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This is a common meme, but I'm not sure it's correct.
I think that the major driving force for flattening
the organization is the advent of the PC. Each manager
has become a great deal more productive, so we need less
managers. I know, all the studies say otherwise, but the
economic forces that drove the growth of management hierarchies
were the increases in productivity of the organizations that
employed them: those organizations became more proifitable than
their competitors and won in the marketplace, because the tasks
the managers were doing increased the productivity of the
companies. Now many of those tasks can be done more efficiently
because the computers help. Therefore, companies need fewer
managers to provide the same level of management.
Dear fellow Extropians,
To some extent the point made is valid.
It must be remembered, however, that the PC is neither the beginning nor
the end.
There is a bigger and broader picture (or paradigm).
Changes in human behavior in response to education and inovation have, I
think, far more to do with changes in organizational structure.
Humankind does, after all, progress.
Enjoy,
Abraham Moses Genen