Sunday, October 31, 2004

Questions for Halloween

1. Brynjolfsson and Hitt claim that with the investment in computer and information technology, a "firm has a new system with lasting value" (55). But how lasting is that value? If hardware and software advancements continue, will prior investments retain their value?

2. Prasad discusses the phenomena in which "an informal norm had developed such that styaing with a company longer than four or five years begins to be seen as deviant, such an employee may be presumed to be stagnating, or to have reached a limit" (437). How might this effect corportate/work culture(s)? How might it effect the worker and the worker's family?

3. B & H's discussion of workers' resistance to change - Why might those in charge, those who institute change, fail to plan for such resistance? How can they avoid it? Are humans/workers simply stubborn when they resist change? Or are they, at some level, concerned about how the job might change? That the change could lead to no job? That they might need to be 're-educated'?