Infrastructure for telework
Gerardine L. Desanctis, Brad M. Jackson, Marshall Scott Poole, Gary W. Dickson · 1996
Support of global, cross-functional, and mobile workers in a large organization requires f~responsive, and highly integrated electronic communication systems.This case illustrates the technical, social, and political complexities involved in developing such an infmshuctum in large fins.This study shows how the investment by Texaco in the late 1980s in ehxtronic communications systems enabled efficiencies in the divisional form of organization, but by the 1990s, this investment also served as a constraint toward further change toward a nehvork form of organization.The pressure to move toward a "network" form of organizing--and to so do rapidly--is overwhelming (M&x Permission to make digitalkwd copies of all or part of this material for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that the copies are not made or +stributed for pro~t or commercial advantage, the copyright n@lce, the .tltle of the pub~catlon and its date appear, and notice is gwen that copyright la by permission of the ACM, Inc.To copy olhcrwise, to republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires specific permission and/or fee.SIGCPR/ SIGMIS '96.