," meaning cases where information technology investment does not correspond to any noticeable increased in productivity (Andreou & Boone, 2002, p. 248). The study examined financial institutions in the U.S. And abroad, and found that there were no substantial differences in terms of autonomy, workload, organizational commitment, and perceived achievement, even when information technology investment differed wildly (Andreou & Boone, 2002, p. 255).

While at first glance this might appear to fly in the face of this study's argument regarding the potential for technology in the workplace, when considered in the context of the research discussed above, it actually serves to underline the central argument of this study, namely, that the successful integration of technology into the workplace depends upon organizational practices themselves, because technology, like anything else, can be helpful or harmful depending on how it is used. Thus, when the financial industry study argues that "improvements in the work environment (i.e. staff morale, job content expansion, more interesting work) are more related to information quality than to it investment," it is confirming the argument that the potential benefits of technology in the workplace are dependent upon organizations carefully managing the relationship between employee psychology and technological competency rather than merely introducing new technologies themselves (Andreou & Boone,2002, p. 255).