Jacques Ellul, Norbert Weiner, and Marshall McLuhan have pointed out the revolutionary impact of the electronic technology on man and his society. This article explores the validity of their observations and extends their ideas for an examination of the impact of the new technology on the organization and the individual.
The author predicts that the electronic technology's reorientation of individual motivation, as seen in the current college group's move toward social involvement, will result in an “anti-specialist” with major implications to present organization structures and goals.
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References
1.
McLuhanM.FioreQ., The Medium is the Massage (New York: Bantam Books, 1967); and McLuhan, Understanding Media (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co., Inc., 1964).
2.
WienerNorbert, The Human Use of Human Beings (New York: Doubleday and Co., 1954).
3.
EllulJacques, The Technological Society (New York: Knopf, 1964).
4.
Ibid., p. 95.
5.
WilkinsonJohn, “Futuribles: Innovation vs. Stability,”Center Diary 17, March-April 1967.
6.
Wiener, p. 96 and 95, respectively.
7.
Ellul, p. 11.
8.
Wiener, p. 91.
9.
McLuhan, Understanding Media, p. 156.
10.
Ellul, p. 21.
11.
Ibid., p. 275.
12.
McLuhan, Understanding Media, p. 118.
13.
BloyMyron B.Jr., “The Christian Norm,” in Technology and Human Values, An Occasional Paper on the Free Society (Santa Barbara, Calif.: Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions, 1966).
14.
RoszakT., “Forbidden Games,” in ibid.
15.
McLuhan, Understanding Media, p. 215.
16.
Ibid., p. 292.
17.
Ibid., p. 311.
18.
ArgyrisChris, Personality and Organization (New York: Harper and Row, 1957), p. 229.
19.
SmithAdam, The Wealth of Nations, ed. MazlishBruce (New York: Bobbs-Merrill Co., 1961).
20.
LichtmanRichard, “The University: Mask for Privilege,”The Center Magazine, 1:2 (Jan. 1968), 5–8.
21.
GoodmanPaul, “The University: Mask for Privilege,”ibid., 11–12.
22.
CochranThomas C., The American Business System (New York: Harper & Row, 1957), p. 56.
23.
GalbraithJohn Kenneth, “The Mystery of Henry Ford,”Atlantic Monthly, March 1958, pp. 41–47.
24.
FriedLouis, “Will Success Spoil Your Organization?”Data Processing Magazine, August 1967.
25.
This concept is more fully expressed by W. H. Ferry and others in Students and Society (Santa Barbara, Calif.: Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions, 1967).
26.
CrosslandHugh, “Confessions of a Business Dropout,”Wall Street Journal, Dec. 13, 1967.
27.
LawrencePaul R.LorschJay W., “New Management Job: The Integrator,”Harvard Business Review, Nov.-Dec. 1967.
28.
BassettGlenn A., Management Styles in Transition (New York: American Management Association, 1966), p. 32.
29.
ScottBrian W., Long-Range Planning in American Industry (New York: American Management Association, 1965), p. 173.
30.
“The Conglomerates,”Wall Street Journal, August 12, 1968, pp. 1 and 6.
31.
McLuhan, Understanding Media, p. 306.
32.
Fried, “Psychocybernetics and the Organization,”Data Processing Magazine, Nov. 1966.
