The Impact of Office Automation on the Organization: Some Implications for Research and Practice

Introduction The term "office automation" is generally considered to refer to the use of integrated computer and communications systems to support administrative procedures in an office environment. Automated office systems represent structured methods of handling business text processing and communications through an integrated network that may include word processing for generating correspondence, electronic message systems for personto-person communication, teleconferencing services, facsimile transmission, electronic ffling systems, on-line calendar systems, and links to c o r p o r a t e files and outside services [6, 39]. In the automated office, not only will office work be performed more efficiently, but the concept of office work itseff will be altered [9, 19, 39, 44, 49]. The greatest potential of office automation is not expected to be from the improvement of clerical and administrative tasks, but from the ability of managers to gain increased control over their operations [9, 39]. Two major factors motivate business organizations to consider automated office systems. The first is a critical need to improve the productivity of both clerical and managerial office employees. While office costs have doubled in the last ten years, office productivity has risen only four percent [48]. The size of the office work force is expected to double between 1975 and 1985 [51]. It has been estimated that up to 95 percent of a manager's time is spent in written and verbal communicatio n [40], much of which could be affected by office automation. The second reason for interest in office automation is the increasing complexity of organizational decisionmaking and information needs. The more traditional forms of communication such as telephone, mail, and person-to-person meetings may be ineffective for processing large volumes of information rapidly. In the future, this technology may be the only feasible way to deal with information processing in increasingly complex and...