The Mechanics of Technology

The healthcare provider that I work for has 65 locations throughout the country. The work environment is fast paced and high volume. Depending on the area of the country facilities use one of three "platforms" for information processing. Overlaying the various platforms are six or seven software systems for performing additional, required tasks. Each system has separate user id's and passwords that expire at different intervals, while the security system times users out after five minutes of down time. A significant amount of time is spent toggling among systems, and logging in and out of various systems. Integrated technology would streamline the process. Raising these issues to the management at local facilities results in deferring the issue to the company headquarters in Texas.

Information Inflation

Cheney at all, cite the growing value placed on information: "the slickest most futuristic ads...are those touting computers for the office...you have a striking measure of how information has risen in status" (p. 348). To understand why I started thinking about the way that information was gathered and processed prior to computer technology; long hours searching through files, poring over books, sifting through irrelevant data. The expression: "knowledge is power" meant that those who were in posession of the final product were the ones empowered, while those who did the actual work, were likely to be making minimum wage.
The fast and convenient availability of information can be said to have a democratizing effect in that anyone can have instant access to information that was formerly exclusive. In that context it is easy see why the status of information processing has risen in status. The balance of power now seems to have shifted to those who can best evaluate the importance, and manipulate, the wealth of available information.

The Triple Bottom Line

The concept of a triple bottom line encourages organizations to consider: "profits and growth...responsibility to employees...(as well as) its role in the wider community and environment"(p.434). While concern with profit is a familiar perspective for employees of public corporations, the record is decidedly mixed in the area of social responsibility.
Companies that foreground egalitarian social or economic principles at their inception, such as The Body Shop (p. 433) or Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream, frequently devolve to a traditional, economically driven, business model in the face of growth and competition.
The phrase "publicly held corporation" reinforces the notion of companies as people, that in turn implies a level of social responsibility. The public performance of corporations in crises with an ethical dimension can often be characterized more by excuses and justification, than righteous conduct.

Ethics, Public and Private

Our text points to several influences that dilute the moral imperative of ethical organizational behavior. One of the factors cited was a "breakdown of traditional bonds as many societies have experienced a public-private 'split'" (p. 421). I believe ethics are a value system of behavior that is enacted in relationship to other people. As responsibility for ethical behavior becomes increasingly diffuse in the public sphere, accountability in the private sphere, also suffers. Moral issues that are played out in the public (media) can act as models to reinforce private behavior. Although lapses may be considered more newsworthy than good citizenship, I feel showcasing ethical behavior could be a worthwhile contribution to society for its own sake.

The Value of Ethics

In Cheney et all, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is described as "the desireability of managing business practices in consonance with larger societal issues and to contribute to the well-being of cultures and communities in which they are embedded" (p. 413). The definition resonates for me in the context of current financial downturn in the home loan market. American consumers are bombarded with subliminal and overt messages that exhorting them to live the upscale lifestyle depicted, in the media, as being the middle class norm. Uneducated consumers may respond to such marketing by taking out credit cards and easy mortgage loans, to finance the lifestyle they are told they "deserve". Once in trouble, consumers are blamed entirely for not taking "responsibility" for their spending. Similary, fast food companies market large quantities of unhealthy food at very low prices, only to insist they bear no responsibility for contributing to the obesity epidemic.
Ethical corporate behavior dictates that products (financial and otherwise) be marketed in a transparent manner, so that risks can be assessed by producers and consumers alike; both have a responsibility to each other as well as the community at large.

The Medium is ......

Section 13.7 of the text features a discussion of Marshall McLuhan's claim that 'the medium is the message' (p. 394). The idea speaks to the increasingly savvy use of electronic media by governments to manipulate perceptions of international events. One recent example was the Russian / Georgian conflict. The government of Russia has not been renown for its sophisticated use of public relations in the past, so I listened with interest to radio interviews with various officials during the recent conflict.
Some of the things I noted were; Russian military personell and officials, regardless of rank, role, or position were remarkably consistent in their vocabulary and characterization of events. Russian troops were described as "peace keepers" defending citizens against "genocide" by Georgian troops. All interviewees spoke at least spoke English at least moderately well - none used translators. Although the overall effect was much less sophisticated than Western media "events" it was an obvious attempt to demonstrate that Russia is a force to be reckoned with on and off the battlefield.

Globalized

The relationship between the two definitions of globalization offered in the text: "a social process in which the constraints of geography on social and cultural arrangements recede, and in which people become increasingly aware that they are receeding" (p. 380) and "the process through which the global economy becomes increasingly interconnected..." (p.381), highlights the social reprecussions of technological change, Just as the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century fundamentally changed people's relationship to work, created a class of wealthy entrepreneurs, and began a massive migration to indistrial centers (cities), globalization has had a parallel impact on people's relationship to work, the accumulation of capital, and migration patterns.

The full effects of globalization will only be assessed in retrospect, but significant changes, such as outsourcing, have reconfigured the working lives of millions by accelerating the growing income disparaty of disenfranchised workers. Change is difficult, especially at warp speed.