Can Technology Replace Managers?

120 Part One Organizations, Management, and the Networked Enterprise

Understanding Organizational Resistance to Change Information systems inevitably become bound up in organizational politics because they influence access to a key resource—namely, information. Infor- mation systems can affect who does what to whom, when, where, and how in an organization. Many new information systems require changes in personal, individual routines that can be painful for those involved and require retraining and additional effort that may or may not be compensated. Because informa- tion systems potentially change an organization’s structure, culture, business processes, and strategy, there is often considerable resistance to them when they are introduced.

There are several ways to visualize organizational resistance. Research on organizational resistance to innovation suggests that four factors are para- mount: the nature of the IT innovation, the organization’s structure, the culture of people in the organization, and the tasks affected by the innovation (see Figure 3. 7 ). Here, changes in technology are absorbed, interpreted, deflected, and defeated by organizational task arrangements, structures, and people. In this model, the only way to bring about change is to change the technology, tasks, structure, and people simultaneously. Other authors have spoken about the need to “unfreeze” organizations before introducing an innovation, quickly implementing it, and “refreezing” or institutionalizing the change ( Kolb and Frohman, 1970 ).

Because organizational resistance to change is so powerful, many informa- tion technology investments flounder and do not increase productivity. Indeed, research on project implementation failures demonstrates that the most com- mon reason for failure of large projects to reach their objectives is not the

Questions about which subjects to teach would spark much analysis and chatter but resulted in few answers or plans. Michael Watson, who headed Treehouse finance and operations, estimated that decisions about matters such as Treehouse’s website design took twice as long as they should have.

Treehouse partially reversed course in the spring of 2015. Employees still work four-day weeks, but they now have managers. Since that change was made, revenue has increased along with the number of minutes of video courses the company produces. The time required for customer support employ- ees to respond to students who have questions has dropped to three and a half hours from seven

from a traditional bureaucracy to a flatter organization?

4. Can technology replace managers? Explain your answer.

hours. With roles now clearly defined and managers tracking assignments, e-mail is actually enhancing productivity.

According to Quy Huy, professor of strategy at the Singapore campus of the prestigious graduate busi- ness school Insead, middle managers are often vili- fied as symptoms of corporate bloat, but things fall apart without them. Sources: David Gelles, “The Zappos Exodus Continues After a Radical Management Experiment,” New York Times , January 13, 2016; Bour- ree Lam, “Why Are So Many Zappos Employees Leaving?” The Atlan- tic , January 15, 2016; Christopher Mims, “Data Is the New Middle Manager,” Wall Street Journal , April 19, 2015; and Rachel Feintzeig, “Radical Idea at the Office: Middle Managers,” Wall Street Journal , April 18, 2015.

CASE STUDY QUESTIONS

1. How do flat organizations differ from traditional bureaucratic hierarchies?

2. How has information technology made it possible to eliminate middle manager positions?

3. What management, organization, and technology issues would you consider if you wanted to move