Historical Evolution of Information Technology

In the early days of human civilization, development was made possible primarily through the use of human effort, or labor. Human ability to use natural resources led to the ability to develop based not only on labor, but also on the availability of natural resources.

Natural resources are usually denoted land as the classic economic term that implies natural physical resources. At that time, most organizations were composed of small proprietorships. The availability of financial capital during the Industrial Revolution led to this being a third fundamental economic resource, and also to the development of large, hierarchical corporations. This period is generally associated with centralization, mass production, and standardization.

In the latter part of the industrial revolution, electricity was discovered, and later the semiconductor. This has led to the information age, or the information technology age. Among the many potentially critical information technology based tools are:

data base machines,
E-mail,
artificial intelligence tools,
facsimile transmission (fax) devices,

fourth-generation programming languages,
local area networks (LAN),
integrated service digital networks (ISDN),
optical disk storage (CD-ROM) devices,
personal computers,
parallel processing algorithms,
word processing software,

computer-aided software engineering packages,
word processing and accounting software,
and a variety of algorithmically based software packages.

Virtually anything that supports information acquisition, representation, transmission, and use can be called an information technology product.

Easy availability of technologies for information capture, storage, and processing has led to information, as well as the product of information in context or knowledge, as a fourth fundamental economic resource for development. This is the era of total quality management, mass customization of products and services, reengineering at the level of product and process, and decentralization and horizontalization of organizations, and systems management.

While information technology has enabled these changes, much more than just information technology is needed to bring them about satisfactorily. In this article, attention will be primarily focused upon information technology and its use by individuals and organizations to improve productivity and the human condition.

Commentators such as Bell, Toffler, and Zuboff have long predicted the coming of the information age. The characteristics of the information age are described in a number of contemporary writings as well. Alvin Toffler writes of three waves: the agriculture, industrial, and information or knowledge ages.

Within these ages are numerous subdivisions. For example, the information age could be partitioned into the era of vertically integrated and stand-alone systems, process reengineering, total quality management, and knowledge and enterprise integration. Information and knowledge are now fundamental resources that augment the traditional economic resources: land or natural resources, human labor, and financial capital.

Critical success factors for success in the third wave, or information age, have been identified and include: strategy, customer value, knowledge management, business organization, market focus, management accounting, measurement and control, shareholder value, productivity, and transformation to the third-wave model for success.

There are numerous other methods of partition of these ‘‘ages.’’ The information age could be partitioned into the age of mainframe computers, minicomputers, microcomputers, networked and client-server computers, and the age of knowledge management.

Major growth in the power of systems for computing and communicating, and associated networking is quite fundamental and has changed relationships among people, organizations, and technology. These capabilities allow us to study much more complex issues than was formerly possible.

They provide a foundation for dramatic increases in learning and in both individual and organizational effectiveness. In large part, this is due to the networking capability that enables enhanced coordination and communications among humans in organizations. It is also due to the vastly increased potential availability of knowledge to support individuals and organizations in their efforts.

However, information technologies need to be appropriately integrated within organizational frameworks if they are to be broadly useful. This poses a transdisciplinary challenge of unprecedented magnitude if we are to move from high-performance information technologies to high-performance organizations.

In years past, broadly available capabilities never seemed to match the visions offered, especially in terms of the time frame of their availability. Consequently, despite compelling predictions, traditional methods of information access and utilization continued their dominance.

As a result, comments that go something like ‘‘computers are everywhere except in productivity statistics’’ have often been made. In just the past few years, the pace has quickened quite substantially and the need for integration of information technology issues with organizational issues has led to the creation of a field of study sometimes called ‘‘organizational informatics’’ or, more recently, ‘‘knowledge management,’’ the objectives of which generally include:

- Capturing human information and knowledge needs in the form of system requirements and specifications
- Developing and deploying systems that satisfy these requirements

- Supporting the role of cross-functional teams in work
- Overcoming behavioral and social impediments to the introduction of information technology systems in organizations
- Enhancing human communication and coordination for effective and efficient workflow through knowledge management

Networks in general and the internet and World Wide Web in particular have become ubiquitous in supporting these endeavors. Almost everyone is growing up digital, searching for designs for living in the information age, and going on line to communicate with one another and to use digital libraries. It also seems that hardware and software become obsolete as soon as they are unboxed. Indeed, with current trends, boxes themselves may become quaint collectibles.

However, organizational productivity is not necessarily enhanced unless attention is paid to the human side of developing and managing technological innovation to ensure that systems are designed for human interaction.

Because of the importance of information and knowledge to an organization, two related areas of study have arisen. The first of these is concerned with technologies associated with the effective and efficient acquisition, transmission, and use of information, or information technology. When associated with organizational use, this is sometimes called organizational intelligence, or organizational informatics.

The second area, known as knowledge management, refers to an organization’s capacity to gather information, generate knowledge, and act effectively and in an innovative manner on the basis of that knowledge. This provides the capacity for success in the rapidly changing or highly competitive environments of knowledge organizations.

Developing and leveraging organizational knowledge is a key competency and, as noted, it requires information technology and much more than information technology capabilities. Thus, it can be seen that information technology has led to organizational informatics, and in this has led to knowledge management.

It would be very difficult to capture the state of information technology in an encyclopedia article without the article being hopelessly out of date even before the encyclopedia emerged from the publisher. Consequently, the goal of this article is to consider several broad trends, which we feel will persist regardless of the specific technologies that enable them. In particular, we focus on effects of information technology and on the organizational implications of these effects.