Экология. НОВ.2019_Сборник_контрольных_работ_для_заочников_ФЗО_1. Технологический университет
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Вариант 2 для направления подготовки 09.03.02 Информационные системы и технологииПрочитайте и устно переведите текст на русский язык. DIGITAL DISRUPTION OF ORGANIZATIONS For some decades now, technology has been undermining the very logic of the organization, particularly those that are vertically integrated.14 Nobel economist Ronald Coase, in his seminal 1937 article ‘The Nature of the Firm’, argued that organizations were created because the ‘transaction costs’ of doing business in the open market were too great for complex enterprises, like building railroads, manufacturing cars or creating telephone networks. Large, vertically integrated companies were established to reduce these transaction costs. Coase’s work was later extended by Oliver Williamson with his transaction cost economics. A transaction cost is incurred in making an economic exchange, i.e. the cost of participating in a market. Information is at its core. Transaction costs include search and information costs such as: those incurred in determining that the required good or service is available on the market, which provider has the lowest price etc.; bargaining costs required to come to an acceptable agreement with the other party to the transaction; drawing up an appropriate contract; and policing and enforcement costs to make sure the other party sticks to the terms of the contract, and taking appropriate action if necessary. Many economists argue that the value of organizing (and therefore organizations) is based on the principle of exploiting information asymmetries (i.e. specialization), culminating in thinking of organizations as knowledge ‘engines’ or ‘information processors’ operating in a knowledge economy. But since the commercialization of the Internet and the accelerated shift online, all these transaction costs have plummeted19 as technology made it easier to search for information and transact with workers, suppliers and customers. Companies can focus on their so‐called core competences and outsource or buy in others. For example, through automated supply chains, information sharing and transparency, manufacturers no longer have to hold raw material stocks ‘just in case’ a supplier has production or logistics problems. By providing visibility, suppliers essentially become an extension of the manufacturer. Work by Shapiro and Varian has highlighted the difference between ‘physical goods’ and ‘information goods’ in the digital world and the profound implications of those differences for strategy.21 One critically defining attribute is that the market value of information goods is derived from the information they contain. So an immediate stock price is likely to be more valuable to a trader than a family photo, even though the latter will be larger in terms of bytes. Other organizational models are emerging that are a synthesis of firms and markets – often called ‘platform’ companies. Uber (the online taxi organization) is one example – it is already a big, global company and growing larger by shaping and creating a new marketplace. Platform companies have been gathering momentum, both in terms of numbers and market shares, for the past two decades: for example, the online retail and auction markets created by Amazon and eBay, the information and media marketplaces created by Google and Facebook, or the music and app markets built by Apple. More recently these new hybrids have extended into human resources, with services like Freelancer, TaskRabbit and WorkFusion, and even to clean energy, at companies like Sungevity. The growth rates of these platform businesses are often phenomenal and they are redefining some of the boundaries of other firms. Platform and network effects, and the economics of networks, are more important now than before and both drive the adoption of IS/IT and are enabled by IS/IT. The changes can also be seen at older, more established industrial companies. The process of innovation at many firms has changed in recent decades. Traditionally the whole model for innovation was internal but now, between government funding for R&D, collaboration with small companies, joint ventures and crowdsourcing ideas using Internet sites like Innocentive, it is often very different. Companies now have to work out how to innovate in an open and collaborative environment. (English for Computer Science Students: учеб. пособие / Сост. Т. В. Смирнова, М. В. Юдельсон; науч. ред. Н. А. Дударева) II. Письменно переведите 2 и 3 абзац. III. Найдите абзац, где выражается основная идея текста. |