RMIT International University Vietnam

BUSM 4561 – Work in Global Society

Group Number 3

Team Name: Team 20

Location & Campus RMIT Vietnam, HCMC

1. Patrick YoungJae Chin - S3811943

2. Nguyen Thi Ngoc Dao - S3695650

3. Kim Seong Heon - S3822053

Student names & students
number: 4. Huynh Nghia Thuan - S3694704

5. Nguyen Ngoc Cat Tuong - S3695675

6. Kim Jaeyoung Roy - s3806628

Teacher Name: Hung Thanh Nguyen

Date of Submission: 4 September, 2020

Word Count: 2432

A2

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 Technology change worker’s
careers

Table of Contents
Introduction - done by Kim Seong Heon.......................................................................................2

Patrick YoungJae Chin - Interview and analysis of Beo Park.......................................................3

Nguyen Thi Ngoc Dao - Interview and analysis of Ms. Lan Nguyen...........................................4

Kim Seong Heon - Interview and analysis of Mr. Kim.................................................................5

Huynh Nghia Thuan - Interview and analysis of Mr. Minh Le.....................................................6

Nguyen Ngoc Cat Tuong - Interview and analysis of Mrs. Thu Tran...........................................7

Kim Jaeyoung Roy - Interview and analysis of Charlie Jung........................................................8

Conclusion - done by Patrick YoungJae Chin...............................................................................9

References......................................................................................................................................9

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Introduction - done by Kim Seong Heon

In economics jargon, a technological change indicates a rise in the efficiency of goods or process which
leads to a rise in output, but no raise in the input. In simpler terms, someone can receive a bigger compensation
in return for the same amount of labour if he/she invents or develops goods or processes (What is a
Technological Change? - Definition, Advantages, Impact & Examples 2015). In other words, technological
change has impacted the modern world, especially on the lives of workers in many ways as it has not only re-
shaped the traditional structure of workplaces and industries in terms of productivity and efficiency but also left
an adverse effect on the environment and the value of workers. Based on the six interview cases from workers
in Vietnam and Korea, this report will investigate the influences of technological change with a heavy focus on
how it has affected the workers’ career and the nature of work as well as some negative aspects regarding the
environment and self-reliance of workers.

Patrick YoungJae Chin - Interview and analysis of Beo Park

The interviewee, Beo Park, works as a Director of Sales at real estate consultancy company Cornerstone
Vietnam. From the interview, Mr. Park elaborates on both the advantages and disadvantages the impact of
technology has on his field of work.

Technology allowed Mr. Park and Cornerstone to expand their reach and clientele through online
marketing by reaching not only within Vietnam but globally. Focusing on mainly foreign investors, Mr. Park
stated that online marketing helped the company tremendously by linking him with clients outside of Vietnam,
who are unaware of property laws. As global marketing has “shrunken the globe”, many companies such as
Coca-Cola have exponentially increased their reach ever since the dawn of technology (Emma Bedford 2020).
He also stated that technology made his business more efficient, product and convenient by speeding up many
processes, reducing costs, and organizing data in a most error-proof way (Goenaga et al. n.d.). Therefore, when
it comes to hiring employees, Mr. Park values proficiency in Microsoft Word, Excel and Powerpoint as a
necessity in the modern world workforce. Regarding the finding of Lang (n.d.), Technology also allowed
Cornerstone to access a vast array of information that was unable to be accessed beforehand. Mr. Park states
that “information management has become limitless, which has opened new doors”.

On the other hand, Mr. Park notes several downsides that came along with the technological
advancements in his workplace. He says that many times, technology has reduced the need for interactions
between him and his client. Over the years, it’s evident that technology has replaced human interactions in all
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avenues of life (Wardynski 2019). The trust between a real estate agent and their client has traditionally been a
very important skill, but the advent of online consulting has removed that human connection. Though accessing
vast information has been a crucial benefit for Mr. Park, he sometimes feels that discerning the right
information online is important and sometimes, there is a lot of false information online (Anderson & Rainie
2017).

Nguyen Thi Ngoc Dao - Interview and analysis of Ms. Lan Nguyen
Ms. Lan is the selected interviewee, who is an alumnus of RMIT University. Currently, she is working as
an economic manager of Ngoc Hai Jewelry Co., Ltd. According to the interview, there are several ideas about
the effects of the change of technology to the jewellery industry.

Firstly, there is no doubt that technology can play an important role in her career. It can help the process
become more convenient. For example, technology helps us save time by meeting through video chat which is
come from social media such as Skype, Facebook or Gmail. Moreover, it can reduce the distance of colleagues
who could be in other countries. If there is no help from technology, it could take a long time and money for us
to present have a meeting. Indeed, Moncrief, Marshall and Rudd (2015) reported that social media has changed
the nature of the interactions between people, which allowed people to keep up with the others.

Secondly, technology innovation is very helpful in reducing a large number of document papers need to
buy every year. (Chakravarty and Mishra 2019) Among the years of 2010, when the technology had not popular
yet, everything from calculating price to balance sheets was noted on the paper, which took her and her
colleagues a long time after a hard-working day. Thus, it was very bad when someone calculated the wrong
answer, then they have to throw all the calculated papers and do it again. This is not only waste a lot of time for
resting of the employees, but also waste a large number of papers. Nowadays, the paperless office has also
applied in Ms. Lan’s company, which everything is saved in a special Application Software and double-check
easily the remain items in stores. (Palo and Uusivuori 1999) Furthermore, reducing paper also could save the
environment because technology is an environment-friendly alternation. (Thapak and Changani 2011)

Lastly, it is an advantage that CCTV is appeared and applied in Ms. Lan career. Because jewellery
business is a sensitive career with high value, it would affect significantly to the company if someone wants to
take personal advantage. The CCTV is not only superior the productivity but also reduce the crime rate of the
employes. (Welsh and Farrington 2009)

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Kim Seong Heon - Interview and analysis of Mr. Kim

Mr. Kim has been chosen as an interviewee, who is the CEO of Global Research company in Seoul,
Korea. Before he founded the research company, he had worked in the financial industry for many years as a
fund manager and analyst. Following the interview with him, it is evident that technological change has affected
his career in many aspects:

Firstly, according to his words, technological change has played a significant role in his career. He has
been working for 31 years since 1989 which was the time when there were no ordinary tools yet, such as
computers, e-mail, messenger, Microsoft 365, company intranet, internet and cell phone (Current CEO, 2
September 2020). As it is quite natural nowadays to possess them, just like water and air, we might have a
numb perception about the importance and need for these tools, but from a different angle, we cannot even
fathom how we could assimilate the works we are doing now in a day without these tools.

Secondly, according to his words, the development of technology has changed a lot in his career through
the development of information technology, especially enterprise collaboration systems (ECS). The enterprise
collaboration system is an information system which facilitates collaboration among individuals at a company,
including both employees and outside stakeholders. It indicates a combination of tools for communication, team
collaboration, editing and sharing documents, social networking, which improves collaboration and productivity
as well as innovation and virtual teamwork from cutting costs and reducing time-to-market of products and
services (Sarrazin & Sprague & Huskins 2013). Microsoft 365 is a prime example which is a cloud-based
system that is used in most of the companies, which employs the online platform that could be easily accessed
for exchanging information between employees to provide Desktop Office services such as Word, PowerPoint,
Excel, Outlook and the cloud services like Microsoft Teams, Exchange, SharePoint and OneDrive, which are
the key tools in the office at a company these days (Skendzic & Kovacic 2012).

Lastly, the development of technology has changed the nature of work for Mr. Kim as employees can
work from anywhere nowadays. As Microsoft 365 is fully cloud-based, all-digital information such as emails,
files and Office programs can be accessed anywhere have internet. Also, the Co-authoring tool has allowed
workers to share a document in terms of editing and contributing. It shows all the information through
displaying real-time changes such as who has edited or when they were changed. It simply boosts the
productivity of employees since nobody has to wait for others to complete their works (Silverbug n.d).

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Huynh Nghia Thuan - Interview and analysis of Mr. Minh Le

After interviewing Minh Le, who currently works as a coordinator on ELG-Elements LAIfestyle Group.
According to Mr Le, he stated that technology plays a huge role in every field, which connects to small
communities in general and all the world in specific. Which saves a lot of time and convenience. In his field, the
machine has replaced some blue-collar workers and a big advantage, for example, is Google translate and
devices can replace translator jobs. The nature of work has been more flexible and optimized due to technology.
And of course, productivity and income increase a lot, having a lot of deadlines and even at home, he still has to
work. But technology will also bring disadvantages as people cannot do mental arithmetic as fast as before, but
people will learn more skills. The success of the technology depends on how we use it, for example as car
discharge gas is bad for the environment, but upgrading to biology is harmless to the environment.

Mr Le stated that people depend on technology a lot will lead to deskilling and depending which fit with
the technological determinism. As in Frankenstein Monster, people are more likely to become servants of
technology (Huck, 2020). And according to Jacques Ellul, not only affected by using technology but also being
influenced and being “used by” it too (Huck, 2020). Blauner (1964) stated that technology rather than any other
factor influences the nature of jobs which are performed by blue-collar workers and has a significant impact on
a variety of alienation aspects. And Mr Le said that the car with gas is bad but in the right situation, it will bring
a lot of benefits. According to Hatches and Cunliffe (2006) claimed that technology has a different meaning to
each group, technology not only used as an application for scientists but also is claimed by many factors in each
situation.

Nguyen Ngoc Cat Tuong - Interview and analysis of Mrs. Thu Tran

The interviewee is Mrs. Thu Tran, who has nearly 15 years experience in the hospitality industry. She
used to be in the Front Office department for 5 years and has worked in the HR management department for
about 10 years and in The Reverie Hotel. These interview answers are about the change of the nature of work
and impacts on the tourism and hospitality industry when the technology develops. According to Mrs. Thu, she
cannot deny the contribution of technology to this industry, however, it plays a partial role in her career because
she said that “human resources still play a key role in the service industry in terms of dealing with customers’’.
Technology development supports her in managing and receiving booking data, analysing employee
performance and communicating with staff flexibly. Moreover, she stated that the workplaces are now more
flexible and efficient than they used to due to the development of technology.

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 According to E-spin (2018), information technology has a major impact on the service sector because it
helps the business replace high labour costs with technological costs. Like Mrs. Thu said, receiving booking
data, collecting and analysing information are now automatically, so the business only needs one staff member
to manage the result instead of a whole team. However, the drawback of this case is that businesses have to
conduct a workshop to train employees to use this software competently. Moreover, Mrs. Thu mentioned that
some companies require basic software skills in recruitment; thus, job seekers need to have a fundamental
knowledge of using the software. Besides, the advancement of technology also spreads the word-of-mouth
wider, which is important for marketing and PR to reach a large number of tourists (Khatri 2019). Additionally,
the nature of the workplace in the tourism industry also changes because of the development of technology.
With technology, employees are more flexible in their work and they are working more efficiently and faster
than ever before (Chron 2019). For example, messages and proposals to her colleagues and clients will be sent
immediately or hi-tech allows managers to work when they do not attend the workplace.

Kim Jaeyoung Roy - Interview and analysis of Charlie Jung

Charlie Jung the former General Director for KSA Polymer was my interviewee, he has had over 10 years
in the manufacturing field in Vietnam and another 12 years working in the logistics supply chain as a solution
engineer. During the interview, Mr Jung made it very clear that technology has had a major impact on business
activities and how business is run.

Technology has changed significantly since Mr Jung graduated from university and got chosen at his first
company. He still remembers when computers were bulky, used floppy disks and had to input data one set at a
time. Technology since then has advanced into the present day, through technology Mr Jung can organise a
conference online and have employees at the meeting without even leaving their houses. This cuts
transportation time and cost as workers do not need to fly to different countries or rent accommodation as often
because of this online face to face feature. Giving the advantage of being able to give and receive important
information faster to clients and employees increasing efficiency and awareness (Kubina, 2015). Also,
technology has started to replace simple unskilled labour task in companies, AI machines will continue to
replace the human labour once they surpass the level of human intelligence and make the human unskilled
workforce redundant (Korinek, 2017). As Mr Jung has implemented and adapted technology in his own factory
balancing the cost, he purchased a printing machine for his factory which cut manual labour costs and worked
more efficiently than unskilled labour workers up to five times.

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 In present-day, Mr Jung likes to outsource a lot of his workload to freelancers when needed, when there is
a situation such as an important employee is fired or resigns, technology can help to fill the void or the “hole”
by hiring freelancers which eliminate the administration and legal time-consuming process of hiring an
employee when the task or void needs to be filled urgently. As stated by Lustig “Freelance platforms reduce the
number of administrative burdens on companies” such as insurance, pay-outs, and others such as the risk of a
strike as employee rights (Lustig, 2020).

Conclusion - done by Patrick YoungJae Chin

In conclusion, based on the interviews of our interviewees across various sectors, it is evident that
technology has had a profound effect in their workplace. Not only did technology allow us to be more efficient,
productive and capable of achieving the same output of work, but it also opened new avenues of creativity and
innovation. Although there were some negative sentiments, overall, technology has had a net positive impact on
our daily lives and workplaces and should be more heavily incorporated into work in the future. One
recommendation would be to limit the use of technology in work involving human relationship as no computer
can simulate the human connection.

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