Information technology and the new organization

How can one understand the diverse changes that information technology can cause in organizations? The authors argue that many of these changes can be explained in terms of three orders of effects of decreasing costs for any technology: substitution of the new technology for the old, increased demand for the function the technology provides, and the evolution of new technology-intensive structures. This framework is used to organize many familiar examples of information technology effects, and to predict the continued evolution of new organizations. For instance, the argument suggests the increasing importance of `buying´ rather than `making´ and of organizational `adhocracies´ rather than traditional hierarchies. Strategic implications of these changes are noted, and speculative predictions about more radical organizational structures are also included