Management Skills – Leadership Skills for Efficient Functioning of an Organization
The success and failure of an organization is directly proportional to the effectiveness of the management. The superiors must share a healthy relationship with the employees for them to deliver their level best. Leaders need to acquire certain skill sets for an efficient functioning: Management needs to be impartial towards its employees. Rules and policies […]
Effect of Endocrine System on Human Behaviour
Nervous system protects our body from various dangers by following a sequence of interpretation and reaction to the stimuli. Endocrine system secretes chemicals called hormones throughout our body which influence our feelings, moods and behaviour. Endocrine system is composed of glands which is a group of cells that secrete hormones. Various glands perform various functions […]
Ethics and Professionalism for NGOs
While the NGO or the Non Profit sector is founded on the premise that they would propagate sustainable and equitable forms of development, the concept of internal accountability and internal structures of governance needs to be discussed as well. The point here is that NGO’s need to evolve mechanism for the practice of ethics and […]
Role of Leaders/Managers in Crisis Management
A sequence of sudden, unplanned and unexpected events leading to instability in the organization and major unrest amongst the individuals is called as crisis. Crisis generally arises on a short notice and causes major disturbances at the workplace. Leaders and managers play an extremely important role during crisis. One should lead from the front. Show […]
Popular Theories of Organizational Communication
Introduction to Organizational Communication Organizational communication as a field has grown immensely in scope and depth over the last few decades. Concomitant with the rise of the corporation and the managerial way of doing business, it has become the norm for management theorists to define how, what and why an organization should be the way […]
Ever since the first personal computers began to make their presence felt in the late 1970s, a silent revolution in the way nations, politics, business, culture and society conduct themselves began to be apparent.
Futuristic thinkers like Alvin Toffler wrote about the changing contours of business in the information age and extolled what they called the emerging Powershift that took power away from traditional sources and dispersed it among anyone who was savvy enough to realize the growing potential of the digital age.
Take for instance, the 2008 Presidential Election in the United States. Barack Obama was able to win mainly because his campaign team focused their strategies in leveraging the power of the internet and the social media to get people out to vote and to reach out to individuals in personalized ways.
The other example is the way entrepreneurs in Asia began to realize the importance of the internet and the digital revolution wherein they needed minimal capital and minimal investment and all they had to do was to have a game changing idea and put in hard work.
There can be no better example of this than this site on which you are reading this article that has leveraged the power of the internet to reach a global audience.
Indeed, just because anyone with skills and hard work and some encouragement could harness the internet, the renowned expert, Thomas Friedman called this the emergence of the “Flat World” where everyone is in competition with everyone and everywhere.
The other aspect about how political science changed with the digital revolution can be seen in the wave of protests that rocked the Arab countries in a movement known as the “Arab Spring” where protestors began to coordinate their campaigns using social media and mobile technologies.
The power that these protestors had was of the informational and digital driven variety and the fact that they succeeded in some countries shows how the digital revolution is reshaping the world of politics, business, and society. Apart from this, consumers across the world are better informed and better aware of the choices that they have regarding the goods and services that they consume.
In other words, the digital age has empowered ordinary citizens to find information about just about anything else and this has resulted in greater knowledge for them and at the same time, more responsible businesses who now know that their actions and activities are being scrutinized minutely.
Of course, this is not to say that the digital revolution is all positive and that there are only benefits.
The perils of instant access to information have given scope for those who are not well meaning to manipulate the flow of information so that it suits vested interests at the expense of the majority.
Indeed, as several incidents of misinformation and disinformation on the internet show, the potential for mischief is as greater as the benefits that the internet delivers.
Hence, the key aspect here is that technology being value neutral has to be used in a productive manner. What exacerbates the situation is that those who wielded power in the status quo are not willing to cede ground to the emerging aware and informed citizenry and hence, these status quoists are making all out efforts to retain their positions and power. This can be seen in the way several movements against the establishment have been thwarted by simply denying them access to technologies that empower them.
Finally, it needs to be mentioned that the digital age has made consumers more aware, activists more powerful, and the governments uneasy.
Hence, the way in which the different stakeholders react to the coming convergence of mobile technologies, the internet, and even human biology would determine how nations, businesses, societies, and cultures would adapt or collapse depending on the strategies that these stakeholders adopt. The choice is with us and hence, the future would be determined according to the choices we make.
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