Impact Of Technological Change Research Articles

The Impact of Technological Change on Job Satisfaction of Women Garment Workers in Developing Country

This study deals with the job satisfaction of women workers and managerial policies of garment companies in Bangladesh. The garment industry is the fast growing export sector of Bangladesh. More than three fourths of total foreign earnings of the country come from this sector. This sector has a low labor cost advantage in producing garments. The manufacturing technology of garment production has been changing from labor-intensive to more sophisticated and capital-intensive production. This change creates dissatisfaction for the lower skilled workers because of their inability to adapt to the new manufacturing process. Work dissatisfaction reduces the performance of workers and, in turn, company performance is negatively affected. Hence, the strategies related to the use of sophisticated technology and to manage human resources for the production of garments for the international markets are crucial. Therefore, this study evaluates the impact of technological change on job satisfaction of women garment workers in Bangladesh. It also explores the strategies for decreasing dissatisfaction of lower skilled workers. The study identifies the relationship between job satisfaction and the overall impact of the change. A set of job satisfaction variables was developed from the Technological Change Survey (Slem and Levi, 1995). The overall impact is defined as how workers see the impact of change on income and benefits to the family, and the identity they have as a wage earner. The specific relationship between job satisfaction and the overall impact shows that fair pay, task significance, bureaucracy, conflicts, and sharing information are significantly related. Task significance and information sharing are positively related to the overall impact. Fair pay, bureaucracy, and conflicts are negatively and significantly related to the overall impact. Less fair pay, high bureaucracy, and more conflicts cause a limited positive overall impact on women workers. The positive relationships to technological change include improvement of task significance, salary increase, improvement of the quality of supervision, improved co-workers relations and increase benefits. The negative consequences are unfair pay, work dissatisfaction, bureaucracy, conflicts between management and workers, decreased information sharing, and decreased promotions for workers. Managers, in such a situation, may not be able to resist the increasing change required because of the new technologies but they can do more to manage the change through reducing the level of unfairness in all respects, the level of bureaucracy, the level of conflicts between workers and management, and increasing information sharing with workers. This could be achieved through appropriate human resource policies such as, fair pay, rewards for work, attention to the subordinates' feelings, work redesign, communicating company goals to workers, sharing information, increasing benefits, increasing promotions, and above all providing more skill training to women garment workers.

The Impact of Technological Change on Older Workers: Evidence from Data on Computer Use

The Impact of Technological Change on Older Workers: Evidence from Data on Computer Use

The Impact of Technological Change on Older Workers: Evidence from Data on Computer Use

New technologies like computers alter skill requirements. This paper explores two related effects of the spread of computers on older workers, using data from the Current Population Survey and the Health and Retirement Study. One conclusion is that impending retirement, rather than age alone, explains why older workers used computers less than prime-age workers did. A second conclusion is that computer users retired later than non-users. Although this pattern may arise because workers planning later retirement decided to acquire computer skills, the empirical analysis suggests that the causation also went in the other direction, with computer users choosing to delay retirement. It will be important to understand these effects as the baby boom cohort nears retirement, while technologies continue to change rapidly.

A distributed spectral-screening PCT algorithm

This paper describes a novel distributed algorithm for use in remote-sensing, medical image analysis, and surveillance applications. The algorithm combines spectral-screening classification with the principal component transform, and human-centered mapping. It fuses a multi- or hyper-spectral image set into a single color-composite image that maximizes the impact of spectral variation on the human visual system. The algorithm operates on distributed collections of shared-memory multiprocessors that are connected through high-performance networking. Scenes taken from a standard 210 frame remote-sensing data set, collected with the hyper-spectral digital imagery collection experiment airborne imaging spectrometer, are used to assess the algorithms image quality, performance, and scaling. The algorithm is supported with a predictive analytical model that allows its performance to be assessed for a wide variety of typical variations in use. For example, changes to the number of spectra, image resolution, processor speed, memory size, network bandwidth/latency, and granularity of decomposition. The motivation in building a performance model is to assess the impact of changes in technology and problem size associated with different applications, allowing cost–performance tradeoffs to be assessed.

The future of management: does business history have anything to tell us?

Although many of the environmental factors described by Alfred D. Chandler, Jr are altering under the impact of technological change, this will not necessarily lead to wholesale changes in the roles played by managers. Many of the functions of managers will remain intact, even if new technologies alter how they are executed. Moreover, the managerial and organizational capabilities developed to control ‘Chandlerian’ firms are adaptable and will continue to be exercised despite transformations in the contexts that initially inspired them.

Indian Alcoholic Beverages Industry: A Strategic Analysis

The Indian Alcoholic Beverages Industry is under the process of phased liberalization and hence is going through turbulent transformation. The changing environment demands fresh thinking and a re-look at the strategy to gain the cutting edge. This paper attempts to look at the various macro and micro environmental factors operating in the industry to gain a holistic understanding of it. The paper uses the model of strategic analysis by George Day to analyze the bargaining power of buyers and suppliers, the threat of new entrants, threat of substitutes, intensity of rivalry, impact of technological changes, growth & volatility of the market and the influence of government and regulatory interventions. These variables affecting the industry have been categorized as favourable or adverse which accordingly influence the profitability of the industry. The paper also identifies some strategic initiatives, which can be adopted to leverage the favourable forces and protect themselves from the adverse ones. A good understanding of the industry enables management to detect opportunities early and exploit them forcefully.

Three takes on telecom's troubles

Spectrum asked three IEEE members from the telecommunications sector to comment on the industry's current woes and prospects. Roch Guerin discusses bandwidth as a commodity and how to deal with it. The impact of technological change on telecommunications is enormous and calls for a shift in business models. Technology is making bandwidth a commodity and it should not matter who supplies it. Competition is vital and commodity providers must be decoupled from value providers. Frank Ferrante points out that the Year 2000 crisis resulted in manufacturers being deluged with orders for new upgraded systems. Vast sums were spent to meet the demand in time. However, when Y2K was over, production stayed high and inventories continued to build, while demand effectively stopped overnight. Dazzling new innovations are needed to compel the masses to spend and manufacturers must apply their resources to deliver quickly and efficiently. Jules A. Bellisio discusses the role of engineers in bringing new ideas to the market place. Many engineers have put together ventures for the sole purpose of attracting capital. The underlying technology and business propositions were there solely to lure the unsuspecting. By allowing engineers to use technology simply to cover for a scam, then the profession is also to blame for the current problems.

Technological changes––the impact on the raw material flow and production

This paper examines the impact of technological changes on the raw material flow and the way the production is organised. The case studied is the Norwegian fish processing industry. The last years an increasing part of the fishing fleet has been rebuilt or replaced by newer vessels, where the catch is frozen on board. This change in supply, from fresh to frozen fish, has triggered investments in new cold storage plants along the Norwegian coast where most of these vessels now discharge their catch. These changes, involving new logistics challenges for the buyers, are about to change the entire market for raw materials, and also the fish processing industry itself. In the new competitive setting one of the most valuable resources among the processing plants, i.e. a location close to fishing areas, was devaluated. The bargaining power among the processing plants was decreased mainly because new entrants achieved easier access to the local raw material market.

The Impact of Technological Change on Journalism Education: A Survey of Faculty and Administrators

Wasn't information age supposed to make professional work more productive and less tedious, therefore less stressful? Sometimes it just doesn't seem that way. This study was inspired by a national survey of postsecondary faculty produced by Higher Education Research Institute at UCLA.1 The UCLA study included a number of personal and attitudinal measures about faculty life, but professors also provided information about some aspects of their use of technology, including how much stress they perceived it to be causing. Among most frequently cited causes of stress in faculty life, such as time pressures, teaching load, committee work, lack of a personal life and red tape, also appeared phrase up with information More than two-thirds of sample reported experiencing some or a great deal of stress from keeping up with information technology. In fact, of 17 stressor items in that study, only four emerged as more stressful than up with information Journalism and mass communication educators arguably encounter technology in their academic lives more frequently than those in many of disciplines in UCLA study. How are we coping with benefits and demands of ever-changing technology we need for our teaching and research? Specifically, following research questions emerged: 1) What uses do journalism faculty make of technology in research and teaching? What are their attitudes toward new technology? 2) What levels of stress are journalism faculty experiencing? What types of stress? How prevalent is stress induced by technological change? 3) What are differences between way administrators perceive stress in faculty lives and faculty views of stress in their own lives? 4) Are there age or gender differences in level of technostress journalism faculty experience? What other factors or conditions are associated with stress? Faculty Stress and Faculty Adaptation to Technology The concept of faculty stress is familiar to educational sociologists. Thorsen2 and Endres and Wearden3 use a time-honored definition of occupational stress: That which occurs when one perceives that demands of environment to clearly exceed one's resources to handle them.4 When a person senses that gap as challenging, it is not stressful. When gap is thought to be threatening, it is stressful. Gmelch et al.5 would add that stress occurs with the anticipation of negative consequences for an inadequate response6 to a perceived demand. Smith et al. point out that many psychologists view stress per se as not necessarily harmful. Performance decreases when stress is low as well as when it is high. An optimal level of stress increases performance because of its inherent challenge.7 But too often stress creeps into unacceptably high levels, and this can lead to other problems in academic life. Lease8 cites studies associating perceived stress with decrease in faculty productivity, increase in tension, decrease in job satisfaction and increase in propensity to leave academe. Austin and Pilat9 would add to that list of results depression, fatigue, poor health, family problems and substance abuse. Dillon and Tanner,10 on other hand, found burnout, result of prolonged, unabated stress, to exist in only a small portion of journalism and mass communication faculty. According to HERI study,11 faculty climate is hardly bleak. That study found that percentage of postsecondary faculty reporting they were satisfied with their jobs rose from 69% in 1989 to 75% in 1999. The study also noted significant increases (and majorities) in proportions satisfied with competency of their colleagues, their working conditions and their relations with administration. Yet some education scholars have found that levels of perceived faculty stress were higher in 1990s than in previous decades. …

The boundaries of cellular pathology: how pathologists see their clinical role.

There has been much recent public attention on the effects of the practices of cellular pathology on patients and their relatives. It is important to establish clearly pathologists' views about their professional relationships to clinicians and patients. A national postal questionnaire survey was performed to investigate how cellular pathologists perceive their role in clinical practice and whether there are important differences between different groups of pathologists. Responses were received from 773 pathologists, of whom 167 were trainees. On the basis of responses to 25 attitude statements, it appears that the profession shares a core belief that pathologists are clinicians rather than scientists and sees diagnosis as its main clinical responsibility. However, the role that each pathologist feels clear about differs significantly between pathologists, with a stronger consensus over function, responsibility, and professional image than on the clinical practice of pathology, job satisfaction, and the impact of technological change. Academic activities are a minority interest, although academic pathologists express better job satisfaction and more radical views of professional practice. Young trainees are more likely to work in teaching hospitals, to be female, to have trained outside the UK, and to have had experience in other specialties. They have, however, a more restricted view of the clinical role of pathology than accredited pathologists. Most cellular pathologists see themselves as clinicians with a special role in diagnosis, but how this is interpreted and the extent to which pathologists involve themselves in clinical decision-making is inconsistent. This professional dilemma should be addressed by research to obtain more systematic knowledge of the clinical impact of cellular pathology and especially the ill-defined links between diagnosis and clinical decision-making.

A review of clinical risk management.

Current literature has a plethora of information regarding medical errors, what causes them, how to reduce them and the impact they have on patients, staff and health-care organisations. The objective of this paper was to give a summary of the current findings of recent studies and articles, including worldwide initiatives to reduce medical errors, the trend to identify system issues that result in medical error rather than the focus on individual blame, the impact of technological changes and current medical advances, litigation and law suits.

Telematic education: a reality in post-basic nursing education

No institution is immune to the impact of technological change.
 
 Opsomming
 Geen instansie is immuun teen tegnologiese veranderinge nie. 
 
 *Please note: This is a reduced version of the abstract. Please refer to PDF for full text.

Local Perspectives on Globalisation and Learning: A case study of the printing and packaging industry in south-west England

This paper examines the impact of technological change and globalising tendencies on the printing industry. These processes of change have important implications for training. The paper uses available case-study evidence on the print industry in the south-west of England, organised mainly within small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). It takes as its starting point a limited range of the extensive literature on globalisation, and the literature that relates issues of lifelong learning to globalisation. The period since 1997 has seen an increasingly interventionist approach by the UK government to education and training. In addition, there is a strong emphasis on regional policy, with substantial devolution of power to Wales and Scotland, and the setting up of the Regional Development Agencies in England. Within the south-west England print industry, the initiative to rebuild the training infrastructure, especially for SMEs, has been taken by the Graphical Paper and Media Union. It has used money provided by government primarily through the Trade Union Learning Fund to set up training courses in new print technologies for its members and to begin to create a network of learning representatives to encourage and support members to take up these new opportunities. The paper refers to both quantitative and qualitative data on this work, and reflects on its economic, social, and cultural situatedness.

Research Recommendations from a Lung Cancer Screening Workshop

The National Cancer Institute and the American Cancer Society cosponsored a workshop on March 7–8, 2001, in Rockville, Md, to discuss rapidly emerging technology used in screening for lung cancer; the various research methods that can be used to evaluate performance of the screening technology; and the data systems, infrastructure needs, and mechanisms for facilitating such research activities. The conclusions and recommendations from that workshop are given herein. Group 1 was asked to examine the impact of technology changes on screening studies. For example, how can the presumed future changes in low-dose helical computed tomographic technology be most effectively managed in the clinical trials setting? How do we deal, from a scientific and research point of view, with the fact that technology is changing faster than we can study it? What are the potential issues associated with the integration of computer-aided diagnosis into screening technologies. Group 1’s conclusions and recommendations were as follows: (a) Investigators should explore and develop clinical trial designs that can adapt to changing information. For example, draw sequential statistical methods and Bayesian methods from the existing statistical literature on adaptive designs. Plan for changing technology during the course of a trial, and characterize technology in an ongoing way. (b) Observer performance may dominate technology differences and the effects of screening. Therefore, measure early and train observers appropriately. (c) Consider modest, shortterm, intermediate end points to allow cutting losses early. (d) Researchers should do modeling for overall evaluation at variable times depending on goal and with detailed data on lead time, length time, and survival characteristics by cell type for patients treated and not treated. (e) Trialists should consider measuring costs during screening trials; cost-effectiveness analysis will be worthwhile if effects are present and “large.” (f) Investigators must be aggressive about quality assurance. Group 2 was asked to assess the various methodologic approaches to evaluating screening performance, efficacy, and other aspects of new screening technologies in trials and observational data. Their conclusions and recommendations were as follows: (a) Studies should be designed and performed to answer practice-relevant questions (eg, What should be done with small lesions?). (b) Models need to be developed to evaluate varying screening and treatment strategies and risk/outcome in terms of cost and effectiveness. (c) There is a need for coordinated and standardized surveillance of both screening and treatment in the community with emphasis on quality assurance. (d) All prospective studies of lung cancer screening should be organized to achieve a multidisciplinary, stateof-the-art approach to detection, treatment, and follow-up. (e) Screening programs provide a unique opportunity to educate patients on risk factors such as smoking. There is a need to evaluate different strategies to reduce smoking. Group 3 was charged with evaluating issues of data standardization and informatics. The type of comparisons to be made across studies will dictate the degree of data standardization required for various factors, such as study population, criteria for entry, follow-up, and intervention. What types of comparisons are feasible across studies? What will be the influence of rapidly evolving use of computerized systems for management of data in research and in clinical practice? Group 3’s conclusions and recommendations were as follows: (a) Support is needed for the development of a repository of standard data elements with an explicit data dictioAcad Radiol 2001; 8:942–943

Technological Change, Depletion, and the U.S. Petroleum Industry

A common claim in the nonrenewable resource literature is that improvements in technology may largely offset the effects of increasing scarcity over time. This study provides perhaps the first empirical evidence on this issue by analyzing the determinants of the average finding cost for additional petroleum reserves in the United States over the 19671990 period. Using a new index of the level of technology, our analysis suggests that technological change played a major role in allaying what would otherwise have been a sharp rise in the average cost of finding additional reserves of natural gas. The impact of technological change on finding costs for U.S. crude oil reserves has been more modest. To place our work in context, we note that in recent years there has been renewed interest in the causes and consequences of technological change. At the macroeconomic level, a huge literature modeling the impact of technological innovation on economic growth and living standards has emerged [see, e.g., Paul Romer (1990) and Gene M. Grossman and Elhanan Helpman (1991)]. At the micro level, increasingly sophisticated methods are being used to assess the links between technological change, productivity, and average or marginal costs at the sectoral level [see, e.g., Samuel Kortum and Saul Lach (1995)]. The potential effects of technological change in alleviating the increasing scarcity of nonrenewable resources are widely discussed in the resource and environmental economics literature. The simplest variant of the Harold Hotelling (1931) model predicts that nonrenewable resource prices should rise at a rate equal to the real rate of interest. It is well known, however, that

Textualizing the law

Much of the work of lawyers consists of the production or interpretation of various sorts of legal texts. Many of these texts are authoritative or operative, in the sense that they create or modify a legal relation, institution, or state of affairs. Historically, there is a general progression from oral legal act, to an oral act with a written record, to an authoritative written text. Such authoritative texts differ from speech and other types of writing in that they are more autonomous. They tend to be drafted to be as clear and complete as possible, embodying all relevant communicative intentions of the author. Consequently, they are interpreted in a relatively literal or decontextualized fashion. Moreover, they are generally regarded as complete expressions of the author, making evidence of oral statements outside of the text virtually irrelevant from a legal point of view. Such consequences can be problematic for those with limited experience with these conventions. Nonetheless, authoritative legal texts can perform several useful functions, such as marking a text as effectuating a binding legal act and clearly delineating what is included within it and what is not. Despite some drawbacks, as well as the impact of technological change, it seems that the authoritative legal text is here to tay.

The Impact of Technological Change on Market Power and Market Failure in Telecommunications

Technological change is an historical constant-no era has lacked for it. But it cannot be denied that it waxes and wanes. Its pace has quickened recently, with dramatic impacts on telecommunications, broadening its very definition. No longer is it confined to voice sent over copper wire, but now also is applied to such applications as e-mail, data, and video transmitted over fiber optics, cable, and satellite (Blumenstein 2000b, R4). Recent years have seen the development of broadband, capable of high speed delivery of large quantities of voice and data, accessed through cable or digital subscriber lines (DSLs), copper telephone wires modified to boost capacity. Wireless telephony has become a mass phenomenon; broad usage of wireless Internet is thought to be imminent. Institutional economics consistently has recognized the inevitability and ongoing nature of technological change, and its importance in shaping the future. Where neoclassical models regularly hold technology constant or bury it in residuals, institutionalists, though interpreting the term diversely (e.g., Hamilton 1986), uniformly view it as a causal force. Moreover, actual and perceived relationships among technological change, regulation, and market forces influence public policy in subtle and often poorly understood ways. Among the many grounds upon which economic regulation is faulted is its hindrance of innovation.' Deregulation is advocated as an incentive to risk taking, including investment in new technology. Moreover, technology is portrayed as destructive even of natural monopoly and as decentralizing because, for example, it produces substitutes (Friedman 1962, 28-9), eroding both monopoly on the supply side and consumer necessity on the demand side, modifying the affected with a public interest

Hard Work: The Making of Labor History

One of American labor history's most prominent scholars, Melvyn Dubofsky curated an accessible style and historical reach that have long marked his work as required reading for students and scholars. This collection juxtaposes Dubofsky's early writings with scholarship from the 1990s. Selections include work on western working-class radicalism, U.S. labor history in transnational and comparative settings, and the impact of technological change on American worker's movements. Throughout, the writings provide an invaluable eyewitness perspective on the academic and political climate of the 1960s and 1970s while tracing the development of labor history as a discipline. An exploration of important themes in labor history, Hard Work combines essential scholarship with the story of how past and present interact in the work of historians.

Creating an organizational awareness of ethical responsibility about information technology.

In a time of rapid technological and social change, business organizations must help their employees develop a new appreciation of how social and ethical values are being shaped and challenged by evolving information technologies. Many ethical and social conflicts have arisen around the advanced information technology used today. The emerging technologies continue to create situations not previously encountered. There are numerous risks facing corporations involved in the use of computing technology. Leaders of organizations looking ahead to assess the impact of technological changes can try to prepare their employees for the future. This paper addresses the urgent need for individuals in corporations to become more knowledgeable about computing technologies and their impact.

Skill supply, supervision requirements and unemployment of low‐skilled labor

This paper presents a model with flexible wages in which unemployment of low‐skilled labor is possible in equilibrium, whereas high‐skilled workers are fully employed. Thus, the model can explain why even in countries with flexible labor markets and full employment of skilled labor an employment problem exists at the bottom of the skill spectrum. The model is used to evaluate the impact of technological change and increased skill supply on the employment of low‐skilled workers. It is shown that a switch to technologies with higher skill requirements unambiguously leads to a rise in unemployment of low‐skilled workers. An increase in the supply of high‐skilled labor has a positive effect on the employment level of low‐skilled labor.