Interview with Professors Thomas Malone and Brian Subirana
Technology’s Impact on the Future of Organizations

IESE Visiting Professor Thomas Malone and IESE Professor Brian Subirana debate how technology will shape the business organizations of the future. While Malone predicts that the 21st century will bring about decentralization and more socially responsible companies, Subirana fears that computers will eliminate jobs

MIT Professor Thomas Malone arrived at IESE last fall with a 2,000-word introduction for a book he wanted to write. During his year as a Visiting Professor, the introduction became a 92,000-word manuscript whose working title is ”After the Corporation: Organizing Business with People at the Center.” Scheduled to be published by Harvard Business School Press in the fall of 2003, the book reveals Professor Malone´s thoughts on 21st century organizations, including the promising future of the `e-lance economy,´ a phrase coined by Malone and his team at the MIT Sloan School of Management, where he is the Patrick J. McGovern Professor of Information Systems. Next spring, IESE´s Brian Subirana, Associate Professor of Information Systems, will join Malone and his team at MIT. During his time in Cambridge, Subirana hopes to create a new curriculum for teaching IT in business schools in order to equip managers with the tools they need to face technology-related business issues. Here, the two professors discuss how technology is changing the future of organizations and making it possible to put people and their values at the center of business.