The Internet as an agent for social and organizational change

Citation

Schwartz, D. (1999), "The Internet as an agent for social and organizational change", Internet Research, Vol. 9 No. 3. https://doi.org/10.1108/intr.1999.17209caa.001

The Internet as an agent for social and organizational change

The Internet as an agent for social and organizational change

Cultural norms, changing roles, and conflicting motivations ­ these are three of the themes addressed by papers in this issue of Internet Research. Interestingly enough, we are seeing an increasing number of submissions that deal with the impact of the Internet on society and organizations. As organizations continue to rush headlong into this new age of information and communications, they are starting to take heed of the changes taking place in the ways people interact with each other and with their information sources.

The Internet as a new culturally autonomous country ­ or region if you prefer. That is the theme examined by Johnston and Johal, in their paper "The Internet as a virtual cultural region". Sociologists and anthropologists have long used cultural classifiers and different social measures in the quest to understand and compare societies. As the communicative distance between societies shrinks owing to Internet technologies, new social forms and interactions emerge. New norms are being established in individual interactions and in corporate or inter-organizational interactions as well. In order to study and understand the nature of these interactions, with the goal of improving them, we need suitable tools. Johnston and Johal review Hofstede's classification scheme in an important first step in determining whether what was shall continue to be ­ whether traditional forms of cultural analysis can be applied in the "Internet region".

As social interactions change, so do roles and responsibilities in an Internet-savvy organization. Beard and Olsen take the traditional role of Gatekeeper from communications theory and revisit it in terms of Internet Webmasters. Their study encompasses eight universities across three states and gives some important insights into the organizational impact of the Webmasters' activities.

Harry Bruce, who edits the Journal's dynamic Research and reviews section, takes social Internet research in a different direction with his study of "Perceptions of the Internet: what people think when they search the Internet for information". Our individual perceptions and mental representations have a powerful impact on our interaction patterns in general and search strategies in particular. The findings from this study have a number of implications. From a design standpoint, Internet systems must consider users' mental representations to become more intuitive. From a content provision and marketing standpoint, understanding the user's most effective interaction metaphors can lead to more effective information services.

Selwyn's paper on "Educational superhighways" investigates the motivation and impact of government Internet policies on the educational system. The implications of national policies motivated by economic rather than educational considerations are such that rather than realizing its potential and becoming an educational equalizer, the Internet may actually accentuate educational inequalities. Selwyn presents the effects of motivation on Internet policy and discusses a number of public-policy guidelines that must be considered.

This issue of Internet Research also presents a case study of the Knowledge Continuum project of the US National Institute of Standards and Technology. The NIST is an information-driven organization and in his paper, Vassallo draws a detailed picture of how the NIST is re-engineering itself to manage Internet-based organizational knowledge.

Mitigating the heavy social/policy leanings of this issue, is a paper by Foo et al. that presents an overview of techniques to enhance the quality of real-time audio and video over the Internet. With a focus on Quality of Service issues, they present the development of an Internet Multimedia Gateway illustrating an integrated approach to providing advanced Internet-based communications.

As the cycle of technological development and adoption continues, the new forms of Internet interaction facilitated by systems such as that of Foo et al., will undoubtedly fuel further organizational and societal change, raising new questions and challenges requiring our attention.

David Schwartz