The scientific origin of information technology (IT) does not make it a neutral witness to the ongoing struggle over how scarce resources are used for generating more wealth. This paper argues that the manner in which the technology is used for capturing, reporting and disseminating information reflects the underlying dialectic of control among competing organizational stakeholders as they contest the logic of capitalist priorities. IT's politically intrusive role in the struggle for control is discussed through a critique of a people-oriented information system methodology, Multiview 2, which fails to problematize the struggle over workplace ideology. The paper highlights the significance of this shortcoming by analysing capital's ideological use of business process re-engineering for gaining workers’ consent to their own exploitation. This 1990s’ innovation portrays the subjugation of social interests in favour of the relentless pursuit of profit as a coherent social approach to transforming labour relations. In conclusion, it is proposed that IT's social role should be an emancipatory one, which, given the competitive-interdependent context of work, should facilitate the emergence of multiple worldviews.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
AlthusserL. (1970). For Marx. Brewster, B. (trans.) (Oxford University Press, New York).
2.
ArnoldP. (1999). From the union hall: a labour critique of the new manufacturing and accounting regimes. Critical Perspectives on Accounting, 10, 399–423.
3.
AronowitzS. (1978). Marx, Braverman, and the logic of capital. Insurgent Sociologist, 8(2), 126–46.
4.
Arthur Andersen & Co. (1994). Customer Satisfaction Strategies and Tactics (Arthur Andersen, Chicago).
5.
AvisonD., and Wood-HarperA. (1990). Multiview: An Exploration in Information Systems Development (Blackwell, Oxford).
6.
AvisonD., Wood-HarperA., VidgenR., and WoodJ. (1998). A further exploration into information systems development: the evolution of Multiview 2. Information Technology and People, 11(2), 124–39.
7.
BarnardC. (1968). The Functions of the Executive (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA).
8.
BergerP., and LuckmannT. (1966). The Social Construction of Reality (Doubleday, New York).
9.
BerleA., and MeansG. (1967). The Modern Corporation and Private Property (Harcourt, Brace and World Inc., New York).
10.
BravermanH. (1974). Labor and Monopoly Capital: The Degradation of Work in the Twentieth Century (Monthly Review Press, New York).
11.
BurawoyM. (1985). The Politics of Production (Verso, London).
12.
CCTA (1990). SSADM Version 4 Reference Manual (NCC, Blackwell, Oxford).
13.
ChecklandP. (1981). Systems Thinking, Systems Practice (Wiley, Chichester).
14.
CrozierM., and FriedbergE. (1980). Actors and Systems: The Politics of Collective Action Goldhammer, A. (trans.) (University of Chicago Press, Chicago).
15.
DaftR., and LengelR. (1986). Organizational information requirements, media richness and structural design. Management Science, 32(5), 554–71.
16.
Du GayP., and SalamanG. (1992). The cult(ure) of the customer. Journal of Management Studies, 29(5), 615–33.
17.
EdwardsR. (1979). Contested Terrain: The Transformation of the Workplace in the Twentieth Century (Basic Books, New York).
18.
FeenbergA. (1995). Subversive rationalization: technology, power, and democracy. In Technology and the Politics of Knowledge, FeebergA., and HannayA. (eds) (Indiana University Press, Bloomington), pp. 3–22.
19.
FriedmanA. (1977). Industry and Labour: Class Struggle at Work and Monopoly Capitalism (Macmillan, London).
20.
GiddensA. (1991). Modernity and Self-identity (Polity, Cambridge).
21.
GouldnerA. (1976). The Dialectic of Ideology and Technology. The Origins, Grammar, and Future of Ideology (Macmillan, London).
22.
GramsciA. (1971). Americanism and Fordism. In Selections from Prison Notebooks, HoareQ., and SmithG. (eds) (International Publishers, New York).
23.
GranovetterM. (1985). Economic action and social structure: the problem of embeddedness. American Journal of Sociology, 91(3), 481–510.
24.
GrintK., CaseP., and WillcocksL. (1996). Business process reengineering reappraised: the politics and technology of forgetting. In Information Technology and Changes in Organizational Work, OrlikowskiW., WalshamG., JonesM., and DeGrossJ. (eds) (Chapman & Hall, London), pp. 39–61.
25.
HallS. (1982). The rediscovery of ‘ideology’: return of the repressed in media studies. In Culture, Society, and the Media, GurevitchM., BennettT., CurranJ., and WoollacottJ. (eds) (Methuen and Co, London), pp. 56–90.
26.
HallS. (1988). The toad in the garden: Thatcherism among the theorists. In Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture, NelsonC., and GrossbergL. (eds) (Macmillan, Houndsmill), pp. 35–57.
27.
HammerM., and ChampyJ. (1993). Reengineering the Corporation: A Manifesto for Business Revolution (Nicholas Brealey, London).
28.
HitchensC. (2000). A few kind words in closing. Lecture given at the Royal Festival Hall, London, BBC programme broadcast onSounding the Century, Radio Eye, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, March 11.
29.
IttnerC., and LarckerD. (1998). Innovations in performance measurement: trends and research implications. In Sixth Biennial Management Accounting Research Conference, University of New South Wales, Sydney, September.
30.
JonesM. (1999). Structuration theory. In Rethinking Management Information Systems, CurrieW., and GalliersB. (eds) (Oxford University Press, Oxford), pp. 103–35.
31.
KundaG. (1992). Engineering Culture: Control and Commitment in a High-tech Corporation (Temple University Press, Philadelphia).
32.
LinstoneH.A. (1989). Multiple perspectives: concept, applications, and user guidelines. Systems Practice, 2(3), 307–31.
33.
MansellR. (ed.) (1994). Management of Information and Communication Technologies. Emerging Patterns of Control (Aslib, London), pp. 1–6.
34.
MarchJ., and SimonH. (1993). Organizations (Blackwell, MA).
35.
MillerP., and O'LearyT. (1993). Accounting expertise and the politics of the product: economic citizenship and modes of corporate governance. Accounting, Organizations and Society, 18(2/3), 187–206.
36.
MitroffI., and LinstoneH. (1993). The Unbounded Mind: Breaking the Chains of Traditional Business Thinking (Oxford University Press, New York).
37.
MumfordE. (1995). Effective Systems Design and Requirements Analysis: The ETHICS Approach to Computer Systems Design (Macmillan, London).
38.
NgwenyamaO., and LeeA. (1997). Communication richness in electronic mail: critical social theory and the contextuality of meaning. MIS Quarterly, 21(2), 145–67.
39.
NygaardK. (1996). ‘Those were the days'? or ‘Heroic times are here again'?Scandinavian Journal of Information S ystems.
40.
SaravanamuthuK., and TinkerT. (In press) The politics of managing: the dialectic of control. Accounting, Organizations and Society.
41.
SaulJ. (1997). The Unconscious Civilisation (Penguin, Sydney, Australia).
42.
SimonH. (1976). Administrative Behavior: A Study of Decision-making Processes in Administrative Organization (Free Press, New York).
43.
TaylorA.III (1995). The hidden costs that drive up the price of your car. Fortune, 4 September.
44.
TinkerT. (1985). Paper Prophets: A Social Critique of Accounting (Praeger Publishers, New York).
45.
TinkerT. (1988). Panglossian accounting theories: the science of apologising in style. Accounting, Organizations and Society, 12(2), 165–89.
46.
TinkerT. (1991). The accountant as partisan. Accounting, Organizations and Society, 16(3), 297–310.
47.
TinkerT. (1998). Was Mickey Mouse a Marxist? In Second Asia Pacific Interdisciplinary Research in Accounting, Osaka, August.
48.
VidgenR., and McMasterT. (1996). Black boxes, non-human stakeholders and the translation of IT through mediation. In Information Technology and Changes in Organizational Work, OrlikowskiW., WalshamG., JonesM., and DeGrossJ. (eds) (Chapman & Hall, London), pp. 250–71.
49.
WillmottH., and Wray-BlissE. (1996). Process reengineering, information technology and the transformation of accountability: the remaindering of the human resource? In Information Technology and Changes in Organizational Work, OrlikowskiW., WalshamG., JonesM., and DeGrossJ. (eds) (Chapman & Hall, London), pp. 62–88.
50.
Wood-HarperA.T., CorderS., WoodJ.R.G., and WatsonH. (1996). How we profess: the ethical systems analyst. Communications of the ACM, 39(3), 69–77.
51.
ZuboffS. (1996). The emperor's new information economy. In Information Technology and Changes in Organizational Work, OrlikowskiW., WalshamG., JonesM., and DeGrossJ. (eds) (Chapman & Hall, London), pp. 13–17.
