THE IMPACT OF COMPUTERS ON SOCIETY AND BUSINESS
The Text (p. 436) refers to technological evolution in the United States, and indicates that the country entered a knowledge based phase of technological development in the mid 1970s, and continues in that phase of development in the 1990s. While the development of the knowledge based phase began some
time ago, it is, in the early 1990s, far from complete, and it is not yet sure just what American society will be like in the early years of the next century, although the next century is less than a decade in the future.
The computer may be the most significant and pervasive technological innovation of the contemporary period. Certainly, the computer is the vehicle that makes a knowledge based society, sometimes referred to as the post industrial society, feasible.
The term post industrial society is often used as opposed to post industrial economy, because many aspects of life other than the economic will be affected by the changes required to create new forms for the economy and society. Nevertheless, all of the significant changes in the evolution from an industrial to a post industrial society will either emanate from or be channeled through the economic sector. Obviously, since the early to mid 1970s, a dynamic transition from the industrial age to some new and different type of industrial/societal organization has been in progress. Some theorists and observers believe that this transition is between an industrial society and a post industrial society (Huber, 1984, p. 928).
Most theorists and informed observers agree on some things which will likely characterize the post industrial society and economy. First, it is generally agreed that the new environment will differ significantly from that of the present period. Second, those industrial organizations of the present day which will survive in the post industrial society and economy are those whose organizati...