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processes to the societal level. It is in any case generally accepted that it is logical to at-
tempt to impose whatever degree of stability is possible on a favourable set of control
relationships (Beniger, 1986), which implies that the more tightly the language of business
can be controlled, the better. There is thus a strong argument in favor of standardising
the language of interaction as far as possible and to maintain strict controls over the
definitions in place. It can be assumed that organisations including government depart-
ments and agencies already have the power to achieve a lot in this direction.
If there is an organisational downside to this it must be that some loss of flexibility is
entailed in adopting a highly standardised approach. Put another way, the more widely
that integrated IS structures are adopted, the more a form of interdependence is created
in which agreements on change will become hard to reach. While there are no real pre-
cedents for this type of situation, it can be noted that past attempts to 'freeze' a language
in the interests of control have tended to create an element of ritual, in which original
intentions and meanings have been wholly or partially lost (Crystal, 1987, p. 405).
Overall, the most definite conclusions that can be drawn in this regard stem from the
fact that the strong control of vocabulary equates to a rigid formalism of interaction. If
there is a practical risk to the adopting organisations, as distinct from the risks to cus-
tomers and client organisations identified in previous sections, it is one that is difficult
to represent in economic terms. The literature on IT economics suggests, for instance,
that it is difficult if not impossible to identify any clear loss of organisational flexibility
from within the context of a single investment decision (Ryan, 2000; Willcocks and
Lester, 1996; Parker and Benson, 1988) and the broader implications of cumulative losses
of flexibility are as yet unresearched. What the language perspective suggests is that
there must be some loss of flexibility and that this could be problematic if business
strategies concerning customers become more volatile.
Conclusion
One of the most complex characteristics of contemporary life has been held to be the
simultaneous progress of trends to greater bureaucratisation and rationalisation in some
areas, with equally pervasive trends towards greater fragmentation and uncertainty in
others (Turner 1996, p. 15). The ISBL is clearly a rationalising concept, and is primarily
relevant to those areas of social and business activity already subject to some degree of
routinisation. The second trend Turner identifies helps, however, to disguise the potential
for the exercise of power based on ISBL implementations for two reasons. The first is
that the undoubted convenience of ISBL-based business arrangements is a boon for
people under pressure elsewhere in their lives, and second because the volatility evident
in other areas of consumption tends to create a sense of drama and excitement likely to
counteract any feelings of powerlessness elsewhere.
It has been argued in this paper that the ISBL concept is much more than a 'mere'
metaphor, and that it provides an analytically powerful perspective from which to see
that the spread of autonomous IS represents some potentially troubling developments
in power relations. Autonomous systems and people do, in this formulation, talk to each
other, and the way they converse can lead to the creation of a new class of outsiders, as
well as possibilities for consumers and organisations to be coerced into arrangements
they find undesirable. In a sense, the ISBL represents almost the apotheosis of business
rationalisation. It eliminates people as organisational representatives in a range of business
dealings, and imposes a linguistic structure that ensures that the vast majority of basic
transactions proceed according to a strict formula. Despite the improvements in efficiency
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