Professional Documents
Culture Documents
RETHINKING OB IN AN E-WORLD
Stephen P. Robbins
Thumb through current OB books, including my own, and you find little or nothing on
the Internet and e-business. Why? Its too recent a phenomenon. In fact, this is an
excellent example of what were currently teaching in our classrooms and textbooks:
Change is occurring at an accelerated pace! Two years ago, if the Internet was discussed
in an OB course it was merely as an example of technological changes in the
workplace. The Internet was a topic that was more appropriately discussed in MIS
courses. Well this is no longer true. Business schools are rapidly adding courses in e-
business. Some are even creating entire majors on the subject. And e-commerce is
reshaping the field of marketing as we know it.
In my presentation today, I want to show how the e-world will effect OB. But
before I begin, let me qualify my remarks. There is currently a dearth of research on this
subject. What Ive done is reviewed the research that is out there and extrapolated it into
some observations and speculations. I certainly hope that by the time I sit down to begin
work on the next edition of my OB book, there will be an increasing body of substantive
research to draw on. My not-so-subtle message to doctoral students looking for a
dissertation topic or faculty seeking a new research stream: I encourage you to consider
how computers and the Internet are influencing everything from leadership to work-
family balance.
WHAT IS AN E-ORGANIZATION?
Lets begin by clarifying some concepts. Two terms that seem to cause considerable
confusion are e-commerce and e-business.(1)
The term e-commerce is becoming the standard label to describe the sales side of
electronic business. It encompasses presenting products on web sites and filling orders.
The vast majority of articles and media attention given to using the Internet in business
are directed at on-line shoppingmarketing and selling goods and services over the
Internet. When you hear about the tremendous number of people who are shopping on
the Internet; and how businesses can set up Web sites where they can sell goods, conduct
transactions, get paid, and fulfill orders, youre hearing about e-commerce. Its a
dramatic change in the way a company relates to its customers. And e-commerce is
exploding. Global e-commerce spending was $111 billion in 1999. It is expected to be
$1.3 trillion by 2003.(2) Let me note, however, that 90% of e-commerce sales that will
be things like Intel chip sales to Compaq or Goodyear sale to Ford rather than you and I
buying computers or sweaters for personal consumption.
In contrast, e-business refers to the full breadth of activities included in a
successful Internet-based enterprise. As such, e-commerce is a subset of e-business. E-
business includes developing strategies for running Internet-based companies, creating
integrated supply chains collaborating with partners to electronically coordinate design
and production, identifying a different kind of leader to run a virtual business, the
challenge of finding skilled people to build and operate intranets and Web sites, and
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running the back room or the administrative side. E-business includes the creation of
new markets and customers, but its also concerned with the optimum ways to combine
computers, the Web, and applications software.
An e-business uses the Internet and internal intranets to open a firms communication
channels, making it possible to integrate and share information, and allowing customers,
suppliers, staff, and others to communicate with and through the firm on a real-time basis.
Ive found it helpful to think in terms of degree of e-business involvement.
Companies like Amazon.com, E*Trade, e-Toys, VarsityBooks, and PetsMart didnt exist
ten years ago. They are totally products of the Internet revolution. Their customers never
physically walk through their stores nor do they ever meet an employee. These are
examples of total Internet firms. Their sole source of revenue is based on Internet-related
interactions.
Toys R Us, Tupperware, Merrill Lynch, and Office Depot also have Web sites
and are selling goods and services via the Internet. But the Internet operations of these
companies are, at least currently, a small part of their business. At this point, their e-
commerce operations are secondary to their traditional businesses. You can think of these
firms as being Internet enriched.
An increasingly popular application of e-business, which doesnt get much
media attention, is merely using the Internet to better manage an ongoing business. There
are literally millions of firms that arent selling anything over the Internet but they are
using ebusiness-applications to improve communications with internal and external
stakeholders and to better perform traditional business functions. For instance, General
Motors is improving its internal efficiencies and providing support to its wide-reaching
dealer network and to on-line sellers (such as AutoByTel and CarPoint) by creating a
shared and integrated network.(3) It wants to make comparison shopping easier for
consumers, create a central customer data warehouse, better link product design to
customer tastes, and eventually create an integrated network that can both manage the
building of cars and allow GM to stay in constant touch with its car buyers.
I prefer to use the terms e-organization or e-org. These terms recognize that
the electronic world isn't just applicable to business firms. Not-for-profit firms and
government also are going electronic. The IRS is dealing with taxpayers over the
Internet. Museums are selling items on their Web sites. State governments are using the
Internet for everything from purchasing supplies to renewing drivers licenses. City
governments are networking their computers to suppliers and shortening their supply
chain.
In the same way that we recognize that OB concepts relate to all organizations,
not just business firms, my reference to the e-organization is similarly noted.
Before we can talk about e-organizations and how theyre likely to influence OB issues,
we need to note whats unique about e-organizations. If theyre not distinct from more
traditional organizations, then there is nothing unique to consider. But I think there are
some unique things here. Let me briefly mention a half-dozen of the new rules of e-
business and e-commerce.
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organization and outside. For instance, the recent decisions by Ford Motor Co.
and Delta Air Lines to provide all their employees with computers and Internet
access for a nominal fee will increase employees ability to communicate with
each other, facilitate a feeling of community, and make it easier for management
to communicate with workers. Of course, it will also make it easier for
employees to share grievances and collectively band together against
management!
E-LEADERSHIP
Is leadership in an e-organization different than in a traditional organization? E-
business executives whove worked in both think there is. They tend to focus
on four differences: the speed at which they have to make decisions, the vision
of the future, the importance of maintaining flexibility, and the ability to master
high expectations.
would simply execute against it. At eBay, we constantly revisit the strategy
and revise the tactics.(6)
Leaders in e-orgs see themselves as sprinters and their contemporaries in
offline businesses as long-distance runners. They frequently inject the term
Internet time a reference to a rapidly speeded up working environment.
Every [e-business] leader today has to unlearn one lesson that was drilled into
each of them: You gather data so that you can make considered decisions. You
cant do that on Internet time.(7)
MAINTAINING FLEXIBILITY
E-leaders need high flexibility. They have to be able to roll with the ups and
downs. They need to be able to redirect their organizations when they find that
something doesnt work. They have to encourage experimentation. Mark
Cuban, cofounder of Broadcast.com, amplifies on this point: When we started,
we thought advertising would be the core of our business. We were wrong. We
thought that the way to define our network was to distribute servers all over the
country. We were wrong. Weve had to recalibrate again and again and well
have to keep doing it in the future.(10)
E-STRUCTURE
Traditional authority hierarchies and departments have little place in e-
organizations. The dominant structure is strongly shaped by massive enterprise-
wide information systems.
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DECISION MAKING
Our traditional take on decision making needs to be modified for e-
organizations. Exactly what those modifications should be, Im not sure. But
let me offer two projections.
First, individual decision-making models are likely to become increasingly
obsolete. E-organizations are team-based communities. Group decision-
making models will offer greater relevance.
Second, the thoughtful, analytical models of decision making which
dominate the strategic management literature will be replaced by action
models. There are no proven business models for e-organizations. Success goes
to firms that value experimentation those that utilize trial and error, are able to
gather data quickly and assimilate it, and who accept failure and learn from it.
E-organizations dont have the luxury of trying to fine-tune decisions in
search of perfection. E-organizations make decisions with often very limited
information and, as a result, dont fear making mistakes. Decisions in e-
organizations are in continual flux, with past choices being continually modified
and even discarded. And routine decision programs are essentially useless
because few of the decisions that need to be made have been encountered
before. So not only do decisions in e-orgs need to be made fast, they have to be
based on little previous experience. This, of course, increases the probability of
errors and the need to be able to recover fast from mistakes and move on.
EMPLOYEE SELECTION
Alan Naumann, head of Calico Technologies, expresses a view widely held by
e-business executives: Despite all our focus on speed, we consciously slow
down for one thing: hiring peopleIts the one aspect of business today in
which the cost of mistakes is greater than the advantage of acting in real
time.(12)
Recruiting good people is particularly challenging in e-orgs. They require
a unique brand of people. They have to be smart and able to survive in the
demanding cultures of e-business firms. In addition, those people who
understand e-business are in short supply and can go wherever they like.
Finally, rapid growth converts into a need for lots of hiring. So the supply of
quality applicants is limited.
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Its not irrelevant that venture capitalists place the greatest importance,
when deciding whether or not to invest in a new Internet-based company, on the
people in the firm. Given the choice between an A+ team with a B- idea and an
A+ idea with a B- team, venture capitalists choose the former every time.(13)
They bet on the ability of a smart team of people to adjust the idea as needed.
In response, most e-business firms take an aggressive approach to
recruitment. They involve senior executives more than traditional businesses
and actively search out qualified applicants. For instance, Jeff Bezo, founder
and CEO at Amazon.com, spends a lot of his time recruiting and says he puts it
near the top of his priority list.(14) E-commerce software maker Interwoven
lures new software-engineers to its Sunnyvale, California offices with BMW
Z3s. The firm pays for a two-year lease and auto insurance.(15) Austin, Texas-
based pcOrder considered hiring so critical that it moved some of its best
marketers into recruiting. The firm recently blitzed Austin with paid
advertisements, events, and direct mail. They created a turn in your friend
campaign and rewarded employees with $5,000 finders fee and a chance to win
a Porsche if they hired their friend. The program resulted in pcOrder adding
more than 30 new people.(16)
Once applicants have been identified, e-orgs need to carefully screen final
candidates to insure they fit well into the organizations culture. E-orgs tend to
have common cultural characteristics: an informal workplace, team spirit,
intense pressures to complete projects quickly and on time, and a 24-7 (24 hours
a day, 7 days a week) work mentality. Selection tools such as tests, interviews,
and references need to select out people that arent team players and cant
handle ambiguity and stress.
SOCIALIZATION
Once hired, new employees need to be socialized into the e-business. This
transition for new employees provides a challenge because they tend to be
young, with limited work experience and little understanding of how the
business operates. And the problem isnt that much different when hiring
middle and upper-level managers. Even though they may be seasoned with
more business experience, they often come from more traditional companies
and take a while to adapt to the e-business environment.
To help new employees adjust, Pinnacle decision Systems relies heavily
on its employee Web site, dubbed HQ.(17) Before reporting to work, new
hires receive HQs Web address. In the comfort of their homes they can read up
on Pinnacless policies and procedures, review the companys structure, and
even order business cards and nameplates. They can also visit the virtual
lounge and meet some of their new work colleagues. Management has found
that this site helps people better assimilate into the firm and facilitates
communication in a company where the number of new employees is growing
at 40 percent a year.
COMMUNICATION
E-organizations are rewriting the rules of communication. Because they are
designed around comprehensive enterprise-wide information systems,
traditional hierarchical levels no longer constrain communication. E-
organizations allow, even encourage, individuals to communicate directly
without going through channels. Employees can communicate instantly
anytime, with anyone, anywhere. These open communication systems break
down historical status hierarchies. They make obsolete or revise interpersonal
communication concepts such as distinction between formal and informal
networks, nonverbal communication, and filtering. They also redefine how
activities such as meetings, negotiations, supervision, and water cooler talk
are conducted. For instance, Virtual meetings allow people in geographically
dispersed locations to meet regularly. And its now easier for employees in San
Francisco and Singapore to covertly share company gossip than those off-line
employees who work two cubicles apart.
The downside of this open communication network is communication
overload. A recent poll found that the average U.S. worker receives five phone
calls, 36 e-mails, 18 pieces of mail, and 18 in-house memos daily. (18) He or
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she also reads 13 Post-it messages, 14 faxes, and listens to 23 voicemail or cell
phone messages. These frequent incoming communication interruptions cost
workers valuable time and are likely to erode their ability to concentrate.
BUILDING TRUST
People in organizations need to have positive expectations that others will not
act opportunistically and take advantage of them. That is, they need to be able
to trust.
But if trust is important in traditional organizations, its even more so in e-
organizations. Why? Studies indicate that the importance of trust increases
under conditions of change and instability.(19) And those are terms that
characterize e-organizations. When rules, policies, norms, and traditional
practices are in flux or absent, people turn to personal relationships for
guidance. And the quality of these relationships are largely determined by level
of trust.
OB has only recently discovered trust as a major topic of research interest.
It will become more so as we try to ascertain answers to questions such as: How
do people build trust with individuals theyve never met? How do temporary
teams build trust? Do trust-building processes differ between permanent and
contact employees or between intraorganizational teams? And what kinds of
behaviors are likely to increase customer trust in an organizations employees?
LEGITIMIZING OF EMOTIONS
The topic of emotions is a relatively new addition to the core content of OB. As
I note in the latest edition of my OB book (20), emotions were essentially
overlooked within the field of OB because of the myth of rationality and the
belief that emotions of any kind at work are disruptive. Essentially,
organizations were viewed as vehicles for rational action. And emotions had no
place in this idealized rational world. Of course this was nave. Emotions are
part of organizational life. People dont leave their emotions in the parking lot
when they come to work!
Is an understanding of emotions any more important in e-organizations
than traditional organizations? It just might be.(21) E-organizations allow
people to work together from separate places at separate times. This creates
social isolation. Additionally, e-organizations are characterized by rapid change
and instability. These conditions foster a need among employees for community
and strong emotional bonds. People need to be able to openly share feelings
and vent frustrations with colleagues. So while traditional organizations might
function more effectively by encouraging employees to keep their emotions
bottled up, e-organizations may be more productive when employees feel free to
openly express their emotions.
WORK DESIGN
The Internet, as part of the larger vision of communication networks, is helping
to reshape the work place and redesign jobs. It is making telecommuting easier.
Its allowing millions of workers to become free agent consultants who work
on virtual projects without ever setting foot in a firms physical facility. Its also
making it simple for teams of workers to communicate without physically being
in the same room. But these are all the positive things youve been reading
about for the past few years. Lets touch on the darker side of how e-
organizations are going to effect work design. Specifically, the long and brutal
hours of work, the effect of Internet access as an employee time waster, and the
physical liabilities associated with working long-term on a computer.
Weve already mentioned the long hours that the typical e-organization
demands from its employees. While some employees thrive on working 12-
hour days or six and seven day weeks, a lot dont! For such people, these all-
consuming work schedules take their toll. Employees are tired, anxiety-ridden,
and stresses. This can undermine employee health and productivity, and
eventually lead to burnout. Retention levels are also certain to suffer.
Additionally, many employees whose computers have access to the
Internet are using this access to squander work time. Theyre surfing the
Internet, chatting with friends, schmoozing in chat rooms, managing their stock
portfolios, and other behaviors that undermine productivity. For instance,
studies indicate that the average worker with Internet access spends 90 minutes
a day surfing the Internet.
Employees who spend day-in and day-out sitting in front of a computer
are susceptible to a number of negative outcomes. (24) For instance, computer
users who sit too far from their monitors risk fatigue and eye strain. And carpal
tunnel syndrome a common disorder causing pain in the hand, wrist and lower
arm is a major cause of missed workdays. The Bureau of Labor Statistics
reports that 42 percent of CTS cases require more than 30 days away from
work.(25)
WORK-FAMILY BALANCE
Theres a well-known story that circulates at Microsoft. It was 8 in the evening
when a young programmer, who was walking down a hall, ran into Bill Gates.
Gates asked him where he was going. The young man said, Time to go home.
Ive been here for 12 hours straight. To which gates replied, Oh, only
working a half day?
An increasing number of employees are putting in 12 hour days. And
working 6 and 7 days a week. High-tech companies, especially Internet-based
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3.Explain why the Internet tends to squeeze out excess profits? If this is
true, why are stocks of so many publicly-held e-commerce firms selling at
such high prices?
6.Youve recently started a new e-commerce firm. Where will you find
staff? Once hired, how will you motivate them?
REFERENCES
32. Cited in The Industry Standard, January 24, 2000, p.252; and R.
Wright, Will We Ever Log Off? Time, February 21,2000, p.56.
33. Cited in Red Herring, December 1999, p.37
34. Reported in J. Markoff, A Newer, Lonelier Crowd Emerges in
Internet Study, New York Times, February 16, 2000, p.A1.
35. Ibid., p.A15
36. L.W. Porter and L.E. McKibbon, Future of Management Education
and Development: Drift or thrust into the 21st Century? (New York:
McGraw Hill, 1988)