The development of commercially viable new products requires that technological and market possibilities are linked effectively in the product's design. Innovators in large firms have persistent problems with such linking, however. This research examines these problems by focusing on the shared interpretive schemes people use to make sense of product innovation. Two interpretive schemes are found to inhibit development of technology-market knowledge: departmental thought worlds and organizational product routines. The paper describes in some depth differences among the thought worlds which keep innovators from synthesizing their expertise. The paper also details how organizational routines exacerbate problems with learning, and how successful innovators overcome both interpretive barriers. The main implication of the study is that to improve innovation in large firms it is necessary to deal explicitly with the interpretive barriers described here. Suggestions for practice and research are offered.
Management of Technology, like Strategy and Marketing, is not a discipline, although studies in it may inform the underlying disciplines. MOT is an issue-driven field, focused on the process of knowledge generation and transformation within a social system. That social system can range from a product development team to a corporate function, a firm, an industry, a network of organizations and individuals, to even society at large. Several implications follow from this definition of management of technology.
This paper examines the relationship between organization science and managerial practice. Science and practice are viewed as interdependent, yet semiautonomous, domains which engage in their own specialized forms of discourse or “language games.” The paper examines both the internal dynamics of these language games and the relationship between them. The analysis suggests a reinterpretation of the role played by organizational scientists in relation to practitioners. Organizational scientists should be viewed not as engineers offering technical advice to managers but as providers of conceptual and symbolic language for use in organizational discourse. This view's implications for enhancing the relationship between organization science and managerial practice is discussed.
This paper presents a theory of innovation which presumes that new technologies emerge from a firm's accumulated stock of skills. Among these we distinguish technological and networking skills. We examine two aspects of innovating firms: their inclination to adopt a technological innovation, and their propensity to implement innovation alone or with other firms. Historical conditions pertaining to organizational skills are examined to account for these aspects. Among the most important are a firm's cumulative stream of technological projects that have some affinity to the new technology. A second important antecedent can be inferred from a firm's history of technological networking. Networking includes licensing, joint ventures and long-term contracts and can be formed for technological reasons, or for reasons having to do with the delivery of products and services. Networking is deemed important for facilitating access to strands of technology that are alien to a firm. Linkages are also conducive for contemplating strategic partnerships through which a firm can share the risks of innovation with others and which make such partnerships comparatively easy. The study examined a sample of United States commercial banks during the period 1977–1987, some of which were engaged in a new technology: home banking. The findings indicate that technological networking is the best predictor of technological innovation. They reveal also that firms with extensive networking are more likely to implement the innovation with strategic partners. Finally, the paper discusses the implications of the findings for organization design and proposes an expanded theoretical framework for organizational innovation.
Advanced manufacturing technology (AMT) includes such technologies as computer-aided design (CAD) and manufacturing (CAM), as well as computer-integrated manufacturing (CIM). Numerous case studies have found that organization structure (e.g., centralization of decision making) changes when firms introduce AMT, but the findings from such studies have been inconsistent. This paper reports the findings of a large-sample study of the relationship between AMT and organization structure. Two alternative patterns in the relationship between these two concepts were considered. The Marxist perspective, which holds that automation is used by managers as a tool to subordinate the workforce, leads to predictions that AMT will be associated with increasing differentiation (more hierarchical levels and job classifications), centralized decision making, and high levels of formalization (management by rules). The Idealist perspective, which involves the belief that managers should use new technologies to empower the workforce, leads to predictions that AMT will be associated with less differentiation, decentralized decision making, and limited formalization. The study was conducted using questionnaires, which were returned by general managers from 185 firms in the metalworking industries (SIC codes 33-37). The findings provide some support for both perspectives, as AMT was associated with both decentralization of decision making and formalization. We interpret these results as stemming from the characteristics of AMT, particularly integration, flexibility, and risk. Seen in this light, organizations have less need to centralize decisions, as AMT's capacity for integration allows information to be brought together at lower levels of the firm, and its flexibility allows departments to more easily adapt to decisions made by other departments. The risk and expense associated with AMT, however, may lead firms to institutionalize those practices associated with effective use of the technology through formal rules. In other words, formalization may be a mechanism for safely decentralizing. In general, researchers are urged to strike a balance between focusing on the intentions of management and the constraints of the technology when they study technology and organization.
Many contingency researchers have argued that organizations must tailor their structures and decision making processes to fit the demands of their external environments–the exigencies of their markets. They claim, for example, that uncertain environments–those with high degrees of change and unpredictability in technology and in customer and competitor behavior–require more delegation of authority to highly trained specialists and quicker, more responsive decision making. However, such experts usually favor a slower, more analytical approach. Here, internal and external requirements appear to be inconsistent. These and similar inconsistencies indicate that the alignment among structural and process variables needed for good environmental fit seems sometimes to violate the dictates of internal consistency. It is reasonable, therefore, to expect that where such inconsistencies occur, organizations will choose between achieving internal match and external match: firms that closely match the demands of their environment will lack internal complementarity, and vice versa. The empirical research reported here demonstrates exactly this: organizations that achieve the best fit with environmental uncertainty have the weakest linkages among structural and process variables. An exploratory taxonomy supports these results. However, internal and external fit are not always incompatible. We found, for example, that fit with environmental diversity did not have any implications for internal fit. One of the implications of this research is that managers may have to perform their adaptive tasks sequentially striving for a harmonious alignment among their internal variables in order to achieve smooth functioning, but periodically disrupting this harmony to adjust to a changing environment.
This paper develops a new theoretical model with which to examine the interaction between technology and organizations. Early research studies assumed technology to be an objective, external force that would have deterministic impacts on organizational properties such as structure. Later researchers focused on the human aspect of technology, seeing it as the outcome of strategic choice and social action. This paper suggests that either view is incomplete, and proposes a reconceptualization of technology that takes both perspectives into account. A theoretical model—the structurational model of technology—is built on the basis of this new conceptualization, and its workings explored through discussion of a field study of information technology. The paper suggests that the reformulation of the technology concept and the structurational model of technology allow a deeper and more dialectical understanding of the interaction between technology and organizations. This understanding provides insight into the limits and opportunities of human choice, technology development and use, and organizational design. Implications for future research of the new concept of technology and the structurational model of technology are discussed.