Comparative Technological Assessment LITERATURE REVIEW The purpose of this

As society, both domestic and international, has become more complex, communication has assumed an increasingly significant role. Historically, both procedural improvement and technological innovation have beem employed to enhance communication efficiency and effectiveness.

Telecommunications transmission technology blossomed over the past decade. The new technology created opportunities for major organizations to improve both the effectiveness and the efficiency of their communications.

Some technological innovations, such as fiber optics transmission, simply translate into improvements in the quality and speed of existing telecommunications mediatelephone ser vices, as an example. Other innovations, however, lead to the development of new telecommunications media. Satellite communications technology, for example, makes videoconferencing possible. Still other technologies provide a basis for the complete transformation of a telecommunications medium. Cellular technology, alone, provides a basis for the transformation of a telephone system, by delinking a telephone communication system from a cableconnected network (Hall, 1990; Levin

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l cannot interconnect with mainland cellular telecommunications systems (Levine and Keller, 1988). The advent of cellularsatellite telecommunications networks, however, will change this situation (Asker, 1990). The application of cellular telecommunications technology within organizations, therefore, must be predicated on a quite specific assessment of an organization's telecommunications capacities and requirements. The conduct of an inhouse needs assessment is required to establish the telecommunications capacities and requirements for an organization. The preferred means of conducting such an inhouse needs assessment is the performance of a communications audit. The communications audit is a type of management audit. Management audits look beyond costs and profits to identify the underlying reasons for either effective or ineffective organizational performance in a specific area (Hitt, Middlemist, and Mathis, 1990). A communications audit both (1) identifies reasons for effective or ineffective telecommunications perfor mance, and (2) provides insights into the role of telecommuni cations in the level of effectiveness or ineffectiveness in other aspects of organizational performance (Sisk, 1989). Although th
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Approximate Word count = 1774
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page)