This paper illustrates how a learning-curve model can be generalized to investigate potential explanations of organizational learning. The paper examines the hypothesis that knowledge acquired through by learning by doing is embodied in an organization's technology by analyzing the amount of transfer that occurs across shifts within a plant. If knowledge becomes completely embodied in technology, transfer across shifts should be complete since both shifts use the same technology. Methods that can be used for studying intra-plant transfer of knowledge are presented. The methods are illustrated by analyzing data from a plant that began production with one shift and then added a second shift several months into the production program. Three aspects of transfer are analyzed: (1) carry forward of knowledge when the plant makes the transition from one to two shifts, (2) transfer across shifts after both shifts are operating, and (3) transfer across time. Results indicate that substantial, but less than complete, transfer of knowledge occurred when the second shift was introduced. Once both shifts were operating, partial transfer across them occurred. Implications of the results for a theory of organizational learning and practical applications are discussed.
Recent ethnographic studies of workplace practices indicate that the ways people actually work usually differ fundamentally from the ways organizations describe that work in manuals, training programs, organizational charts, and job descriptions. Nevertheless, organizations tend to rely on the latter in their attempts to understand and improve work practice. We examine one such study. We then relate its conclusions to compatible investigations of learning and of innovation to argue that conventional descriptions of jobs mask not only the ways people work, but also significant learning and innovation generated in the informal communities-of-practice in which they work. By reassessing work, learning, and innovation in the context of actual communities and actual practices, we suggest that the connections between these three become apparent. With a unified view of working, learning, and innovating, it should be possible to reconceive of and redesign organizations to improve all three.
Despite recent and growing interest in organizational politics, conceptual thought in this area tends to be dominated by a single theoretical perspective. In this paper we describe and contrast three views of organizational politics (functionalist, interpretive and radical) according to their differing structures, processes and outcomes. Each view, or lens, directs attention to some aspects of politics and away from others, and each has strengths and weaknesses embedded in it. In order to assess whether multiple perspectives on politics can be fruitfully applied simultaneously, we describe and analyze a case of a hospital administration engaged in budgeting games and illusion making. The data for the case were collected using naturalistic inquiry and multiple methods including structured and unstructured interviews, review of documents, observation of meetings and casual interaction facilitated by frequent visits over a ten-month period. The case revolves around the hospital administrators' attempts to deal with what they termed a “disastrous deficit” and the most serious financial situation in the hospital's history. Strategies for dealing with the funding agency and board of directors included the management of meaning and communications about the term “deficit.” The three perspectives on organizational politics highlight different dynamics in the case. The interpretive perspective on politics assumes that parties exert influence by constructing the meaning of what others experience. Focusing on a deeper structure of power, the elements of politics which become highlighted are the use of language, information, metaphor, symbols, myths and humor. In the hospital case the administration managed meaning so that others believed that the hospital faced a significant deficit. The creation of illusions of financial crisis through use of linguistic games was supported by symbolic gestures, jokes, hit lists and other reality construction strategies. The functionalist perspective on politics is broken into two subsets, the rational and the pluralist. In this case the rationalist perspective was not operating to any great extent. Every effort was made to avoid both data-based debate or resolution of differences through the use of appeal to authority. The functionalist perspective does highlight the possible reasons for the extensive use of information manipulation by identifying the key players in the game and the bases of power they utilize. The radical perspective directs attention to the larger context of the case and asks at a deeper level why the Ministry of Health, Board of Directors and top administration are engaged in such game playing. Analysis of the political policy context of health care is suggested through this perspective. The analysis of the case using multiple perspectives reveals that a unidimensional critique is almost always going to be flawed. A richer understanding comes from the simultaneous use of all the perspectives. The question of a possible integration of perspectives is raised, and five possible approaches are briefly explored. The value for managers in the use of multiple perspectives lies in increasing their ability to understand and diagnose organizational events. Explicit use of more than one lens on politics heightens understanding of the dynamics and context of the situation and provides more options for action.
In this paper, we consider whether there existed a significant and systematic relationship between firm performance and information technology investment intensity in the home office operation of 40 systems technology leaders in the life insurance industry, 1983–1986. It is hypothesized that in top performance insurance firms (1) information technology costs as a proportion of total operating costs were higher, and (2) information technology costs as a proportion of premium income were lower, than in weak performance firms. Evidence is presented that indicates that firm performance was linked to the level of information technology investment intensity.
This paper considers the relation between the exploration of new possibilities and the exploitation of old certainties in organizational learning. It examines some complications in allocating resources between the two, particularly those introduced by the distribution of costs and benefits across time and space, and the effects of ecological interaction. Two general situations involving the development and use of knowledge in organizations are modeled. The first is the case of mutual learning between members of an organization and an organizational code. The second is the case of learning and competitive advantage in competition for primacy. The paper develops an argument that adaptive processes, by refining exploitation more rapidly than exploration, are likely to become effective in the short run but self-destructive in the long run. The possibility that certain common organizational practices ameliorate that tendency is assessed.
This paper urges organizational researchers to collect data from subjects in the form of pictures, diagrams, computer graphics, and other visual representations. Drawing on theoretical and empirical work in cognitive psychology, neurophysiology, linguistics, and artificial intelligence, it presents a rationale for collecting visual data, provides examples, and suggests research questions and settings where visual data may be preferable to verbal data.
Common sense suggests that work is organized in accordance with plans that are created by designers who reflect on the work setting and manipulate representations of the work process in order to determine new and efficient organizational structures. Or, even if “outside” designers are not involved, the reorganization of work is normally attributed to the conscious reflection by members of the work group itself. A detailed examination of the response of a real-world group to a sudden and unexpected change in its informational environment shows that these common sense assumptions may be quite misleading. While entering a harbor, a large ship suffered an engineering breakdown that disabled an important piece of navigational equipment. This paper considers the response of the ship's navigation team to the changed task demands imposed by the loss of this equipment. Following a rather chaotic search of the space of computational and social organizational alternatives, the team arrived at a new stable work configuration. In retrospect, this solution appears to be just the sort of solution we would hope designers could produce However, while some aspects of the response appear to be the products of conscious reflection, others, particularly those concerning the division of cognitive labor, are shown to arise without reflection from adaptations by individuals to what appear to them as local task demands. It is argued that while the participants may have represented and thus learned the solution after it came into being, the solution was clearly discovered by the organization itself before it was discovered by any of the participants.