HR Analytics and Digital Transformation: Week 1

HR Analytics and Digital Transformation

• Topic: HR Analytics and Digital Transformation
• Presenter: Luca Pareschi
• University: Università di Roma Tor Vergata
• Academic Year: 2024/2025

Week 1: Technology as a Theme in Organization Studies

• Topic: Technology's role in organization studies
• Overview: The chapter explores technology's role within organization studies, tracing developments in organization theory, linking to various forms of technology.
• Historical Perspective: Initially, organization studies were closely aligned with technical sciences and engineering. Focus has since shifted away from technology towards soft skills.
• Need for New Vocabulary: A new vocabulary is needed to integrate technology into organizational studies while preserving established knowledge.
• Interpretations of "Technology": Technology has been interpreted in multiple ways, including: as practices and rationalities of governing, and as conventional technological artifacts.
• Classical Approaches: The chapter examines classical approaches to technology in organizations as a foundation to analyze digital organizing.
• Connection to Current Digital Technologies: The chapter connects studies of current digital technologies with organizational studies.

Technology and Organization Studies

• Role of Technology: The chapter explores the role of technology within organizational studies.
• Linking Theory to Technology: The chapter links developments in organizational theory to different forms of technology.
• Historical Shift: Initially organization studies were closely aligned with technical sciences and engineering; over time the focus shifted away from technology towards soft skills.
• Integrating Technology: A new vocabulary is needed to integrate technology into organizational studies while retaining current knowledge.
• Diverse Interpretations: The term "technology" is interpreted in various ways in studies.

Exploring the Evolution of Organization Studies

• Scientific Management: A focus on rigid division of labor, measurement, and standardization of tasks, emphasizing efficiency, closely linked to engineering.
• Human Relations School: Challenged classical approaches, focusing on organic structures and socio-psychological processes, highlighting the ‘human factor’ in organizational studies.
• Woodward's Technology Focus: A study on how organizational structure is influenced by production technologies, leading to the categorization of firms.
• Tavistock Institute's Sociotechnical Theory: Explores the interplay between social and technical elements in organizations
• Contingency Theory: Suggests that organizations can best adapt by adjusting internal characteristics in response to external factors. Emphasis is on technology and structure.
• Postmodernism: This perspective views organizations as fluid events instead of fixed structures, technology as a social construction, rather than having inherent characteristics.

Scientific Management- Organization Studies

• Approach: Viewed organization as a technical science.
• Key Figure: Frederick Taylor is pivotal in emphasizing rigid divisions of labor and tasks.
• Notable Figures: Henry Ford
• Key Criticism: The possibility of worker alienation arising from extreme task specialization.
• Period: Reflects an era of organization based on engineering principles.

The Human Relations School

• Focus: Emphasized the human factor, challenging earlier theories that relied solely on technical approaches.
• The 1930s Shift Perspective: Classical organization theory was dominated by two main perspectives: scientific management and bureaucracy, and these emphasized formal structures.
• Hawthorne Experiments: Investigated the influence of social dynamics and informal relationships on productivity, not simply wages and technical conditions.
• Impact: Led to a shift in focus towards understanding the social aspects of work.

Woodward’s Technology

• Technology & Structure: Reintroduced the consideration of technology as a central theme in organizational studies.
• Focus on Production Technology: Analyzed the link between firm's production technologies and organizational structures.
• Prescriptive Indications: Proposed a connection between the type of firm’s production technologies and the best structure(small batch-development; large batch-production; process-marketing.)

Tavistock Institute’s Sociotechnical Theory

• Interplay of Social and Technical Elements: Explored how social and technical aspects interact within organizations.
• Longwall Method Study. A key study examining the introduction of mechanized extraction methods in coal mines to understand the shift in worker autonomy and production.
• Sociotechnical Systems Perspective: Viewed technology as a combination of technical and social systems/factors. The focus encompasses both human and nonhuman elements.
• Importance of Technology: Highlighted the impact of technology on both technical and sociopsychological aspects of work.

Moving Towards Contingency

• Contingency Theory: Proposes that organizational effectiveness stems from fitting internal characteristics to external situational variables(work tasks, technology, environmental conditions.)

Moving towards Contingency(continued)

• Technology Typology: Charles Perrow developed a typology to categorize technology based on task analyzability: routine, engineering, craft, and non-routine technologies.
• Consensus & Criticism: During the 1960s-1970s, technology was widely recognized as a significant factor in influencing organizational structure, but by the 1970s, there was emerging scepticism about the theory.

Becoming Instead of Being-Postmodernism

• Static vs Dynamic Organizations: Earlier studies focused on static structures ("end states") rather than dynamic processes ("becoming") in organizations.
• Karl Weick's Perspective: He argued that organizations are ongoing events instead of fixed structures; emphasized sensemaking processes, arguing that organizations are events rather than entities.
• Equivocality: This concept points out how technology can be interpreted in multiple, often abstract and continuous ways.
• Contingency Theory Critiques: Postmodern scholars emphasized the contextual and non-generalizable effects of technology on organizations.

Technology is Back

• Resurgence of Technology Focus: In the 1980s-2000's, researchers shifted focus back towards the importance of technology, but also acknowledging broader social context.
• Sociomateriality: Examines the interdependence of human and non-human elements in organizations.
• Actor-Network Theory & SST: Emphasizes a process-oriented approach of understanding technological advancement alongside social considerations.
• Focus on Digital Organizing: A review of technology in organizations that discusses its relationship and influence on organizational structure, and the ways in which different organizational studies have integrated, and continue to integrate, technology into organization studies.

This quiz focuses on the first week of HR Analytics and Digital Transformation, emphasizing the role of technology in organization studies. It delves into the historical evolution of organization theory and the emerging need for a new vocabulary to incorporate technology effectively. Explore how different interpretations of technology shape organizational dynamics.