ABSTRACT
This chapter explains the contributions that information and communications technology (ICT) has made to societal change, and emphasises the fact that many of these changes were more the result of a gradual evolution than of a revolution. It describes that the information society has mainly been the result of an evolutionary process of societal and technological development and considers the effects on organisations of the rise of the information society. The chapter discusses the attention given by organisational theory to 'new' production models and considers the impact of the gradual introduction of these new production models on the quality of labour. It explores the question of whether employees are 'winners' or 'losers' in the switch to new organisational forms and employment relations. The chapter argues that if the introduction of ICT were associated with a universal improvement in the quality of labour, the most people could be counted among the winners of the development.
