Evaluating New Technologies Approaching Information Technology in Mahabad Cooperatives

Transcription

1 International Research Journal of Applied and Basic Sciences 2015 Available online at ISSN X / Vol, 9 (8): Science Explorer Publications Evaluating New Technologies Approaching Information Technology in Mahabad Cooperatives aegh Aria, Mehran Molavi Department of Public Administration, Mahabad Branch, Islamic Azad University, Mahabad, Iran Corresponding author dr_molavi1967@yahoo.com ABSTRACT: The aim of the present study is to evaluate new technologies approaching information technology in Mahabad Cooperatives. Studied elements have to do with network and communicative technologies, software, hardware, information security, and employers. The study follows a descriptivesurvey approach. The statistical population comprises of 210 employers working at Mahabad Cooperatives and 136 people were chosen as sample size using Morgan table. The study is based on researcher-developed questionnaire to collect the data which involves 60 items and the reliability was obtained 96% using Cronbach alpha coefficient. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyze the data. indings of the study show that communicative technology, software, hardware, information security, employers are in an optimum status. Also, results of demographic variables indicate that the research variables are rejected. This means that gender, age, experience, level of education have not made changes in perspectives in relation to informs ton technology across Mahabad Cooperatives. Keywords: new technologies, cooperatives, communicative technologies, hardware, software, information security, employers INTRODUCTION Nowadays, there is a strict competition among technology, wealth, and power. Information technology employs all sciences so that it can provide the information required by experts, industries, organizations and all people across different parts of community is less time and in the best fit so that information technology governs the boundaries of countries and that it can integrate all nations. It might be feasible to say that true usage of information would not only improve the future of humankind, but also it attempts to avoid the malfunctions derived from traditional technologies. As an example in case, using information technology resolves the problem such as traffic, shortage of physical space to doing tasks and education, shortage of time, competition, employment, and cultural exchange. Naturally, any individual who follows a determined goal with more knowledge and awareness can make use more of the technology which results in having critical role in different areas such as economy, society, culture, and politics. In general, information technologies have made deep changes in companies and commercial organizations so that the overall performance of these companies are affected by discussed technologies. Integrated and effective information systems which can encompass all activities and tasks within organization are the useful instruments that can be used by organizations in an attempt to increase their capabilities, improvement of performance, better decision-making, and achieving the competitive advantage. Undoubtedly, cooperative companies are not exception in this regard and application of new technologies, particularly information technology is considered as the important factors of their success. The focus of the study is examining the status of information technology in Mahabd cooperative companies. Review of literature Information technology Information technology is concerned with any type of technology used to collect, store, and process the required information, new technologies such as computer, fax, micro-electronics, telecommunication, and storing system of documents, calculations, and carving are the areas supported by new technologies. rom conceptual framework perspective, the term dates back to the interest of humankind to develop communications (Biranon &

2 Seyf, 2010). Information technology (IT) means the methods of procuring and collecting information as well as its usage in society. Information Technology Organization has facilitated the information access by any individual through reducing the expenses and simplifying the usage of computer-based programs. Also, it facilitates the information derived from information technology concept the complicated intra-organizational processes leading to establishment of organizational networks through connecting the organizations together. Generally speaking, following components exist within the concept of information technology: culture of producing information, information orientation, information collection, information summarizing, analysis, information sensitivity, processing, network thinking, optimizing, integrating, research orientation, method development, storing, information transfer (Barahoyi & Karzani, 2013). Taken into account as the new technology of human kind, information technology contributes highly to life paradigms, instructional methods, management, transportation, production, security issues, and other fields related to human life such as the ones instruction field which has been governed by information technology. Currently, achieving new instruction and management has enabled the development and progression for all communities. Importance of information technology Nowadays, information technology plays a great role in people life and most of people have perceived the importance and of the effect of information technology on their daily affairs (athi & Noroin, 2009). Changes made by the information and commination technology have led to deep changes in community which have established the need to intellectual paradigms and research-based fields (Navabakhsh, 2008, p. 14).it is contributive as a comprehensive phenomenon to complete range of human-based activities from personnel applications to economic and political activities. The reason is that it is considered as multi-usage and reflective instrument which offers different solutions in the form of individual or local applications to meet diverse needs (Yondp, 2005, p. 24). Information technology is crucial to the success of organization due to the fact that it enables success and development in organizations through establishing appropriate organizational design. Achieving these goals is feasible only through making use of information technology instruments. The one which expands the knowledge and enables development of knowledge as well as coding and transforming of the knowledge. Communication technologies facilitate the possibly of access to the required knowledge and their relations particularly when it comes to the case of users. acilities such as , internet, internal networks of company, and other related tools based on web. When interactive approach is determined, even fax machines and telephone are used to communicate (Norozian, 2005). Technology has positive effects on internal operations of organizations; however, this has led to the fact that the job of human resource managers change. They are responsible for providing and supporting communication centers which are facilitated by using computers, telephones, telemachines, copying machines, printers, and etc. despite the existence of laptops, telegrams, and high-speed modems, organizational internet and other forms of technology can do their tasks in every point and time (Davida & Robins, 2009, p. 15). Although these revolutions have led the industry to the era of information and technology, communities have been integrated as network. The most important changes either in the national or international scale are evident and the resulting aspect is modifying the related trends of global economy. One can resolve the components of information technology through each information technology stems, currently, organizations can cooperate with each other through making use of new technologies and virtual groups. Choosing tools and appropriate system for implementing the information technology is one of the management considerations in relation to beneficial use of explicit and implicit knowledge, the applied capital in system is that of infrastructurerelated capital which is categorized by intelligent capitals. One cannot expect that the information technology increase the quality rate and optimization of services. In order for organizational knwoledge to be exploited, advanced technologies of commercial processors and human-based performances should be integrated so as to establish considerable added value to its formation (Gassabi Chorsi et al., ). Toffler in future shock and third wave books emphasizes the compressed time of technology-based changes and highlights the differentiated future compared to past. It is worth noting that Toffler provides the best future prediction and sample in relation to information-based status of communities and new social conditions (Duff, 2001). Development of many countries in recent years is done thanks to the expansion of information and communication tools. This is seen in countries such as Philippine, Malaysia, and India. Similar to many changes and different revolutions, ICT is rapidly changing in developed countries to the extent that the concept of literacy and knowledge changes (Azkia, 2008, 404). Human factor in information technology The 21 st century is the one in which a great deal of advances have occurred and the existing careers turn out to have changed with regard to the technological changes. New communities require developed human who can make use of different skills in diverse occupations and assist the development of organizational goals through 1252

3 employing creativity, innovation, knowledge, and skills (Asgharzade, Gahrodi, 2009). The world changes and changing is the most important characteristic that organizations face as the main component of the present community. It is clear in these situations that organizations which involve weak human resource system cannot have optimum performance in terms of employing, admission, optimizing, and training (Gahrodi, 2008, cited in Agazade & Ansari, 2003, 13). One should take into account the employers in order to make successful use of information technology. Human resource is the distinguishing point between information management and knowledge management (Kordi & Ataei, 2008). This is the point to be addressed by many scholars. Cook and Cook (2004) declare that there is consensus on the fact that failure in sharing knowledge and implementing the process of knowledge transfer is arises from lack of considering human resources and emphasizing on solutions derived from information and communication technology. In addition, it seems that emotional factors such as power, confidence, likening or lack of liking play important roles in implicit knowledge transfer (Seadler et al., 2008). Change in organizational processes and structure through information technology Organizations experience pressure from different aspects so that changes are induced in them. In other words, organizations ought to change according to their respecting context and the ultimate goal of the change is a strategic concept. Through experiencing changes, organizations would be able to ensure the performance of development and progression. Hence, organizational structure plays a great part in this regard. When organization admits a determined form of change, it can do the task in a better way. Information technologies are counted as the main point of change in this regard. Information technologies are not only the factor of change; rather they change within themselves in a rapid fashion (Abdolahpor, 2010). As an example in case, tools which are used by organizations make changes and it is possibly difficult to say that organization does not make use of fax and computer. Development in information technology means that much information is induced in organizations and its cycle is rapid. Many of the traditional manual processes are completely mechanized, these changes have brought about important changes in occupational and technical structure of personnel. Information technology plays an important role in previous processors are doing the tasks through computer and new methods. ollowings are some factors contributing to the change of organizational process from information technology aspect (Zargar, 2003). Information technology causes mechanization and high rate of processes. Information technology enables virtual and tele- cooperations careers. Information technology increases the transactions and enables rapid feedback. Challenges of using information technology Results reported indicate that in case implicit knowledge does not play the important role in establishing competitive advantage, investing on information technology and using it lead to losing the afore-said advantage. Hence, organizations should consider the probable effects of information technology on implicit and explicit knowledge so that implicit and explicit knowledge use is balanced. Also, one should not expect that this type of investment lead to competitive advantage (Moshabaki & Zarei, 2003, 50). So, discussion on information technology indicates that more emphasizes should be put on information and not technology (Wild, 2008). Since information technology focuses on ones and zero. In other words, when justifying the logic of double-double case, all the world is explained by one and zero. In fact, this type of limitation appears in relation to issues such as social systems. Based on double-double theory, the assumption is that knowledge either exists or does not exist. There is no middle area (Mohemed et al., 2006). Review of literature Local studies Esmaeili (2013) concluded in his study that Bazargan custom was optimum at level of in information technology dimension. Gender, years of experience, level of education, organizational position, and organizational unit did not differ significantly in perspectives of research sample in relation to the condition of information technology. This is reared as the import strong points of research and indicates real condition of Bazargan information technology. Gasabi Chorsi (2012) studied one of the components in information technology. It was found that Tabriz Islamic Azad University was not in optimum condition in information technology aspect and that the demographic variable were not effective. 1253

4 Safdari et al. (2011) concluded that human factors were of the great importance in using information technology and that the managers of organizations should draw their attention toward important human factors and contributive elements aiming to offer solutions. International studies Ahan et al. (2009) examined the development of information technology, organizational culture, and human resources, they believed that knowledge is a leading power for organizational development and can be employed as a competitive advantage. Adelman (2000) investigated the information technology virtual world and concluded that the term information technology involves a wide range of calculation and technologies. Information technology does many tasks in new world ranging from information systems installation to designing complicated computer networks. Hanwang (2009) explored the challenges of knowledge management system in relation to challenges of processing organizational knowledge. An experimental design was conducted in the field of knowledge sharing systems derive from technology-task fit theory. He results manifested that knowledge management system (diverging) should be developed to resolve the knowledge-related problems since such a system can afford immediate processes. In contrast, a knowledge management system with pre-selected issues and goals is effective to process the convergent knowledge. STUDY DESIGN The study is survey, applied and descriptive in terms of the design, goal, and quality of data collection. Simple random sampling method is used in the present study, the statistical population comprises of all 210 employers working at Mahabad Cooperatives and 136 people were chosen as the sample size using Morgan table. The data were collected from the questionnaires and were registered in computer followed by analysis of PSS software. requency, relative frequency percent, central tendency indexes (mean), and scattering indexes (standarddeviation0 were used in descriptive statistic. Later, inferential statistics tests were used to study the obtained data. Inferential analysis of statistical data The research questionnaire involves 5 sections and 60 items. The sections are network as well as communication technologies, hardware, software and information security categorized by 10, 11, 19, and 15 items, respectively. This is developed on Likert-five item scale. The reliability is estimated by Cronbach alpha coefficient. Statistical analysis shows the good reliability (0.96). Participants were defined by 103 male and 32 female. This means that 76.3% and 23.7% of the subjects were male and female, respectively. The highest age range falls into the category of (58%). The lowest and highest participants were related to those holding PHD and BA degrees. The highest and lowest years of experience were pertinent to years and years. CONCLUSION AND DISCUSSION Studying normality of variables To choose appropriate statistical tests to make analysis, it is necessary that the type of variables distribution is estimated. To do as, Kolmogorov-Smirnov (K-S_ test was used and it was found that the level of on the part of the test was greater than 0.05, so, variables are distributed normally. It is less than 0.05 in relation to the variables (network as well as communication technologies, hardware, information security, and employers). Estions (2002) believes that in populations in which variable are not distributed normally, the sampling distribution is taken as normal, so the results of parametric tests are equal for all variables in the study. Table 1. Results of K-S test components Normality index Degree of freedom Network and communication technologies Hardware Software Information security employers

5 Hypothesis 1: new technologies with information technology approach are different in Mahabad Cooperatives regarding the gender Table 2. T test for independent sample related to the status of new technologies regarding the gender Levene test for variances equivalence t-test for means equivalence Degree of Mean T freedom difference Equivalence hypothesis of variances Non-equivalence hypothesis of variances Since the level of is less than 0.05 for Levene test, equal assumption of variances is violated. So, second order information is used to conclude. The test level of is greater than 0.05 and there is no significant difference between male and fmale.in other words, new technologies with information technology approach are not different in Mahabad Cooperatives from male and female perspective. Hypothesis 2. New technologies with information technology approach are different in Mahabad Cooperatives regarding the age Table 3. The results of mean comparison test related to new technologies regarding the age Sum of squares Degree of freedom Mean of squares Intergroup variance Intragroup variance total Since the level of is greater than 0.05 and equal to 0.11, there is no significant difference in comparing the mean of new technologies regarding the age Hypothesis 3. New technologies with information technology approach are different in Mahabad Cooperatives regarding the years of experience Table 4. The results of mean comparison test related to new technologies regarding the years of experience Sum of squares Degree of freedom Mean of squares Intergroup variance Intragroup variance total Since the level of is greater than 0.05 and equal to 0.60, there is no significant difference in comparing the mean of new technologies regarding the years of experience Hypothesis 4. New technologies with information technology approach are different in Mahabad Cooperatives regarding the level of education Table 5. The results of mean comparison test related to new technologies regarding the level of education Mean of Sum of squares Degree of freedom squares Intergroup variance Intragroup variance total Since the level of is greater than 0.05 and equal to 0.78, there is no significant difference in comparing the mean of new technologies regarding the level of education Suggestions Virtual software are used to hold discussion and congregations in different sections of organizations Organizational documentation are enhanced for employers to use information technology Organization develops required plans to treat technicians in relation to information technology 1255

6 People should be aware of the new conditions change when it comes to the change in using new information technology In-service courses are held for employers Software and hardware infrastructures are enhanced Attention is drawn toward information security REERENCES Asghar Gahrodi Sh Economic evaluation and distribution process of Asikoda system in Iran customs. MA thesis on energy and marketing, Tehran University Bagheri M The role of organizational knowledge capabilities in establishing electronic customs. MA thesis, marketing major, Tehran University. Brancheau J, Janz B, Wetherbe J Key issues in information systems management: SIM Delphi results, MISQ 20 (2), pp Esmaeili A Possibility evaluation of establishing knowledge management in Bazargan customs office. MA thesis, Abhar Azad University Mahmood MA, Mann GJ Measuring the organizational Impact of Information Technology investment: an exploratory study, Journal of Management Information Systems, Vol. 10, No. 1, pp Tagavi ard M, Zahedi Adib M, Torai M The role of information technology in planning organizational resources. Tadbir Journal, 18, 186 Watson RT, Kelly GG, Galliers RD, Brancheau JC Key issues in information systems management: An international perspective, Journal of Management Information Systems, 13(4),