Computers in the Human Context. Information Technology, Productivity and People

Paperback. Couple of creases to cover. Over $300 billion a year is now spent worldwide on computer and communications hardward and software. Yet the human, organizational and social factors shaping this far-reaching revolution have scarcely been analysed and are little understood. Our technical knowledge about computers is not matched by a knowledge of their social consequences and possibilities. The contributors to this volume have come together to help rectify this imbalance with a challenging reappraisal of the information technology revolution. As the leading experts in the field, they are able to show that many companies and organizations are not using computers effectively and therefore much of the huge expenditure on IT is being wasted. While it is clear from the studies reported here the economic payoff from IT has been slow in coming, the euphoria that greeted the arrival of the microchip in the 1970s has also been displaced by a more critical assessment of the social benefits of computerization. Successive authors in this volume debunk popular notions, such as 'artifical intelligence', the 'electronic cottage', 'teledemocracy' and 'post-industrial society', while others describe the growing ethical problems of the IT revolution, like computer crime, workplace surveillance, intellectual property rights and government control of information. The author's book is a development of his earlier highly-successful athologies and is a major statement of the increaing awareness that what decides the success or failure of computer systems in all contexts is the 'human factor'. 548 pp. (We carry a wide selection of titles in The Arts, Theology, History, Politics, Social and Physical Sciences. academic and scholarly books and Modern First Editions ,and all types of Academic Literature.).…