Stress and Technology
...James, 1990). As such, they may be regarded as costs, which ultimately have an effect on overall organizational efficiency and effectiveness (McHugh & Brennan, 1994). Although having undeniable effects on organizational performance, stress at work has been understood mainly from the perspective of the individual. Recently there have been calls to understand stress as an organization phenomenon so that it can be tackled at the organization level (James, 1999). Implementing new information technology in work environment exposes employees to change. Besides having to adapt to a new system, technology implementation is often a part of wider business process re-engineering. As major organization change is introduced, normal situation is threatened. It is unlikely that the people involved can articulate exactly what is threatened and it is all too easily labeled as ``stress of change''. When change is expected anxiety/stress levels go up. This stress is generally reported. What can be seen from this discussion is that articulated causes such as ``communication'', ``relationships with supervisor'' or ``too much work'', whilst potentially true, are only part of the story. People experience anxiety and stress because the whole psychological fabric is being dismantled. The change may produce discomfort at the conscious and subconscious level and because it is embedded in the organization may need to be addressed collectively including job demands, stress reactions, personal resources, and situational resources, and addressed managerially rather than from a counseling perspective. Ethics today are playing more of a role in organizations then ever before. Ethics is the science of human duty; the body of rules of duty drawn from this science; a particular system of principles and rules concerting duty, whether true or false; rules of practice in respect to a single class of human actions; as, political or social ethics; medical ethics. This is a powerful definition that applies to everyone whether we like it or not. There is growing interest in accountability in society today. Along with it comes a demand for clear intent, measurement systems, risk management models and policies for ethical boundaries. Ethical boundaries may be set by a variety of factors such as organizational values, policies and practices, individual employee professionalism obligations, and requirements by external parties such as specific stakeholders, community and government. Given the current level of interest and literature on the topic, organizations have an opportunity to proactively improve or develop ethics programs. There is a lot of merit in developing an ethics program, especially if one thinks about potential liabilities and litigation that may result...