THE PRODUCTIVITYPARADOX;WHY HASN'T INFORMATION TECHNOLOGYFULFILLED ITS PROMISE? A PANELREPORTFROM CSCW'92 DAVID CONSTANT Moderator: Sara Kiesler, Carnegie Mellon University Panelists: Paul Attewell, City University of New York Graduate Center John King, University of California at Irvine Jim Morris, Carnegie Mellon University Has information technology failed to fillfill its promise of significant productivity improvements for industry and for the economy as a whole? If so, what has prevented it and what are the implications for CSCW design and deployment? These questions were addressed by a standing-room-only panel discussion of"The Productivity Paradox" at CSCW'92. The discussion focused on Attewell's paper "Information Technology and the Productivity Paradox". The paper argues that, despite huge investment, the expected huge productivity improvements due to information technology have not been realized. The paper proposes several reasons why. Over the last three years this paper and the issues it raises have generated much controversy and passionate reaction in industry, academia and government. EVIDENCE FOR A PARADOX tent results across these three levels of analysis strengthen the conclusion, since the analytical weaknesses of one approach tend to be balanced by the strengths of the others. The sector analyses and inter- industry comparisons were longitudinal, ranging from 1958 to
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