Rebuilding Corporations Online

Haejin Yun

Corporate Discipline

• Discipline: “A network of strategies employed by a person or group to maintain a specific set of power relations”; the mechanism of control– the Internet as a disciplinary tool: resistance as

well as discipline

Corporate Discipline

• Panopticon1. Jeremy Bentham (1791): Designed to be an

effective and humane penitentiary; Unidirectional surveillance

2. Foucault (1979): Prisoner as an object of information rather than a subject in communication

Panopticon

The Virtual Panopticon

Corporate Discipline

• Electronic Panopticon

AMA (American Management Association, 2000)1. Monitoring Internet connection: 54.1%2. Storage and review of computer files: 30.8%3. Storage and review of e-mail messages: 38.1%

• Botan (1996): less privacy, uncertainty about their role, lower self-esteem, communication reduction, isolation --> Virtual cells of an electronic panopticon

• Mciroserfs: Bill Gates’ formless and faceless presence

Corporate Discipline

• Anticipatory Conformity1. A practice in which an employee adopts a

docile and disciplined relationship to authority b/c of the potential rather than the practice of domination

2. Why electronic surveillance? - Cyberslacking (Naughton, 1999): Using corporate information technology for personal ends

Consumers Online

1. Cookies– Files that place themselves on the visitor’s

hard drive

2. Voluntary data submission

3. Data Mining– eg. ProfitMax and ProfitMax Bankruptcy

Ethical Issues

• Marx (1998)1. Unfair advantage2. Restricted social participation3. Unwarranted public embarrassment4. Betrayal of confidence5. Intrusion into solitude6. Individualized propagandistic appeals7. Waste of communication resources

Diffusion of Innovations

• Diffusion of Innovations: Communication about new ideas through certain channels over time among members of a social system.

1. Communicating new ideas– New technology and New idea attached to

each other– Automobile together with Highway and an

ideology of limitless horizons

Diffusion of Innovations

2. Communicating through channels– Channels provide necessary context to any analysis of

the new idea

3. Communicating over time– Time provides a dimension to study the unfolding of

events in various contexts

4. Communicating in a social system– Social systems set norms or rules by which an

innovation (new idea) is perceived, therefore, accepted or rejected.

Xerox PARC

• Developed a set of important microcomputer technologies

1. The world’s first personal computer2. The mouse3. Icons and pull-down menu4. Laser printing5. Ethernet technology– None of these, except for laser printing, were

commercialized into products by the Xerox Corp., but by Apple Computer, Inc.

Xerox PARC

• Why failed?1.Inflexible corporate identity

2.Rapid development by PARC which the management couldn’t follow

3.Physical distance among PARC, the headquarter, the manufacturing center,

Innovativeness • Innovativeness: “The degree to which an individual or

organization is relatively earlier in adopting new ideas than other members of a social system”; Adopter category

• More social participation, more personal networks, more oriented toward outside a social system

• Papa (1990): Interaction and Diversity rather than previous experience with the technology– “The more diverse an employee’s network was, the more

coworkers he or she talked to about the new technology, and the more productive that employee was likely to be using the new system” (Diffusion of Innovations)

– Can this technology serve as a tool for the corporate discipline?

Corporate Convergence

• Convergence: A process in which industries, formerly considered to offer distinct services, merge their products and distribution networks.

• AT&T and TCI AT&T and Comsat– AT&T – the then nation's largest long distance company - and TCI - the then

nation’s second largest cable TV company - in 1999– The merger of the nation's largest cable company -- AT&T Broadband -- with

the third largest – Comcast– Microsoft invested $5 billion in AT&T in 1999 and $1 billion in Comcast in

1997. • AOL and Time Warner

– In March 1999 AOL and Time Warner were both among the 11 companies controlling 50 percent of all user minutes - ranked number one and 11, respectively. Today, AOL Time Warner, the product of their merger, is ranked number one.

Corporate Convergence

March 99 March 00 March 01

Total Minutes spent online (in billions)

50 73 107

# of Companies controlling 50%

11 7 4 *

# of Companies controlling 60%

110 40 14

•AOL Time Warner, 32.0%; Microsoft, 7.5%; Yahoo, 7.2; Napster Digital 3.6%

Corporate Convergence

• Portal Merger– @Home and Excite in 1999

• Microsoft is an investor in AT&T, which is a major shareholder of Excite@Home.

– Yahoo and GeoCities in 1999– Doorways to the WWW

Internet Cluster Analysis

• A.T. Kearney– 1st Internet Cluster Analysis in 1999

• Five factors:Talent, Pillar companies, Universities, Capital, and Support services

– 2nd Internet Cluster Analysis in 2000

• Government, Overseas location (59 % percent in Europe, 43 % in Asia, 19 % in Latin American and 7 % in Africa), Relocation considered, Less influence of the talent factor on location (86% in 1999 to 58% in 2000), M&A surge, Overseas investment

What Works? (1999)

                                                                                                             

                       

Internet Cluster Regions