Max H. Boisot, Ian C. MacMillan, and Kyeong Seok Han
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- January 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780199250875
- eISBN:
- 9780191719509
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199250875.003.0002
- Subject:
- Business and Management, Knowledge Management
Economists make the unarticulated assumption that information is something that stands apart from and is independent of the processor of information and its internal characteristics. This book argues ...
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Economists make the unarticulated assumption that information is something that stands apart from and is independent of the processor of information and its internal characteristics. This book argues that they need to revisit the distinctions they have drawn between data, information, and knowledge. Some associate information with data and others associate information with knowledge. But since none of them readily conflates data with knowledge, this suggests too loose a conceptualization of the term ‘information’. This book argues that the difference between data, information, and knowledge is in fact crucial. Information theory and the physics of information provide us with useful insights with which to build an economics of information appropriate to the needs of the emerging information economy.Less
Economists make the unarticulated assumption that information is something that stands apart from and is independent of the processor of information and its internal characteristics. This book argues that they need to revisit the distinctions they have drawn between data, information, and knowledge. Some associate information with data and others associate information with knowledge. But since none of them readily conflates data with knowledge, this suggests too loose a conceptualization of the term ‘information’. This book argues that the difference between data, information, and knowledge is in fact crucial. Information theory and the physics of information provide us with useful insights with which to build an economics of information appropriate to the needs of the emerging information economy.
Max H. Boisot
- Published in print:
- 1999
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198296072
- eISBN:
- 9780191685194
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198296072.001.0001
- Subject:
- Business and Management, Knowledge Management, Organization Studies
It is now widely recognized that the effective management of knowledge assets is a key requirement for securing competitive advantage in the emerging information economy. Yet the physical and ...
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It is now widely recognized that the effective management of knowledge assets is a key requirement for securing competitive advantage in the emerging information economy. Yet the physical and institutional differences between tangible assets and knowledge assets remain poorly understood. In the case of knowledge, the ownership and control of assets are becoming ever more separate, a phenomenon that is actually exacerbated by the phenomenon of learning. If we are to meet the challenges of the information economy, then we need a new approach to property rights based on a deeper theoretical understanding of knowledge assets. This book provides some of the key building blocks that are needed for a theory of knowledge assets. The author develops a conceptual framework, the Information-Space or I-Space, for exploring the way knowledge flows within and between organizations.Less
It is now widely recognized that the effective management of knowledge assets is a key requirement for securing competitive advantage in the emerging information economy. Yet the physical and institutional differences between tangible assets and knowledge assets remain poorly understood. In the case of knowledge, the ownership and control of assets are becoming ever more separate, a phenomenon that is actually exacerbated by the phenomenon of learning. If we are to meet the challenges of the information economy, then we need a new approach to property rights based on a deeper theoretical understanding of knowledge assets. This book provides some of the key building blocks that are needed for a theory of knowledge assets. The author develops a conceptual framework, the Information-Space or I-Space, for exploring the way knowledge flows within and between organizations.
Stuart Macdonald
- Published in print:
- 2000
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199241477
- eISBN:
- 9780191696947
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199241477.001.0001
- Subject:
- Business and Management, Innovation, Organization Studies
Information is not taken seriously. Much is said about the information age, the information economy, the information society, and particularly about information technology, but little about ...
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Information is not taken seriously. Much is said about the information age, the information economy, the information society, and particularly about information technology, but little about information itself. Information has some very odd characteristics, conveniently overlooked by senior managers passionate about knowledge-based, learning organizations; by politicians and public servants, compensating with policy and programme for the information failure of organization and market; and by the IT and dotcom communities, bent on adding value to what they treat as just a commodity. This book looks at innovation from an information perspective; one that puts information first. Its information perspective is applied to eighteenth-century agriculture and high technology, to technology transfer and espionage, to corporate strategy and intellectual property.Less
Information is not taken seriously. Much is said about the information age, the information economy, the information society, and particularly about information technology, but little about information itself. Information has some very odd characteristics, conveniently overlooked by senior managers passionate about knowledge-based, learning organizations; by politicians and public servants, compensating with policy and programme for the information failure of organization and market; and by the IT and dotcom communities, bent on adding value to what they treat as just a commodity. This book looks at innovation from an information perspective; one that puts information first. Its information perspective is applied to eighteenth-century agriculture and high technology, to technology transfer and espionage, to corporate strategy and intellectual property.
Max H. Boisot
- Published in print:
- 1999
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198296072
- eISBN:
- 9780191685194
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198296072.003.0011
- Subject:
- Business and Management, Knowledge Management, Organization Studies
This final chapter explores the broader implications of the analysis for strategic management of knowledge assets in the twenty-first century. In industrialized countries, this kind of management ...
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This final chapter explores the broader implications of the analysis for strategic management of knowledge assets in the twenty-first century. In industrialized countries, this kind of management perhaps holds the key to continued prosperity and social stability. In the emerging economies it offers the prospect of by-passing the dreadful and dehumanizing experience of industrialization through which developed countries initially secured their wealth. As things stand, neither industrialized nor industrializing economies have yet developed a managerial orientation appropriate to the needs of the information economy in general, or the phenomenon of knowledge assets in particular. It has been shown here that far more important than having the physical resources is the ability to do something intelligent with them.Less
This final chapter explores the broader implications of the analysis for strategic management of knowledge assets in the twenty-first century. In industrialized countries, this kind of management perhaps holds the key to continued prosperity and social stability. In the emerging economies it offers the prospect of by-passing the dreadful and dehumanizing experience of industrialization through which developed countries initially secured their wealth. As things stand, neither industrialized nor industrializing economies have yet developed a managerial orientation appropriate to the needs of the information economy in general, or the phenomenon of knowledge assets in particular. It has been shown here that far more important than having the physical resources is the ability to do something intelligent with them.
Edward N. Wolff
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195189964
- eISBN:
- 9780199850792
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195189964.003.0005
- Subject:
- Economics and Finance, Public and Welfare
This chapter documents the growth of information workers in the US economy during the postwar period and analyzes the sources of this expansion. The growth in the information economy is important for ...
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This chapter documents the growth of information workers in the US economy during the postwar period and analyzes the sources of this expansion. The growth in the information economy is important for two reasons: First, it could be argued to shed additional light on the factors that explain why workplace skills have not kept up with educational attainment and wages have not grown along with skills and education. Second, it has a direct bearing on the educational and training needs of the labor force. The chapter is organized as follows. Section 5.2 updates the statistics on the composition of the workforce between information and noninformation jobs up to 2000. Section 5.3 uses a decomposition analysis to break down the changes in the information workers' share of the labor force into three parts: the substitution of information labor for other types of labor within the production process—that is, the change in the proportion of information workers in each industry's labor force; the change in each industry's share of the economy's total output; and the change associated with relative variations in labor productivity of the different industries.Less
This chapter documents the growth of information workers in the US economy during the postwar period and analyzes the sources of this expansion. The growth in the information economy is important for two reasons: First, it could be argued to shed additional light on the factors that explain why workplace skills have not kept up with educational attainment and wages have not grown along with skills and education. Second, it has a direct bearing on the educational and training needs of the labor force. The chapter is organized as follows. Section 5.2 updates the statistics on the composition of the workforce between information and noninformation jobs up to 2000. Section 5.3 uses a decomposition analysis to break down the changes in the information workers' share of the labor force into three parts: the substitution of information labor for other types of labor within the production process—that is, the change in the proportion of information workers in each industry's labor force; the change in each industry's share of the economy's total output; and the change associated with relative variations in labor productivity of the different industries.
Shehzad Nadeem
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691147871
- eISBN:
- 9781400836697
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691147871.001.0001
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Social and Cultural Anthropology
In the Indian outsourcing industry, employees are expected to be “dead ringers” for the more expensive American workers they have replaced—complete with Westernized names, accents, habits, and ...
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In the Indian outsourcing industry, employees are expected to be “dead ringers” for the more expensive American workers they have replaced—complete with Westernized names, accents, habits, and lifestyles that are organized around a foreign culture in a distant time zone. This book chronicles the rise of a workforce for whom mimicry is a job requirement and a passion. In the process, it reveals the complications of hybrid lives and presents a vivid portrait of a workplace where globalization carries as many downsides as advantages. The book suggests that the relatively high wages in the outsourcing sector have empowered a class of cultural emulators. These young Indian workers indulge in American-style shopping binges at glittering malls, party at upscale nightclubs, and arrange romantic trysts at exurban cafés. But while the high-tech outsourcing industry is a matter of considerable pride for India, global corporations view the industry as a low-cost, often low-skill sector. Workers use the digital tools of the information economy not to complete technologically innovative tasks but to perform grunt work and rote customer service. Long hours and the graveyard shift lead to health problems and social estrangement. Surveillance is tight, management is overweening, and workers are caught in a cycle of hope and disappointment. Through lively ethnographic detail and subtle analysis of interviews with workers, managers, and employers, the book demonstrates the culturally transformative power of globalization and its effects on the lives of the individuals at its edges.Less
In the Indian outsourcing industry, employees are expected to be “dead ringers” for the more expensive American workers they have replaced—complete with Westernized names, accents, habits, and lifestyles that are organized around a foreign culture in a distant time zone. This book chronicles the rise of a workforce for whom mimicry is a job requirement and a passion. In the process, it reveals the complications of hybrid lives and presents a vivid portrait of a workplace where globalization carries as many downsides as advantages. The book suggests that the relatively high wages in the outsourcing sector have empowered a class of cultural emulators. These young Indian workers indulge in American-style shopping binges at glittering malls, party at upscale nightclubs, and arrange romantic trysts at exurban cafés. But while the high-tech outsourcing industry is a matter of considerable pride for India, global corporations view the industry as a low-cost, often low-skill sector. Workers use the digital tools of the information economy not to complete technologically innovative tasks but to perform grunt work and rote customer service. Long hours and the graveyard shift lead to health problems and social estrangement. Surveillance is tight, management is overweening, and workers are caught in a cycle of hope and disappointment. Through lively ethnographic detail and subtle analysis of interviews with workers, managers, and employers, the book demonstrates the culturally transformative power of globalization and its effects on the lives of the individuals at its edges.
Max H. Boisot
- Published in print:
- 1999
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198296072
- eISBN:
- 9780191685194
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198296072.003.0001
- Subject:
- Business and Management, Knowledge Management, Organization Studies
Knowledge has come to be viewed as an advantage in its own right and not simply as an improvement of other kinds of assets. Prompted by the rapid spread of the information economy, knowledge assets ...
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Knowledge has come to be viewed as an advantage in its own right and not simply as an improvement of other kinds of assets. Prompted by the rapid spread of the information economy, knowledge assets have only begun to be thought of as economic goods. In contrast to physical assets, knowledge assets could in theory last forever. This chapter briefly summarizes the working hypothesis that will be established in the rest of the book, namely that a firm's distinctive competences, its capabilities, and its technologies can be observed as emerging from the discontinuous effect of its knowledge assets on the spatio-temporal and energy systems that make up its physical assets. Technologies, competences, and capabilities, each in their own system, are manifestations of a firm's knowledge assets operating at diverse levels of organization.Less
Knowledge has come to be viewed as an advantage in its own right and not simply as an improvement of other kinds of assets. Prompted by the rapid spread of the information economy, knowledge assets have only begun to be thought of as economic goods. In contrast to physical assets, knowledge assets could in theory last forever. This chapter briefly summarizes the working hypothesis that will be established in the rest of the book, namely that a firm's distinctive competences, its capabilities, and its technologies can be observed as emerging from the discontinuous effect of its knowledge assets on the spatio-temporal and energy systems that make up its physical assets. Technologies, competences, and capabilities, each in their own system, are manifestations of a firm's knowledge assets operating at diverse levels of organization.
Simon Head
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195179835
- eISBN:
- 9780199850211
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195179835.003.0005
- Subject:
- Economics and Finance, Behavioural Economics
This chapter examines the importance of customer relations management (CRM) in the new economy in the U.S. It states that CRM has moved forward to the center of corporate strategy and the ...
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This chapter examines the importance of customer relations management (CRM) in the new economy in the U.S. It states that CRM has moved forward to the center of corporate strategy and the pre-eminence of CRM has been an insistent theme of recent business literature. Harvard Business School theorist Rosabeth Moss Kanter suggested that this trend may be attributed to the shift from an industrial to an information economy where more people hold jobs that involve human contact.Less
This chapter examines the importance of customer relations management (CRM) in the new economy in the U.S. It states that CRM has moved forward to the center of corporate strategy and the pre-eminence of CRM has been an insistent theme of recent business literature. Harvard Business School theorist Rosabeth Moss Kanter suggested that this trend may be attributed to the shift from an industrial to an information economy where more people hold jobs that involve human contact.
David Sarokin and Jay Schulkin
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780262034920
- eISBN:
- 9780262336253
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262034920.001.0001
- Subject:
- Information Science, Library Science
Missed Information explores three themes about information and modern society:
(1) We are neglecting information. Even in our Information Age, we pay more attention to information technology -- the ...
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Missed Information explores three themes about information and modern society:
(1) We are neglecting information. Even in our Information Age, we pay more attention to information technology -- the means of storing, moving, protecting information -- than to information itself. "Information" is still the thing we get about other subjects, but rarely is the subject in its own right.
(2) Information, on its own, is a powerful agent of change.The old adage, "Information is power", has never been more true. Neglecting information quality can lead to system collapse, as happened in the Soviet Union and came close to happening in the subprime mortgage crisis.
(3) Better information and improved information access increases the efficiency of all society's major systems. The benefits of doing so are substantial: more citizen participation, stronger economic performance, better environmental protection and improved government and consumer services. Ultimately, better information allows society's systems to respond more effectively to our collective concerns about global sustainability, such as child labor, climate change, and chemical pollution.
The authors examine these themes in depth, not only from the perspective of broad economic, social and technological principles, but with an eye to practical innovations. The book proposes mechanisms for improving information and decision-making in health care, financial reporting, government systems and consumer purchasing, and explores the benefits to be realized once the changes are made.Less
Missed Information explores three themes about information and modern society:
(1) We are neglecting information. Even in our Information Age, we pay more attention to information technology -- the means of storing, moving, protecting information -- than to information itself. "Information" is still the thing we get about other subjects, but rarely is the subject in its own right.
(2) Information, on its own, is a powerful agent of change.The old adage, "Information is power", has never been more true. Neglecting information quality can lead to system collapse, as happened in the Soviet Union and came close to happening in the subprime mortgage crisis.
(3) Better information and improved information access increases the efficiency of all society's major systems. The benefits of doing so are substantial: more citizen participation, stronger economic performance, better environmental protection and improved government and consumer services. Ultimately, better information allows society's systems to respond more effectively to our collective concerns about global sustainability, such as child labor, climate change, and chemical pollution.
The authors examine these themes in depth, not only from the perspective of broad economic, social and technological principles, but with an eye to practical innovations. The book proposes mechanisms for improving information and decision-making in health care, financial reporting, government systems and consumer purchasing, and explores the benefits to be realized once the changes are made.
Perri 6
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9781861347350
- eISBN:
- 9781447303831
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Policy Press
- DOI:
- 10.1332/policypress/9781861347350.003.0002
- Subject:
- Sociology, Social Research and Statistics
This chapter presents an overview of the personal information economy, exploring its development and importance. It notes the difficulty of overestimating the importance of personal information — ...
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This chapter presents an overview of the personal information economy, exploring its development and importance. It notes the difficulty of overestimating the importance of personal information — global retail organisations take investment decisions based on the most finely grained analysis of consumers's data. It also warns of the risks and builds a framework detailing the risks of the said economy. It notes that traditionally, much attention has been focused on risks of intrusion when considering consumers' information but less attention has been paid to risks to life chances that arise from the ways the economy works.Less
This chapter presents an overview of the personal information economy, exploring its development and importance. It notes the difficulty of overestimating the importance of personal information — global retail organisations take investment decisions based on the most finely grained analysis of consumers's data. It also warns of the risks and builds a framework detailing the risks of the said economy. It notes that traditionally, much attention has been focused on risks of intrusion when considering consumers' information but less attention has been paid to risks to life chances that arise from the ways the economy works.
Judith Yaross Lee
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- March 2014
- ISBN:
- 9781617036439
- eISBN:
- 9781621030577
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781617036439.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, American, 19th Century Literature
Samuel L. Clemens lost the 1882 lawsuit declaring his exclusive right to use “Mark Twain” as a commercial trademark, but he succeeded in the marketplace, where synergy among his comic journalism, ...
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Samuel L. Clemens lost the 1882 lawsuit declaring his exclusive right to use “Mark Twain” as a commercial trademark, but he succeeded in the marketplace, where synergy among his comic journalism, live performances, authorship, and entrepreneurship made “Mark Twain” the premier national and international brand of American humor in his day. So it remains in ours, because Mark Twain’s humor not only expressed views of self and society well ahead of its time, but also anticipated ways in which humor and culture coalesce in today’s postindustrial information economy—the global trade in media, performances, and other forms of intellectual property that began after the Civil War. This book traces four hallmarks of Twain’s humor that are especially significant today. Mark Twain’s invention of a stage persona comically conflated with his biographical self lives on in contemporary performances by Garrison Keillor, Margaret Cho, Jerry Seinfeld, and Jon Stewart. The postcolonial critique of Britain that underlies America’s nationalist tall tale tradition not only self-destructs in A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court but also drives the critique of American Exceptionalism in Philip Roth’s literary satires. The semi-literate writing that gives Adventures of Huckleberry Finn its “vernacular vision”—wrapping cultural critique in ostensibly innocent transgressions and misunderstandings—has a counterpart in the apparently untutored drawing style and social critique seen in The Simpsons, Lynda Barry’s comics, and The Boondocks.Less
Samuel L. Clemens lost the 1882 lawsuit declaring his exclusive right to use “Mark Twain” as a commercial trademark, but he succeeded in the marketplace, where synergy among his comic journalism, live performances, authorship, and entrepreneurship made “Mark Twain” the premier national and international brand of American humor in his day. So it remains in ours, because Mark Twain’s humor not only expressed views of self and society well ahead of its time, but also anticipated ways in which humor and culture coalesce in today’s postindustrial information economy—the global trade in media, performances, and other forms of intellectual property that began after the Civil War. This book traces four hallmarks of Twain’s humor that are especially significant today. Mark Twain’s invention of a stage persona comically conflated with his biographical self lives on in contemporary performances by Garrison Keillor, Margaret Cho, Jerry Seinfeld, and Jon Stewart. The postcolonial critique of Britain that underlies America’s nationalist tall tale tradition not only self-destructs in A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court but also drives the critique of American Exceptionalism in Philip Roth’s literary satires. The semi-literate writing that gives Adventures of Huckleberry Finn its “vernacular vision”—wrapping cultural critique in ostensibly innocent transgressions and misunderstandings—has a counterpart in the apparently untutored drawing style and social critique seen in The Simpsons, Lynda Barry’s comics, and The Boondocks.
Gregory Starrett
- Published in print:
- 1998
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520209268
- eISBN:
- 9780520919303
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520209268.003.0007
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Middle Eastern Cultural Anthropology
This chapter discusses some examples of the way the public economy of information shapes the representations of the political uses of Islam, stating that the public economy of information is the part ...
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This chapter discusses some examples of the way the public economy of information shapes the representations of the political uses of Islam, stating that the public economy of information is the part of culture which is most firmly grounded in the expectations and worries created by schooling. The examples it presents and discusses were chosen for what they reveal of the public image of Islamicized political activity and the creation of “Islamic publicness.”Less
This chapter discusses some examples of the way the public economy of information shapes the representations of the political uses of Islam, stating that the public economy of information is the part of culture which is most firmly grounded in the expectations and worries created by schooling. The examples it presents and discusses were chosen for what they reveal of the public image of Islamicized political activity and the creation of “Islamic publicness.”
Shawn M. Powers and Michael Jablonski
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- April 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780252039126
- eISBN:
- 9780252097102
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5406/illinois/9780252039126.003.0009
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Technology and Society
This book has argued that the real cyber war is a competition among different political economies of the information society. It has shown how discourses of “internet freedom” serve to legitimize a ...
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This book has argued that the real cyber war is a competition among different political economies of the information society. It has shown how discourses of “internet freedom” serve to legitimize a particular political economy of globalism and how the increasingly vocal call for information sovereignty serves a legitimating function for state efforts to govern highly complex societies in a world wired for globally instantaneous communications. By emphasizing four lines of conceptual inquiry—history, social totality, moral philosophy, and praxis—a political-economy framework places the internet-freedom movement in the broader geopolitical and economic context within which strategic actors are competing for resources and power. The book has also examined the various economic and political interests at stake in debates over internet governance by focusing on Google's efforts to dominate each of the four distinct aspects of the information economy, the economics of internet connectivity, and the myth of multistakeholderism. In closing, the book revisits the idea that data is the new oil.Less
This book has argued that the real cyber war is a competition among different political economies of the information society. It has shown how discourses of “internet freedom” serve to legitimize a particular political economy of globalism and how the increasingly vocal call for information sovereignty serves a legitimating function for state efforts to govern highly complex societies in a world wired for globally instantaneous communications. By emphasizing four lines of conceptual inquiry—history, social totality, moral philosophy, and praxis—a political-economy framework places the internet-freedom movement in the broader geopolitical and economic context within which strategic actors are competing for resources and power. The book has also examined the various economic and political interests at stake in debates over internet governance by focusing on Google's efforts to dominate each of the four distinct aspects of the information economy, the economics of internet connectivity, and the myth of multistakeholderism. In closing, the book revisits the idea that data is the new oil.
- Published in print:
- 1999
- Published Online:
- March 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226066257
- eISBN:
- 9780226066226
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226066226.003.0006
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Science
Writing has been taken to imbalance the ancestral ways of knowing, but signs and things keep a fine balance in the natural economy of information. Writing allows an endless accumulation of ...
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Writing has been taken to imbalance the ancestral ways of knowing, but signs and things keep a fine balance in the natural economy of information. Writing allows an endless accumulation of information, and unchecked accumulation leads from eloquence to confusion. Writing has a precision and permanence that human recollection widely shared but cannot match. When literacy occupies an oral culture, it depletes vitality from the community. Literacy can be liberating because the detached information of writing is more widely and easily available than natural or oral information. Writing not only brings near what is distant in time and space, but also allows to realize what otherwise is prohibitively remote as a possibility of conception and imagination.Less
Writing has been taken to imbalance the ancestral ways of knowing, but signs and things keep a fine balance in the natural economy of information. Writing allows an endless accumulation of information, and unchecked accumulation leads from eloquence to confusion. Writing has a precision and permanence that human recollection widely shared but cannot match. When literacy occupies an oral culture, it depletes vitality from the community. Literacy can be liberating because the detached information of writing is more widely and easily available than natural or oral information. Writing not only brings near what is distant in time and space, but also allows to realize what otherwise is prohibitively remote as a possibility of conception and imagination.
Carol Upadhya
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- October 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780199461486
- eISBN:
- 9780199087495
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199461486.003.0003
- Subject:
- Sociology, Economic Sociology, Social Stratification, Inequality, and Mobility
Chapter 2 examines the making of the Indian IT workforce, a process that has been shaped not only by IT companies’ requirements for skilled labour but also by the agency of IT workers. It describes ...
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Chapter 2 examines the making of the Indian IT workforce, a process that has been shaped not only by IT companies’ requirements for skilled labour but also by the agency of IT workers. It describes the methods through which IT workers are recruited, trained, and deployed, and highlights the implications of these practices for the social stratification and segmentation of the IT workforce. The chapter also explores the functioning of the software labour market, the flexibilization of IT labour, and the individualization of work and workers. In the fluid and unstable global information economy, software engineers must create their own ‘job security’ and pursue their careers by changing jobs frequently and continually reskilling themselves to retain their ‘employability’. The chapter argues that IT workers have not been simply ‘produced’ by software capital; instead, they actively produce themselves as ‘entrepreneurial’ worker-subjects as they develop strategies of social mobility.Less
Chapter 2 examines the making of the Indian IT workforce, a process that has been shaped not only by IT companies’ requirements for skilled labour but also by the agency of IT workers. It describes the methods through which IT workers are recruited, trained, and deployed, and highlights the implications of these practices for the social stratification and segmentation of the IT workforce. The chapter also explores the functioning of the software labour market, the flexibilization of IT labour, and the individualization of work and workers. In the fluid and unstable global information economy, software engineers must create their own ‘job security’ and pursue their careers by changing jobs frequently and continually reskilling themselves to retain their ‘employability’. The chapter argues that IT workers have not been simply ‘produced’ by software capital; instead, they actively produce themselves as ‘entrepreneurial’ worker-subjects as they develop strategies of social mobility.
Peter C. Little
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- March 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780814760697
- eISBN:
- 9780814764510
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9780814760697.003.0003
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Medical Anthropology
This chapter traces Endicott's industrial history by examining the Endicott-Johnson Shoe Company (EJ)—the company that made Endicott into the “Magic City” as it transformed the village into a vibrant ...
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This chapter traces Endicott's industrial history by examining the Endicott-Johnson Shoe Company (EJ)—the company that made Endicott into the “Magic City” as it transformed the village into a vibrant and profitable commercial and manufacturing center. Both EJ and IBM played critical roles in the area's industrial facelift. By the 1920s, an estimated 20,000 people worked in EJ's factories, with the labor population booming during EJ's golden years in the mid-1940s. This growth spurt was a direct outcome of World War II, since EJ produced an abundance of military footwear during the war years. After the midpoint of the twentieth century, EJ closed due to the rise of the service and information economy. The chapter then describes the emergence of IBM in Endicott, highlighting how the company created some of the earliest computing technologies that set off the “third industrial revolution” and the so-called Information Age.Less
This chapter traces Endicott's industrial history by examining the Endicott-Johnson Shoe Company (EJ)—the company that made Endicott into the “Magic City” as it transformed the village into a vibrant and profitable commercial and manufacturing center. Both EJ and IBM played critical roles in the area's industrial facelift. By the 1920s, an estimated 20,000 people worked in EJ's factories, with the labor population booming during EJ's golden years in the mid-1940s. This growth spurt was a direct outcome of World War II, since EJ produced an abundance of military footwear during the war years. After the midpoint of the twentieth century, EJ closed due to the rise of the service and information economy. The chapter then describes the emergence of IBM in Endicott, highlighting how the company created some of the earliest computing technologies that set off the “third industrial revolution” and the so-called Information Age.
