User:PaDe1978/sandbox

Cultural Aspects of ICT Developments

Similarities and Differences between ICT gorups.

Throughout the years human beings evolved due to their curiosity and imagination, trying to innovate things. Communication is and always has been an important factor for human interaction and for information exchange. The 20th century, especially the last decade, focused a lot on improving the communication, as we know, and it picked with the internet and of course with ICT innovations. How we got here, or what inventions got us here and what is similar and what is different in the different groups concerning visions, working style, leadership style, etc.? First I would like to start with the definition of invention as stated on Wikipedia (Invention – Wikipedia [online] Available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invention [Accessed online on 02/19/2012]:

“An invention is a unique or novel device, method, composition, process or discovery. It may also be an improvement upon, or alternate means of achieving an existing desired result or function. An invention that is not derived from an existing model or idea, or that achieves a completely unique function, discovery, or result, may be a radical breakthrough. In addition, there is cultural invention, which is an innovative set of useful social behaviours adopted by people and passed on to others. Inventions often extend the boundaries of human knowledge, experience or capability. An invention that is novel and not obvious to others skilled in the same field may be able to obtain the legal protection of a patent.” As the definition implies an innovation requires; besides knowledge, experience or capability, time. Either directly or indirectly it will require money but the social, cultural and economic factors are equally important. Looking back in history the first major inventions that meant a lot for modern communication was the transistor. The transistor was invented in 1946 at the Bell Laboratories as a request to a marketing problem because AT&T wanted to be ahead of its competitors and expand across the country. So the vacuum tubes, which were not very reliable, were replaced by the transistor, which permitted electronic miniaturization. The researchers in this case knew for a fact what they wanted to accomplish. Moving forward, both, Kilby at Texas Instruments, and Noyce at Fairchild Semiconductor, worked during 1958 and 1959 to overcome a big limitation known as the "Tyranny of Numbers" a problem faced by computer engineers, being unable to improve performance in their design due to a large number of components involved. As a result, the electrical or integrated circuit was born, where separated transistors, resistors, capacitors and all the connecting wiring onto a single crystal (or 'chip') made of semiconductor material. So, if we look at these 2 major inventions that put the bases of computers they both come as a social and economic necessity, or request. Seems that these two inventions put the basics of what was going to come: mini and microcomputers and technology era, meaning they created a propitious environment for the next technological inventions. The 70’s are marked by the ARPANET (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network) and first clone computer, Xerox PARC’s PDP-10 clone (MAXC). Both started with an unclear vision and the result was something unexpected. The United States Department of Defence was assigned the task of developing the Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) as a result of the cold war. They were tasked with finding solutions to the major problems of communications system in use (telephony), the issue being that they were dependent on circuit switching stations that could be targeted during an attack. The result was the grandfather of the Internet or the first operational packet switching network. About the same time, Xerox PARC’s team were asking their management to buy a PDP-10 computer but they lost the battle and ended up just ordering parts and putting them together and as a result a PDP-10 clone was born. The gates to the WWW system were opened by CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research) as a necessity of information access. They have a main site at Meyrin (Switzerland) where a large computer processing center used for experimental data analysis in physics is located. Because researchers were dispersed, it was the need to access the data from multiple locations that made this site a major wide area networking hub. From this point on, up to present-day computers, the Internet and www have been expanding and evolving, becoming a part of our daily lives more than anything else. With the gates opening to the technology, new opportunities for technology applications in business were born and some people saw this right away. One of them is Bill Gates and IBM and also Steve Jobs with Apple. All these people were visionaries with good entrepreneurial skills and understood right away the need and the opportunities of the technology. Also, the rivalry created between IBM and Apple resulted in a good and beneficial competition, the end result being reflected in their products, which became better, more productive and more affordable. With the hardware technology circle widening, software development also followed suit. An important factor has been the work of Free Software Foundation and Open Source Initiative. A lot of Internet and software solutions were driven from an open source initiative, meaning sharing the source code among different developers. Another type of innovation that has had a big impact on the Internet and also put an imprint cultural and business wise, are the two search engines Yahoo! and Google, who started out as little graduate projects and grew up into two major engines.

Looking back we can conclude that all these inventors, were no doubt visionaries but some of them worked on “predefined” requests or on actual problem solving, finding solution so we can tell that they were at the right time in the right place, being qualified, knowledgeable, working in the fields and having the right tools and financial support needed. Others, with more entrepreneurial skills saw the business opportunities and based their idea more around consumers.

Development of Professional ICT Culture.

Modern technology is changing how much of the world now communicates, collects, stores, and distributes information. That transformation is being driven by Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), which allow new ways of working in both the physical and the virtual world (Avolio, Kahai & Dodge, 2001; Mansell & Silverstone, 1997). By “ICTs” we mean all technologies that facilitate the handling of information and enable different forms of communication among human actors, between human beings and electronic systems, and among electronic systems (Hamelink, 1999). The professional ICT culture has undoubtedly undergone many changes and transformations over time and this can be seen in various aspects of the e-society. During the last 20 years, we have witnessed an ICT revolution, more far-reaching than most of us could have anticipated. Some two decades ago electronic communication was virtually nonexistent in business but one cannot fathom what business will be like without it in present day. Theoretically, ICTs are part of culture (Hofstede, 1991). ICTs, and its practices, are examples of cultural artifacts or practices that can be examined as material manifestations of culture. Hofstede distinguishes between societal cultures and organizational cultures using concepts. This means that when comparing organizational cultures, differences are found in practices while differences in societal culture are based on values. Manual practices give way to digitized processes that result in a knowledgeable and dynamic professional in the e organization.



DATA STORAGE AND COMMUNICATION

ICTS have unleashed a dramatic reduction in the cost and time of storing, processing and transmitting information. Such dramatic changes in price relations have a fundamental effect on the way we organize the production and distribution of goods and services and eventually on the ICT culture itself.

The photography, media and telecommunication industry have seen drastic revolutionary change in their operations and daily processes. Businesses that have hesitated to react to these changes have been overtaken by events because professional ICT culture of such businesses remained resistant to change. Innovations in businesses have been evident in the cost and speed in processing information for business activities. These developments are reshaping work, skill structures and the organisation of professional ICT-culture.

DIGITIZATION- Efficiency and the new Professional Culture

The communication, media and broadcasting industries as professionals rely extensively on the storing retrieving of large amounts of data. As data size increases, these institutions have issue with space to put their data. Old ways of organizing data became obsolete over time making it virtually impossible to manage data. Retrieval of data quickly and efficiently becomes a problem thereby having a huge implication for the day to day work activities. ICT has come to the rescue. The communication industries have capitalized on the digital age with a transition from the analog ways of sending and receiving data to a more efficient GSM technology of digital storage and transmission. Media men are able to archive relevant data for years. Publications that were made as far back as the 18th century have been digitize and stored for future reference. Information that was stored in large room can now be transformed and stored on a pocket size digital storage device. One can conclude that digitization has virtually made it impossible for data loss to occur. The last three decades have witnessed a growing body of research that studies on professional organizations use ICTs (see Hollingshead & Contractor, 2002 for a review). Digitization is the process of converting information into discrete units of data known as bits which allows for representation of data usually in multiple-bit groups known as byte. This is the binary data processed by computers and many devices with computing capacity into information. Conversion of information into a digital format had a part to play every organization and it has incredibly affected the fundamental everyday processes. The core duty of storing data has seen a dramatic leap from the days when Papyrus, an ancient form of paper was used till about 800AD when materials like Vellum and Parchment as a more durable material. Since then other materials such as bronze, Iron, clay etc were used up until 1440 AD when printing was invented by Gutenberg.



The explosion in the use of computers began with 'Third Generation' computers. This relied Jack St. Claire Kilby’s invention - the integrated circuit or microchip. In September 1958, the first integrated circuit was made, but it was until 1963 that computer using this technology started surfacing. Large 'mainframes' such as the I.B.M. 360 increased storage and processing capabilities further while the integrated circuit allowed the development of Minicomputers that began to bring computing into many smaller businesses. Large scale integration of circuits led to the development of very small processing units. This processor was developed by Steve Geller, Ray Holt and a team from AiResearch and American Microsystems. These developments over the years has affected the professional ICT culture in terms of Innovation, Cooperation, Problem solving and Result orientation of organizations in the e-society. Professional ICT culture is a direct reflection of the culture in the e society. Organizations have evolved well over a long time with various technologies.

PROFESSIONAL ICT CULTURE.

The resulting shifts in the structure of skills, work patterns, companies and goods and services is complex, and makes very different and new demands on the professional ICT-culture. Unstructured function-based skills, and traditional management models and techniques, are rendered inadequate and inflexible as a result, a more innovative approach is required from ICT players in the industry. This approach stems from the development of a new industrial and enterprise professional culture focused on harnessing ICT for productivity. The most important problem to ICT culture development is the lack of awareness of the new forms of work. Professionals may also be rightly cautious about innovations which alter systems and procedures currently delivering an acceptable level of performance, compared to entering an unknown realm in which there is uncertainty about how to complete the process of change

The digital ICT revolution can be represented diagrammatically as:

To be able to have a have a thorough overview of the innovation that have occurred the professional ICT culture over the years, it will be necessary to segment these into distinct industries that have been influenced by professional ICT culture .Our focus will be on the Digitization, Internet and Communication innovations especially in the media, communication and the broadcasting industries and how it has affected the shift from function based to a process based approach. The use of ICT makes it easy to be embedded in the social organisation of the workplace in order to achieve a competitive combination of productivity, performance and harmony with the community. The key question therefore is how to increase awareness of the potential of new approaches to a new work culture. The professional ICT professional culture becoming more and more based on processes, less and less on specialized functions over the year. ICT Professionals perform a range of activities instead of separating them into discrete task assigned as functions. ICT has enabled organizations in the digital community to be transformed from hierarchical and complicated organizations with simple jobs, to less hierarchical, more decentralized and network-oriented organizations, with more complex jobs.

CONCLUSION

By and large the world experiences and partakes in a new paradigm shift from the pre-industrial age to the digitize economy. The actors and players of this new and emerging society where the ICT professional culture have transformed the way things are done at the organizational level. At the center of this is the digitization. This has affected tools and processes for the professional development of the community. It becomes clearer and clearer by the day as we continually improve on the data management and the speed at which critical information is processed distributed and stored with the aid of digital media and devices by many businesses and organization.

I believe this is an era where the ICT professional culture is built around digital innovation right from the society to the knowledge worker. It has changed entirely the traditional ways of working. This is a transformation that is still dynamic and ongoing and gives a fuzzy picture of the destination.

Existence of Professional ICT Culture.

An interesting question that has been posed is the ability to identify a specific professional ICT culture? Is it a distinct culture, or is it merely a mirror of the surrounding society. Or perhaps there is a third alternative? Wikipedia defines “culture” as being “An integrated pattern of human knowledge, belief, and behavior that depends upon the capacity for symbolic thought and social learning. The set of shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices that characterizes an institution, organization, or group”. McGrew suggested a definition of culture that was used for studying primate cultures. Rather than defining culture as a kind of knowledge, culture was viewed as a process. McGrew identified six steps in the process:

1.	 A new pattern of behaviour is invented, or an existing one is modified

2.	 The innovator transmits this pattern to another

3. 	The form of the pattern is consistent within and across performers, perhaps even  in terms of recognizable stylistic features.

4. 	The one who acquires the pattern retains the ability to perform it long after having acquired it.

5. 	The pattern spreads across social units in a population. These social units may be families, clans, troops, or bands.

6. 	The pattern endures across generations.

While McGrew's research was geared towards the study of “primate cultures”, the six step process may yield some insight into our ability to identify the existence of a distinct ICT Culture, if we focus on the process rather than the knowledge, beliefs, behaviours which are dependent on upon symbolic thought and social learning. The advent of ICT on a large scale certainly invented new pattern of behaviour or more precisely, it caused significant change to the interaction patterns of the past. The new pattern was most definitely passed on to another or others, and continues to be passed on as well. The pattern is consistent within and between individuals who become familiar with that pattern. Upon acquiring the pattern, individuals have the ability to continue performing it. The pattern or activity spreads across social units within the population. The last point is where we are unable to establish that a distinct ICT culture exists, as this is a relatively new phenomenon. ICT has been around as a term since the late 1990s which makes it difficult to claim that the phenomenon has endured across generations. The endurance of ICT will perhaps become a proving ground that may establish it as a distinct culture, but it is too early for that. It may also be premature to refer to ICT as a distinct culture, because of the simple fact that nothing can exist in a vacuum. In fact, ICT can be seen as a phenomenon that developed within a particular cultural context. As such, it would be more appropriate to refer to ICT as a set of tools to further culture. This is further reinforced by the findings of the 2008 World Computer Congress (WCC). The 2008 WCC Declaration on ICT Professionalism and Competences identified that the ICT Profession has a number of “stakeholders”, most notably: “Given the ubiquitous role of ICT, a wide range of individuals and organizations have a stake in the ICT profession. Stakeholders include associations of ICT professionals,    industry and trade unions, ICT education providers, governments – at all levels, the general public and international bodies in charge of regulation and standardization. However, we believe that the primary stakeholders are ICT professionals and their employers.” The plethora of stakeholders further establishes ICT as being an integral part of “popular culture” or “mainstream culture” as it is understood today. The stakeholders identified such as education providers, governments and the general public are integral players within the “culture” of the times. Other stakeholders do include players that are more closely related to the professional field of ICT, but the interconnectedness with non-professional actors indicates that mainstream cultural influences are substantial within the field of ICT. The Conference also identified several recommendations for the further advancement of ICT:

1.	That the international ICT profession should be founded on the essential elements of professionalism – Competences (including knowledge), Integrity, Responsibility and Accountability and Public Obligation.

2.	That the assessment of competence should combine technical and non-technical competences including communication and inter-personal skills, domain or business knowledge and managerial culture

3.	That the assessment of competences should take into account international ICT certificates, both vendor-neutral and as delivered by ICT Industry, and the qualifications from formal education.

4.	That the purpose of the international profession is equally to recognize professionalism itself and to support both individuals and organizations to develop that professionalism.

5.	That in structuring the international profession provision should be made for the recognition of an appropriate number of profiles at different levels, and that there should be clear paths of entry and career progression to accommodate individuals from the widest possible academic and experience backgrounds.

These recommendations suggest that the ICT profession has not yet matured enough to stand independently, let alone form a distinct culture. In fact, it would seem to indicate, that it is a field that is currently searching to establish its internal rules, which may one day evolve into a distinct cultural movement. The Conference also recognized that the ICT technologies have an impact on virtually every facet of both personal and business life. These technologies are also seen as being key drivers of innovation as well as social and economic progress. They also enable people to share their “culture, interests and undertakings worldwide”. In a pilot study, Levi Obijiofor, Sohail Inayatullah and Tony Stevenson looked at “Impact of New Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) on Socio-economic and Educational Development of Africa and the Asia-Pacific. They discovered that the “transplanting” and availability of ICT technologies did not yield ‘post-industrial’. Instead, it was found that the attitudes, beliefs and approaches that were native to the places studied hampered acceptance and growth of ICT either as a field or as a “cultural movement”. This is further proof, that while ICT has a profound effect on the societies and their cultural makeup, the reverse is equally true. The prevailing culture also impacts ICT to the extent that it can either facilitate or block its adoption. Because of this inter-connectedness and inter-dependence, I would forward the opinion that while ICT culture is not a phenomenon that can be identified outright, classifying ICT as a sub-culture may be a more accurate portrayal. Historically speaking, sub-cultures have been known to have played very critical roles within the larger cultural make-up while at the same time being acted upon by the larger or mainstream culture. According to the Merriam Webster dictionary, a subculture is “an ethnic, regional, economic, or social group exhibiting characteristic patterns of behaviour sufficient to distinguish it from others within an embracing culture or society” Classifying ICT as a sub-culture enables us to acknowledge both sides of the argument, that it is in fact a movement which exhibits enough unique and distinguishable characteristics to become noticed, but not enough to determine that it is no longer tied to the mainstream. In fact numerous studies and symposiums have determined that ICT is an integral part in the process of furthering societal advances. Portals such as Skype, Google, and Facebook are incredible innovations that enable people to carry on the traditional activities of communicating using somewhat extraordinary means. They cannot be said to have created or altered the course of what society has determined to be what constitutes communication. The new tools are merely an extension of the traditional understanding which enables us to broaden the methods for accomplishing those goals. Much like the work of Work of Bill Gates and Microsoft and Steve Jobs) at Apple, these innovators were “inventing” new tools in response to societal and cultural expectations. This is further support in favour of the argument that there is no distinct ICT culture which can be identified. Much of the advances of ICT have actually been reactionary in nature, rather than revolutionary. They were the result of actions undertaken to satisfy a need or fill a niche that was identified at a particular moment in time.

COCLUSION. There is no doubt that the changes have also had an impact on the previously accepted and traditionally employed methods of communication though. The growth of the influence of ICT tools has meant a steady decrease in the importance of traditional modes of communication such as postal letters, or even communicating between friends which can now be accomplished through texting, email, Facebook etc. Even the growth of the importance of sites that connect people has resulted in a profound change in the way that people engage one another, seeking out mates or professional acquaintances.

ICT Business Culture - Success or Failure.

To what degree is it possible to identify a connection between the culture of an ICT business and its degree of success or failure? In this highly competitive economy, companies of all scales are continuously trying to embrace and create an innovative culture, to be distinguished and better compete in the unsecure future. Retaining an innovative culture is not simply an option, it is a necessity. As Angel mentioned in his paper (Angel, 2006), companies that perform business in high-technology industries must “innovate or die”; and the presence of an innovation culture serves as a critical success factor. On the other hand, and according to Poskiene (2006), organizational culture “refers to the complex set of ideologies, traditions, commitments, and values that are shared throughout the organization and that influence how the organization conducts business. Thus, “it is not the values individuals bring to the organization that count, but the values the organization brings to the individual”. As per Martins and Terblanche (2003), organizations channel innovation through 2 primary ways. First, via the socialization processes present within an organization whereby individuals learn the existing organizational norms; Secondly, since an organization’s basic values, assumptions and beliefs are exposed by the structures, policies, and management practices and procedures; they are linked to the levels of creativity and innovation in the workplace. Continuity in the innovative efforts is an idea also remarked by Kenny and Reedy (2007) who argue that an “innovative organizational culture is one in which continuous improvement throughout the organization is the norm”. Innovation is not only derived from a small number of employees who perform a specific task (such as research & development), but it is a philosophy which is embedded throughout the organization and is present amongst all employees (at least to some degree). Unfortunately there is no uniform agreement amongst academic literature on the type of organizational culture needed to foster innovation. Moreover, a paradoxical relationship exists between culture and innovation as organizational culture can be a driver for, or impediment to, innovation (Kenny and Reedy, 2007). For instance, a strong organizational culture can lay the foundation for an innovative firm but may also serve to stifle creativity and discourage the interactions amongst employees which are vital to the innovative process. Evidently, firms in poor economies change their business models and reduce/ cut their costs. Thus, mainly impacting the innovation factor, and tend to scale back on research and development which improve the companies’ prospect on the long run. All in all, several researchers have established and confirmed the relation between culture of an ICT business and success/ failure. The right atmosphere to properly innovate requires an open-minded and relaxed thinking environment. Senior managers should be willing to consider external ideas, coupled with encouraging employees’ creativity. If the firm’s culture causes employees to be limited regarding challenging established practices and procedures, the firm’s ability to be innovating effectively is likely to be reduced.

In conclusion, the relationship between innovation and culture is not necessary and is difficult to be proven by empirical research as it contains too many variables which simply cannot be expressed, measured or perceived.

Bibliography:

www.aps.org/programs/outreach/history/historicsites/transistor.cfm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invention

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahoo!

http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/243136/open_source_vs_proprietary_software.html

http://www.scaruffi.com/svhistory/sv/chap84.html

http://www.freesoft.org/CIE/Course/Section1/2.htm

http://www.ti.com/corp/docs/kilbyctr/jackstclair.shtml

http://www.ti.com/corp/docs/kilbyctr/jackbuilt.shtmlhttp://www.xnumber.com/xnumber/kilby.htm

http://www.vissing.dk/inthist.html

Martin Jetter, Andreas Neus (2008) -Technological Innovation and Its Impact on Business Model, Organization and Corporate Culture – IBM’s Transformation into a Globally Integrated, Service-Oriented Enterprise

Gartner (2008) Gartner highlights key predictions for IT organisations and users in 2008 and beyond.

Graff HJ (1982) The legacies of literacy. Journal of Communication

Hauschildt J, Salomo S (2007) Innovations management

Hemp P, Stewart TA (2004) Leading change when business is good – an interview with Samuel J. Palmisano.

Walls, J. (1993). Global networking for local development: Task focused and relationship focused in crosscultural communication.

Westrup, C, Liu, E., El Sayed, H., & Al Jaghoub, S. (2003). Taking culture seriously: ICTs, cultures and development.

Stohl, C. (2001). Globalizing organizational communication. In F. Jablin & L. Putnam (Eds.)

Straub, D. W. (1994). The effect of culture on IT diffusion: e-mail and fax in Japan and the US.

Straub, D. W. & Karahanna, R. (1998). Knowledge worker communications and recipient availability: Toward a task closure explanation of media choice.

Slack, D. S., & Wise, M. J. (2002). Cultural studies and technology.

Smith, P. B. (2002). Culture's consequences: Something old and something new

Spradley, J. P. (1979). The ethnographic interview. New York: Holt Reinhart & Winston.

http://trillian.randomstuff.org.uk/~stephen/history/#hardware

http://jobsearchtech.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?zi=1/XJ/Ya&sdn=jobsearchtech&zu=http%3A%2F%2F

www.greatachievements.org%2F%3Fid%3D3956

Balanskat, Anja, Blamire, Roger & Kefala, Stella. The ICT Impact Report: A review of studies of ICT impact on schools in Europe. 2006.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_and_communications_technology

http://www.ipthree.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=13:newsrelease&catid=4:newsflash

http://www.metafuture.org/Articles/icts.htm Accessed 20/02/2012

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/subculture Accessed 19/02/2012

Angel, R. (2006), “Putting an Innovation Culture into Practice”, Ivey Business Journal, January/February 2006, pp. 1-5

Poskiene A. (2006), “Organizational Culture and Innovations”, Engineering Economics, vol 46, nº 1, pp.45-50

Martins E.C. and Terblanche F. (2003), “Building Organisational Culture that stimulates Creativity and Innovation”, European Journal of Innovation Management, vol 6, nº 1, pp. 64-74

Kenny B. and Reedy E. (2007), “The Impact of Organizational Culture Factors on Innovation Levels in SMEs: An Empirical Investigation”, the Irish Journal of Management, vol 5, nº 17, pp.119-142