Global Technoethics and Society

Introduction

As discussed in Chapter Five, Technoethics and Society is a branch of Technoethics concerned with the ethical use of technology to promote the aims of contemporary society. This includes the study of local organizations (micro level) as well as the study of broader global structures and processes (macro level). Although this section focuses mainly on global technoethics (macros level), it provides a sketch of organizational and global developments to better situate the discussion. Since the beginning of the 20^th century, work in organizational studies reflects a continually evolving research area within communications and other fields (human resource management, industrial relations, business management) since the contribution of early classical models of organizations. Classical models provided a new technology (technique) for organizational leaders to help manage increasing large contingencies of workers within a top-down communication structure geared towards maximizing organizational performance and efficiency. The coming of the information age and the development of sophiosicated information and communication technologies (ICT’s) provides additional technology for transforming society and the institutions within it. This was the start of the trend towards the modern day multi-corporation. Continuing progress through human relations and human resource approaches, systems theory, and ideological perspectives (critical, cultural, and feminist) on organizations have reinforced this core work. Rapid technological developments within organizational life, the increasing power of multi-corporations, and the faster pace of organizational change processes, have helped nurture in globalization