Influence of IT on organisational behaviour
The Influence of IT on organisational behaviour
Carr (2003) concludes that Information Technology (IT) has become the backbone of commerce and that IT empower companies to serve their customers better. IT can alter the basic nature of an industry (Luftman et al., 1993), and rightly so; IT has forever changed the world that we inhabit. With the use of computers and software, IT has altered how the finance sector operates, how the education system work, how companies conduct their business and how the healthcare sector can help their citizens. Ultimately, IT has been able to help every company and government institute alike to transform their daily operation by turning labour heavy and repetitive burdens into automatic and streamlined tasks that often require little to no human interaction.
The use of IT in healthcare enables citizens, healthcare professionals, authorities and administrators to have access to real-time and relevant information through secure delivery without unnecessary barriers. With the help of online healthcare portals, citizens can schedule appointments with their general practitioner, check their patient journal, look up digital medical information such as X-rays or blood samples. Healthcare professionals can save time spent on paperwork and instead concentrate their valuable time on helping their patients. Authorities, such as Data Protection Agencies will be better equipped to help the healthcare to improve procedures, processes and patient safety. Finally, administrators will have access to data and information that could help them improve the decision-making in everyday operations.
A practical example of an IT implementation that is showing to have a long-term positive consequence is the implementation of one (a single) centralised Electronic Patient Journal (EPJ) for the whole country of the Faroe Islands. While decentralisation may bring flexibility and fast response to changing needs, decentralisation also makes system integration difficult, presents a barrier to standardisation and acts as a disincentive toward achieving economies of scale (DeSanctis & Jackson, 1994). Even though the Faroe Islands is a small country of only fifty thousand people, the country has three hospitals and around hundred general practitioners. With the centralised EPJ system, the healthcare sector has the basics in place to start exchanging digital medical information by integrating with other systems to receive descriptions and answers from a specialist (doctor). These other systems include computerised axial tomography (CAT) scanners, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanners, Laboratory and blood systems and so on.
On an entirely different subject, albeit all the positives social media might bring, one should not ignore the negative effects. Negative effects from social media include addiction and privacy concerns. The social media is comparable to drugs; once addicted it is hard to let to go. Griffiths (2010) mentions a research conducted on 415 medical technologists that Internet Abuse falls into three distinct categories: browsing, non-work-related e-mails and cyberloafing. According to Griffiths (2010), addition is related to Internet abuse and does have an impact on the workplace in regards to the loss of productivity.
To conclude, information technology has spearheaded the digital revolution for some time and is moving companies, consumers and government ever closer to a constant change for globalisation.
References
Carr, N.G. (2003) Why IT Doesn’t Matter Anymore Harvard Business Review. [Online] Available from: http://hbswk.hbs.edu/archive/3520.html (Accessed: 15 January 2016)
Luftman, J.N., Lewis, P.R. & Oldach, S.H. (1993) “Transforming the Enterprise: The alignment of business and information technology strategies.” IBM Systems Journal Vol 32 (1). p. 198
DeSanctis, G. & Jackson, B.M. (1994) “Coordination of information technology management: Team-based structures and computer-based communication systems.” Journal of Management Information Systems Vol 10 (4). p. 85-110.
Alder, I. (2013) How Our Digital Devices Are Affecting Our Personal Relationships [Online] Available from: http://www.wbur.org/2013/01/17/digital-lives-i (Accessed: 1. June 2016)
Griffiths, M.D. (2010) Internet abuse and internet addiction in the workplace. Journal of Workplace Learning, 7, 463-472.