Teknologi informasi, seperti komputer dan internet, mempunyai kekuatan dalam mengubah manusia dalam melakukan banyak hal karena menawarkan kecepatan, akurasi, kapasitas, dan interaktivitas yang tidak terbayangkan sebelumnya. Untuk alasan ini banyak organisasi, baik privat maupun publik, mengadopsinya sebagai salah satu alat perubahan. Setidaknya mereka ingin memanfaatkan teknologi ini untuk mengotomatisasi aktivitas organisasi dengan harapan akan bisa meningkatkan efisiensi dan efektivitas organisasi. Demi tujuan itu mereka rela mengeluarkan dana jutaan hingga milyaran rupiah untuk membeli dan menginstall TI untuk kepentingan organisasi.

Meskipun demikian, keputusan investasi tersebut tidak selalu disertai justifikasi yang memadai. Untuk itum beberapa pertanyaan kritis bisa saja diajukan, misalnya: apakah investasi tersebut memang bisa meningkatkan efisiensi dan efektivitas seperti yang diharapkan? Apakah TI yang diadopsi bisa merubah organisasi, memperkuat daya saing, meningkatkan produktivitas, dan memperbaiki kualitas produk dan layanan?

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Banyak yang percaya bahwa teknologi informasi (TI) mempunyai kekuatan dalam efisiensi dan produktivitas organisasi dan kepercayaan semacam ini biasanya menjadi dasar justifikasi bagi investasi TI. Akan tetapi apakah benar bahwa investasi TI memang bisa mewujudkan impian organisasi untuk menjadi lebih efisien dan produktif? Secara sempit, pada level individual, jawabannya mungkin ‘ya’, sebab pekerjaan seperti pembuatan laporan, desain, atau penghitungan bunga bisa dilakukan dengan lebih cepat dan mudah. Namun, apabila pertanyaan itu diterapkan pada level yang lebih luas, organisasi, jawabannya tidak selalu positif.

Banyak penelitian telah dilakukan untuk mencari bukti apakah produktivitas selalu meningkat dengan investasi TI. Dan yang sangat mengejutkan adalah bahwa jawabannya ‘tidak’. Sering terjadi, investasi TI tidak bisa mendongkrak kinerja keuangan organisasi bisnis. Investasi TI justru bisa mengurangi produktivitas dan efisiensi organisasi. Fenomena ini lebih populer dengan istilah productivity paradox. Kegagalan investasi tersebut antara lain disebabkan oleh kegagalan mengelola perubahan, ketidakcocokan antara sistem informasi yang dengan kebutuhan organisasi, ketidakcocokan kultur, dan lain-lain.

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This essay discusses intellectual property rights (IPRs) from sociological perspective by referring Napster as the main case study. It examines IPRs by examining its history, theoretical foundations, and current practices. Labor theory and personality theory of intellectual property are not sufficient to justify the importance and existence of IPRs since they pose some problems in the real practices. Such problems especially are concerned with the difficulty to control and measure IPRs. Besides, IPRs is also impossible to be implemented due to the role of technology, which often developed to liberate people to get, use, and disseminate information and knowledge easily and with lower costs. At this point IPRs is against the basic rights of people, because it privatizes and commodifies information which should be available as a public good.

This essay argues that IPRs is an ill concept and, thus, can not be defended. It results in negative impacts on our society. The rhetoric often used the proponents of IPRs, such as creativity and competition, is falsified by showing some evidence that IPRs is not fostering creativity and, in the long-term, really harmful to business competition. To a great extent IPRs also make the society suffer because companies holding rights or monopolize their intellectual work usually set prices for their products high, and can only be afforded by the well-offs. This essay also elaborates real political economy setting at which IPRs forced, largely by the U.S., as a single economic agenda in this information age. This reflects that IPRs is a regime of truth because it is based on a particular discourse set by the U.S.

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This essay discusses ERP implementation in BPR project, with an emphasis on its fit to business vision and reengineering objectives, and the impacts of ERP on form and cultures. This essay argues that the tension between uniformity, in ERP system is built, and the diversity of business processes and organizational is one of the possible reasons of ERP project failures. ERP is suitable only for companies that follow its logic. These companies gain benefits from ERP system since they able to reconcile such a tension. Moreover, ERP is capable to transform organization a sense that it pushes the implementing companies to streamline their organizational and create new cultures which less hierarchical and flexible. To some extent, it the companies to empower their people. However, due to ERP capability to business processes, some companies uses ERP system to exert more control and create less autonomous culture. This particular practice would end up with disempowerment amongst their employees, and it contradicts one of process reengineering objectives, which is to improve quality of work life.

Keywords: ERP implementation, business vision, process reengineering objectives,organizational development.

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