THE INTERNET AND IMPERATIVES FOR NEW FORMS OF ORGANIZATIONS

R. GHASEMIYEH, Ph.D. Researcher, Department of Management, University of Newcastle Upon Tyne, Newcastle, U.K

A. ZARIFFARD, Ph.D., Department of Management and Accounting, College of Social Science, Shiraz University, Shiraz, I. R. of Iran

Abstract

The role of information technology (IT) in shaping tomorrow’s operations is a distinctive one. The Internet is a pervasive phenomenon and it is commonly believed that the Internet and its inherent distributed capabilities lead to decentralized views. They have had profound effects on organizational structure, because organizations can gain enormous location flexibility in various activities. While the Internet has overcome distance and organizations they now have to deal with different combinations of physical and electronic spaces and places. The challenge for companies in information markets is the shift from physical to electronic infrastructures. Many researchers believe that current models of organizational structure fail to meet the challenges of the information age. Researchers believe that the traditional hierarchy has outlived its usefulness and that new organizational models are needed and that IT lies at the heart of these new models for next century. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the Internet impacts on organizational structures and identify imperatives for new emerging forms of organizations in the light of IT advances.

Keywords - IT, Organizational Structures, New Organizational Models, Electronic Infrastructure.

email: Rahim.ghasemiyeh@ncl.ac.uk

email: azarif@rose.shirazu.ac.ir