Vulnerable Fortress (PDF)

In this challenging book, James R. Taylor and Elizabeth J. Van Every argue that partly as a result of the introduction of information and communications technology into the workplace, the nature and authority of the traditional bureaucratic form of organization is being called into question. While not espousing technological determinism, they contend that developments in telecommunications, and computer software, constitute at one and the same time, a globalization and a fragmentation of organizational communications. These trends transcend the bounds of bureaucratic lines of control and integration, and presage the emergence of new organizational forms.Suggesting that existing models of the organization as a rational machine are no longer adequate to explain or to cope with the complexity of the organizational changes taut are occurring in an information economy, Taylor and Van Every outline a communication-based alternative. Their approach explores the technology's impact on the transactional and symbolic dimensions of organization, and its implications for radical 're-framing' of management's own role.The book touches on important issues in at least three major areas of research: organizational theory, informational technology, and the information society. Taylor and Van Every's interdisciplinary synthesis focuses attention on the fundamental nature of modern organizations from a unique communicational perspective.Taylor and Van Every identify problems which are having and will continue to have a significant impact on business, governance, and society.