International Change and the Social World Essay

In meeting the demands of a orbicular economy, technological advancements especi aloney in the celestial sphere of telecommunications and in pee-peeation technology ar key factors in making realistic various transactions faster, cheaper, more reliable and convenient. Needless to say, these technological advances ar important tools if companies and other business ventures argon to survive in the digital economy.These technological advancements however, are evolving far too fast which consequently fuck off pressing problems that ought to be considered. On a preliminary note, the aforementioned fast technological evolutions pose serious questions if our societal social structures can rapidly oblige to these changes and more importantly, if we, ourselves can rapidly adapt and be able to unify for ourselves these changes.In line with this, what follows is a discussion of how much(prenominal)(prenominal)(prenominal) changes affect the global economy. at bottom this context, th e task of this account is to discuss the effects of puzzle out rendering in orderliness with a particular stress on how it affects the concourse management systems around the realness.Weick and Quinn (1999) contend that changes in the organization of survive at heart societies whitethorn either be characterized as discontinuous and episodic or continuous and emergent (p.361).The difference between the two lies in the emphasis on intentionality, planning, management control, and peculiar(prenominal) outcomes in the former and the emphasis on improvisation, spontaneity, and ongoing action in the latter. The two perspectives stated above eat a direct effect in the formation of an organisational framework. This is another(prenominal) way of saying that the modality in which organisational change is perceived supports an appreciation of the multidimensional nature of organizational phenomena.The organization of phenomena stems from the military personnel ask to conceptually order realism. Such a process is ensured through the associationableness or adoption of a language that may account for the reality perceived by the individual or by the social group. The splendor of much(prenominal) a process stems from its issuance of a fixed and thereby more manageable reality.Such a reality, however, is continuously distorted due to the steady input of refreshing forms of conceptualizations that in any case opt to enable the manageability of reality. Such a process is apparent in spite of appearance the business field in the gradual slip of paper from an learning-establish economy to a familiarity-based economy.The later form of economy recognizes that knowledge occupies a focal point in coincidence to the function of society. As a outcome of this, organizations became increasingly aware of the impoverishment for a knowledge focus in their organizational strategies as they act to changes in their environment. Knowledge focus refers to the deobj ectifcation of knowledge in favour of the computer code of knowledge into systems (Bell, 1999, p.x).Within such an economy, organizational actors and the complex social interactions that nominate place amongst them recreate organizations through the continuous process of change. According to Tsoukas and Vladimirou (2001), what makes knowledge organizational is it codification in the form of propositional statements stage at heart a groups collective understanding (p.974). It is important to note that such a process of knowledge codification requires the existence of local knowledge. Within an organization, such forms of local knowledge are homely in the high societys culture the development of such is dependent upon the existing organizational framework.Such a point brings to focus one of the main elements of the travail grocery store that determines the existing workforces productivity and performance within a particular society. The causal agency for such a focus is evid ent if one considers that the current shift in economy from an information based economy to a knowledge-based economy gives precedence on the manipulation of the members of the workforce in the maintenance of an organizations overall knowledge based culture.In line with this, Davinport (1999) contends that such a culture necessitates a new mode of framing the pitying chapiter. According to Davinport, it is time to conceive of doers not as human bully but as human capital owners and investors (1999, p.7). Davinport argues that such a plan is not entirely new since it echoes the humor of the employee as an asset.The difference of such a view stems from the conception of the worker as the owner of the capital since workers are the ones who decide in which field they will contribute the specific talents and expertise they possess within the current market. The organizations role thereby is fixed to the extent that its main role lies in utilizing and ontogenesis the skills offered by the members of their workforce. Organizations must thereby adopt new working practices or upgrade workplace skills.An example of this is evident in the content of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) of the United nation which states that in a mass customisation environment, where systems of production and distribution are promptly imitated and leapfrogged, organisations must therefore continually invest in physical and human capital to keep ahead of the game(2001, p.10).As a result of the above stated substitution classatic shift from an information-based economy to a knowledge based economy certain developments occurred within the frugal, political, and technological fields. Such developments are evident in the adjoin in business competition and the sexual climax of information technologies (Weatherly, 2003, p.2).Political and economic developments are evident in the increase in business competition which is a result of the globalization of get by and key economic sectors e.g. telecommunication, electricity, transportation, financial services. Technological developments, on the other hand, are evident in the advent of information technology which can exceed be seen through the continuous popularity and easy accessibility of the internet.According to Lev (2001), such developments within the above stated fields dedicate dramatically changed the structure of organizations to the extent that intangibles human capital became the major value drivers of business within developed economies (p.8-14). The reason for this is evident if one considers that from a strategic perspective it has been noted that in full one-third of the information used to justify the investment decision is non-financial (Ernst & Young, 1997, p.10).Examples of such factors are quality of management, effectiveness of new product development, strength of market position, strength of corporation culture, and effectiveness of compensations policies (Weatherly, 2003, p.4). Such factors have an overall contact to business systems since they are partially if not fully determined by the companys culture maintained by its overall organizational framework. Furthermore, since the above stated factors are considered in the determination of investment decisions, it also follows that they have a direct effect in terms of the economic conditions of a business organizations and hence the economic side of society as a whole.As was stated above, one of the defining factors of the current paradigm shift within the market can be traced from the shift of grandness from the tangible assets to the intangible assets.Tangible assets consists of financial assets financial capital and physical assets e.g. property, equipment, and other furnishing whereas intangible assets consists of intellectual capital e.g. patent formulas and product designs and human capital. The focus of this paper from the onset has been to lay down the current transformations of work i n the tip of globalization. What follows is the specification of how these changes have affected society at large.In Work, Self, and rescript, Catherine Casey specifies the manner in which changes in work have affected society. Casey (1995) argues that the current conception of work which is defined by the effects of industrial enterprise has turned the worker into a product or a commodity of the market. She states,The convergence of work and virtue (through methodical adherence to ones calling)set in place a character reference of citizen-worker that would subsequently come to stand for modern forms of social organization. In modern society people have defined themselves and in turn have been socially defined, by the type of work that they do in the public sphere. (1995, p.28)In other words, the results of industrialization have led to the commodification of the individual as the individual derives his value from his work. The manner in which this is enabled is further eviden t in the current shift from an information based economy to a knowledge based economy as the value of the worker is considered to be dependent upon his knowledge. This shows how the nature of work within a post-industrial society has changed to the extent that the market has become dependent upon the amiable labour and the mental knowledge of the worker mental labour is considered to be the onus of industrial activity (Lawson, Jones, & Moores, 2000, p.99).To a certain extent, one might note that this may prove to be beneficial for individual societies since the aforementioned paradigm shift has enabled the development of regional specialties and economies. Sabel (1999) states that the changes in the work paradigm within the post-industrial society has led to the development and growth of twentieth century variants of industrial districts in Italy, West Germany, Japan, Denmark, Austria, France, and the United States (p. 243).Such an assumption however may be considered as the resul t of a form of hasty generalization since although such developments have enabled organizations around to world to place greater focus upon the members of the workforce as well as upon the development of industrial districts around the world the development of such is expected to pave the way for the industrialization of all countries and hence the development of these countries such developments still place the worker in a disadvantaged position as he remains to be a commodity within the market whose value is dependent upon what the work system prescribes.ReferencesBell, D. (1999). The Axial Age of Technology, Foreword. The Coming of the Postindustrial Society. New York basil Book.Casey, C. (1995). Work, Self, and Society After Industrialism. London Routledge.Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, 2001. aggrandisement U.K. Productivity why People Management Matters.Davenport, T. (1999). Human Capital What It Is and Why People Invest. San Francisco Doubleday.Ernst & You ng LLP. (1997). Measures that matter. Retrieved March 22, 2009 from www.cbi.cgey.com.Lawson, T., M. Jones, & R. Moores. (2000). Advanced Sociology Through Diagrams. Oxford Oxford U.P.Lev, B. (2001). Intangibles Management, measurement and reporting. Washington, DC Brookings Inst. P.Sabel, C. (1999). Flexible Specialisation and the Re-emergence of Regional Economies. Modernity Critical Concepts Ed. M. Waters. London Taylor & Francis.Tsoukas, H. & Vladimirou, E. (2001). What is organizational knowledge? Journal of Management Studies, vol. 38, no.7. 973-93Weatherly, L. (2003). Human capital-the elusive asset quantity and managing human capital A strategic imperative for HR. Research Quarterly, Society for Human Resource Management.Weick, C. & Quinn, R. (1999). Organizational change and development. Annual Review of Psychology, vol. 50 361-386.