Organizational Consequences of the Use of EDP — How to Design Information Technology

Abstract

The discussion about the technological progress is increasingly held in a critical manner. Expecially the broad expansion of information technologies has caused impacts, which by no means have been approved by all applying or afflicted people. For a long time the analysis of these phenomena was only made by a few, mostly interdisciplinary research groups. In the meantime the necessity of work in this field has been reflected in research policy. The so- called impact research in the field of information technologies was officially initiated in different European countries. Here we mention the German study [17], French studies (see [6], [16]) and a British study [2]. All these studies are surveys and attempts to show potential future developments and their risks in a prospective and theoretical way. In the Federal Republic of Germany these studies had some predecessors which dealt empirically with the impacts of EDP use in organizations. Here we have to mention the important work of Kubicek (see [13], [14]), which helped to reintegrate the human requirements and interests into the science of organizations and industrial management. The Research Group on Automation in Public Administration in Kassel (see [10], [15]) has analysed strategies and mechanisms of impacts of automation in public administrations.