fhapgood@world.std.com (Fred Hapgood) (03/06/90)
I am interested in finding "literature" -- studies, analyses, etc. -- on the relation of computer networks to 'organizational governance'. I am also interested in reading interesting projections as to how and whether networks might be employed in civil governance. People working in organizations with a highly developed email and conference architecture often report that the network plays a major if indirect role in administration. It stimulates, preserves, and makes visible conversations among people on subjects tangentially if at all related to their job description. No doubt employees have always talked about a wide range of issues, but networks promote this widening of interest and present them to the executive formally responsible for deciding these issues. As such they can take on a life and weight of their own. At one extreme the executive will find himself ratifying the consensus of the net; at the other he will resent all this backseat driving in his baliwick. I am wondering whether any management or organization theorist, B-school professor, sociologist, or even anthropologist has looked at this phenomenon systematically. On which issues is this influence felt most strongly? What are its limits? Etc. It is possible to imagine that networks might be used directly in civil government (obviously to organize interest groups, for one point). Does anybody know of any intelligent thinking on this? Fred