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COMPUTERIZATION VIEWED AS ORGANIZATIONAL TECHNOLOGY: ITS IMPACT ON THE STRUCTURE OF NEWSPAPER ORGANIZATIONS
Abstract
Findings from research which has sought to explain the impact of technology on the structure of formal organizations have proven inconclusive, particularly when the computer has been viewed as a form of technology. This has led to conjectures that both technology and computerization have been over-rated regarding their potential for influencing organizational structure. A review of the literature suggested that part of the disappointment or inconsistencies in the findings could be attributed to previous conceptualization and measurement of computerization. In an attempt to understand further the relationship between organization structure and technology, an intra-organizational field survey was conducted to discern the impact of the computer when its conceptualization was extended to represent organizational technology. Rather than considering only the informational aspects of the computer, as earlier studies had, an extended perspective was adopted in which the computer was viewed as encompassing workflow and operations technology as well as information technology. This view of the computer necessitated the creation of measurement indices capable of assessing the extent of computer utilization rather than the number of subunits using the computer or simply the observation of its presence on-site. Published sources and a survey questionnaire returned by 67 managing editors were used to collect data to test the impact of the computer on five structural dimensions of U.S. daily newspaper organizations; specifically, locus of decision making, division of labor, monitoring/control, formalization and administrative intensity. Additionally, the relationship between computerization and age of the organization, unionization and organizational size were investigated. Organizational size was found to moderate the technology-locus of news decision and technology-locus of personnel decision relationships as well as the technology-functional diversification relationship. Tests of main effects hypotheses revealed only limited support for the notion that computer technology significantly influences the structural dimensions of newspaper organizations. While two measures of technology were found to be significant predictors of functional differentiation, organizational age was the best predictor of locus of production decisions and the presence of a production union was the best predictor of monitoring/control and formalization. Despite the evidence from previous findings, none of the contextual variables included in the study were useful in predicting administrative intensity. It was concluded that future research must attend not only to the conceptualization and measurement of computerization, but also to the conceptualization and measurement of the structuring variables, particularly the locus of decision making. Finally, it was suggested that organizational structures which can accommodate and facilitate pervasive computer integration may conform to Mintzberg's (1979) descriptions of Adhocracy.
Subject Area
Business community
Recommended Citation
CARTER, NANCY HOERLE, "COMPUTERIZATION VIEWED AS ORGANIZATIONAL TECHNOLOGY: ITS IMPACT ON THE STRUCTURE OF NEWSPAPER ORGANIZATIONS" (1981). ETD collection for University of Nebraska-Lincoln. AAI8118155.
https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/dissertations/AAI8118155