Communications technology and the distribution of income

We consider the links between Information and Communications\ud Technologies (ICTs) and the distribution of income, as mediated by\ud problems of coordination and control within organizations. In the large\ud corporations of the mid-twentieth century, a highly developed division\ud of labor was coordinated and controlled with the aid of relatively underdeveloped\ud ICTs. This created a situation in which the options of\ud top management were constrained while the individual and collective\ud power of lower-paid workers was enhanced. Only in the late twentieth\ud century, when the microprocessor and related technologies transformed\ud the information systems of organizations, did improvements\ud in the tools of coordination and control race ahead of the growing demands\ud of coordination and control. These technological changes have\ud reduced the power of lower-paid employees, increased that for higherpaid\ud employees, and led to an increase in income inequality. Thus, the\ud more important aspects of new technology relate to the ‘power-bias’,\ud rather than to the ‘skill-bias’, of technological change