ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses four main objectives: to improve the processing, storage, transmission, and analysis of information; to increase flexibility; to improve control and consistency in production; and to achieve improvements in the product. It reviews the empirical evidence relating to those objectives which have been adopted in relation to the introduction of new technology in organizations. The chapter concentrates on the qualitative, as against the quantitative or employment aspects and implications of the introduction of new technology. Labour costs are separated out because they have attracted the most attention in the literature on objectives for new technology adoption. John Bessant has found a 'common motive' for the adoption of new technology to be the need to meet skill shortages. S. Hill has argued that: Managers introduce new production techniques in order to maintain or increase profitability, and their assessments of new methods may contain no conscious evaluation of the control potential.
