Redesigning the knowledge-based product development organization: a case study of sociotechnical systems change

Technovation,

11:7 (1991) 403-416

Redesigning the knowledge-based product development organization: a case study of sociotechnical systems change Ronald E. Purser

Abstract

Many R&D organizations of U. S. corporations are beginning to search for more effective ways to organize the knowledge-based product development process. Unfortunately, there are relatively few comprehensive methods for redesigning knowledge-based product This case describes how sociotechni~a~ systems (STS) development organization. methods were used to redesign a sophisticated chemical-based product development division of a high technology organization. STS methods provided R&D managers and professional employees a structured, analytic and highly participative approach for managing change in their division. Based on STS design principles, a change team consisting of professional employees designed and administered an organizational audit for assessing the effectiveness of current work practices and the factors which delayed research projects. Results from the audit indicated that delays to research projects Gere caused by organizational rather than technical factors, and that significant changes in organizational structure and work practices were required. The change team proposed the division be redesigned into a permanent team-based product development organization.

1.

introduction

Many high technology companies are often started by a creative inventor or entrepreneur who is responsible for the company’s early success and rapid growth. However, as high technology companies mature, they are often faced with an organizational identity crisis. This crisis symbolizes the developmental Technovation Volume 11 No 7

challenges which stress the organization’s ability to respond and adapt to changing business demands. These stressors which trigger the crisis are usually associated with three underlying events. First, the founder of the high technology company usually departs or retires-leaving behind a culture built on heroic invention and romanticized entrepreneurialism. Second, the rapid growth of the

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high technology company usually results in a more highly differentiated and larger, technically complex organization-making it difficult to manage by decree. Thirdly, increased competition and market pressures demand both lower unit costs, higher quality and faster product development cycle time. Simply having the ‘inventor’s advantage’ is not enough. On this globally competitive playing field, R&D managers facing a similar crisis recognize that nothing short of a significant organizational culture change will be required to meet changing business demands. Incremental improvement efforts and other stop gap measures are not comprehensive enough in their capacity to elicit and sustain the magnitude of commitment needed from professionals to bring about such a radical cultural change. Further, simply reorganizing or rearranging the boxes on the organizational chart in a rote fashion-whether it means changing from a functional to a product structure (or vice versa)-does not guarantee that the desired behavioral changes will follow. 2.

Sociotechnical systems ISTS) design

STS is both a theory and a method for designing effective organizations. Adopting concepts from biology, the STS approach to organization design views the organization as an open system interacting with its environment and consisting of two separate but interdependent subsystems, the social and technical system [ 1, 21. Within the open systems paradigm, an organization is dependent upon the environment for inputs (such as raw materials capital, people and knowledge) which it must transform into valued outputs to ensure its ongoing survival. Shortly after World War II Eric Trist, a social scientist, and his colleagues at the Tavistock Institute in London were commissioned to study the productivity problems and rising absenteeism rates which had been plaguing the British coal 404

mining industry. The introduction of new technology had mechanized the former hand-got method of mining which had been performed by highly cohesive multi-skilled teams of miners. While the majority of mines were suffering from poor productivity and high and his colleagues Trist absenteeism, discovered several highly productive mines where the miners had been allowed to reorganize into their former team-based groups. Armed with this insight, the Tavistock group conducted experiments for the British Coal Board, reintroducing the team-based work organization, or autonomous work group as they called it, into several mines. As a result, productivity returned to expected industrial engineering projections and absenteeism was significantly reduced [3]. Based on this pioneering study, Trist proposed that organizational effectiveness and productivity is not a function of merely the optimization of one subsystem while suboptimizing the other, but of jointly optimizing both the social and technical subsystems. For the past 30 years, the majority of successful STS applications have occurred in largerepetitive process manufacturing volume, industries. The core production process and technology used in manufacturing is clearly different from the process by which work gets done in R&D departments. In manufacturing, the technology used to convert inputs into outputs is routine, sequential and highly predictable. By contrast, in R&D environments the core conversion process is clearly that of producing knowledge about products or processes. As any R&D manager would agree, the knowledge production process tends to be fraught with uncertainties, is non-routine and nonsequential. While the majority of successful STS applications have been limited to routine manufacand service organizations, recent turing theorists have begun to adapt and apply sociotechnical principles to the design of knowledgebased R&D organizations 14-61. This case Technovation

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study describes the application of STS change methods at Polaroid’s Film Imaging Research (FIR) division.

3.

Background on the case’

Polaroid is a Fortune 500 company which manufactures instant imaging, conventional film and electronic imaging products. With subsidiaries in 18 countries, Polaroid’s products are used world-wide in amateur and professional photography, industry, medicine and education. A high technology firm, Polaroid has a heavy investment in R&D; approximately 3000 of its 8000 U.S. employees work in some aspect of research, development or engineering. Polaroid was created in 1937 by Edwin Land, a superbly gifted inventor and technological genius, who acquired over 500 patents during the course of his career. Land’s invention of instant photography and subsequent introduction of the instant camera has made the Polaroid name a household word. Since Land’s retirement from the corporation, instant film research and film imaging product development have been conducted within the FIR division, Although the corporation is currently in the midst of a major reorganization, FIR, along with the Camera Engineering and Chemical Research divisions, have reported to the Vice President of Research and Engineering. Located in the Boston area, the FIR division comprises roughly 500 employees, half of which are professional scientists and engineers. Faced with having to satisfy more sophisticated and demanding customers in the instant imaging market, the complexity of film products have increased dramatically. Further, as product complexity increased so did the FIR organization; diverse scientific
Director of FIR recognized that reducing product development cycle time would require significant and systemic changes in the way products were conceived, managed and introduced. In response to these challenges, the of FIR championed Director a highinvolvement STS change effort in his division. 4. Restraining forces: organizational history and culture While it was apparent to most members in FIR that product delivery performance needed to be improved and that significant changes were needed, the inertia of past history exerted a heavy influence on present organizational behavior. Edwin Land fostered an entrepreneurial spirit and inventive culture which led to Polaroid’s early success and rapid growth. A legend in his own company, Land, even when he was the CEO, was known for spending most of his time in the laboratory. Land also had a reputation for guarding his expert knowledge; obsessed with secrecy-he rarely relinquished control of decision making-orchestrating projects with a benevolent iron fist [7]. Built upon a ‘culture of invention’, Land’s Polaroid was a highly technology-driven organization. However, several significant elements resulting from his cultural legacy were observed: (1) Sty& of ~ff~age~e~t= Most managers in the FIR division emulated the autocratic and paternalistic behavior which was so characteristic of Land. Organizational members referred to this as the “maestro model of management”, symbolizing the highly dependent relationship upon the idealized leader who is the source of all commands and directives. (2) Values/Rewards. The technological heroes in this organization were those who had invented their way to the top. Technological genius and inventiveness 405

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were highly valued traits. In order to protect and safeguard ideas, norms of individual competitiveness and a withholding of technical knowledge developed. In fact, Land had regarded teamwork and group cooperation as distractions to individual creativity.2 patterns. Given the (3) Communication highly autocratic style of management, communication patterns were primarily top-down. The majority of R&D professionals took their direction from one or two senior managers. For all practical purposes, the majority of R&D professionals were dependent upon the expert knowledge of these few senior managers for new product ideas, as well as for resolving product integration problems. It was evident to the Director of FIR that these norms and behaviors were becoming increasingly outmoded and dysfunctional. Land’s ‘invention culture’ had been functional during the growth phase of Polaroid’s life cycle. During the birth and growth phases of Polaroid, a stream of inventions poured forth from the company. However, as products matured, changing business conditions required not so much radical inventions and technical breakthroughs, but rather, innovations and improvements in existing products and processes. The change in effect called for moving from an ‘invention culture’ to a ‘learning culture’ (see Fig. 1). The recent stream of successful innovations from Japanese R&D organizations has been attributed to their “. . . fanatical devotion to learning” and a managerial perspective which seems “. . . to be convinced that their organizations are learning social systems” [8]. A learning culture is supported by a social system which transforms individual insights and discoveries into organizational knowledge. Learning cultures are built upon a shared, accessible and codified knowledge base-

I

RATE

RATE

INVENTION

CULTURE

(LAND’s

BIRTH

ERA)

GROWTH

/

LEARNING

I

MATURITY

(CURRENT

OF INVESTMENT

OF INNOVATION

CULTURE REALITY)

RENEWAL

Fig. 1. Relationship between organization life-cycle and transition from an invention to a learning-driven culture.

thereby rendering knowledge independent of the inventor. The conforming and embedded patterns of behavior which define organizational culture are not easy to change [9]. As the saying goes, “Nothing fails like success”. Furthermore, the desired behaviors and norms necessary for creating a learning culture are to some degree antithetical to those which flourish in In contrast to inventive-based cultures. Polaroid’s past culture which worshipped autonomous and independent behavior, cultures of learning require high degrees of collaboration and cooperation [lo].

5. Establishing for change

a need and framework

In order to reduce the restraining forces and cultural barriers, Polaroid’s Director of FIR intuitively realized that he needed to publicly establish the need for systemic change. He accomplished this by convening several key offsite meetings with his senior staff, group leaders and technical professionals. Through the lead of the Director, the group synthesized Technovation

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a collective vision and future state scenario of how the FIR division should operate after the change process. After the first off-site meeting the group recognized the need for a greater portion of the professional employees to learn, understand and take ownership for the products that they developed. Further, the group recognized that the current organizational structure and segmentation of technical disciplines had inadvertently resulted in a narrowing of a professional’s expertise, leading to overspecialization. Overspecialized employees sequestered in segmented departments had become increasingly disidentified with the requirements of the end product. Instead of designing technologies with the requirements of the product in mind, technology development, as the Director of FIR described, “. . , had taken on an esoteric flavor”. Identifying more with the standards of their professional disciplines, employees often produced state-of-the-art solutions which worked flawlessly in their laboratories, but were frequently difficult to implement in the product prototype. The management group acknowledged that too large a portion of the division operated in this highly specialized ‘technology mode’. In other words, the majority of professional employees seemed to value technical elegance and technical perfection over technical practicality and product compatibility. Film imaging products are highly complex, interactive systems. The management group recognized that the oversegmentalized organizational structure had made it difficult for professional empioyees to deveIop an understanding of the interdependencies and complex interactions between the different technical building blocks that comprised the product system. Moreover, the product sytem was greater than the sum of the individual technical building blodks. Lacking holistic knowledge of the product system architecture, it was difficult for professional employees to develop technical building blocks which fitted synergistically into Technovation Volume 11 No 7

of STS change

the end product. Operational knowledge of the product system architecture resided in the heads of a few senior managers. This group believed that in order to make professional employees more knowledgeable of the product system architecture, i.e. more ‘product oriented’, the new organization design had to be one which would enhance interdisciplinary collaboration and cross-functional communication. In essence, the management group envisaged that the behavior of the professional employee would radically change: in the new organization, employees developing professional technology would consider their work incomplete until their technology was successfully integrated into the product system. The contrast between the current and future state scenario is shown in Fig. 2.

Completely Product Oriented

Completely Technology Oriented

I

Both Product and Technoiogy Oriented

Current

Es

Desired

Fig. 2. Framework of current and desired state at Polaroid in terms of shifting professionals from a technology to a product orientation.

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The second framework of the vision emerged at the following round of off-sites. The group clearly recognized that in order to meaningfully improve product development and scale-up activities, the methodology of the experimentation process needed to radically shift. The group collectively envisioned the FIR division moving from a reliance upon trial-and-error, empirical studies-the ‘invent as we go along’ approach-in favor of the development of fundamental, theoretical knowledge. According to Souder [l 11, the development of more ‘conceptual technology’, would provide professionals “the ability to predict confidently the outcome of an action that is carried out on the system”. Ideally, the new R&D operation would have at its disposal a library of technical building blocks which could be pulled off the shelf and integrated into new products. While the development of conceptual technology may appear to progress slowly, in the long run it was agreed that overall, a higher quality solution is reached faster in comparison to the fits and recycles associated with empirical studies. These two frameworks constituted the rationale for sanctioning organizational change and were subsequently incorporated into a charter for guiding the redesign of FIR.

6. Creating team

the temporary

change

The structure for conducting the change effort consisted of the formation of a steering committee and design team. The steering committee was composed of 14 senior people (including the R&D manager and two hourly employee representatives), which met at regular intervals to oversee the effort, provide resources, sanction changes and ensure that redesign suggestions were implemented. The design team consisted of four hourly technicians and four salaried professionals who were assigned full-time to the tasks of designing and administering the R&D audit, making

organizational redesign recommendations and counseling employees as they transitioned into the new organization. Those individuals selected to the design team by management were considered to be of the highest caliber and were highly respected by their peers. In short, the investment of eight people fulltime for 14 consecutive months signified both a real and symbolic commitment on the part of management to the redesign effort. To bridge the gap between the design team and the rest of FIR, 100 additional people (20% of the organization) were elected by their peers to serve as ‘link-up’ group members. The ‘link-up’ groups provided an important communication function by periodically feeding back the data and progress reports from the design team to the rest of the organization.

7. Conducting audit

the R&D organization

The R&D organization audit was an essential step in the STS change process. The design and measurement criteria of the R&D audit are based on the premise that most effective organizational design is determined by first analyzing the environmental, social and technical subsystems.3 The environmental, social and technical analyses are conducted by:

(1) Collecting data from relevant stakeholders to gauge the current and future demands of the external business environment. (2) Interviewing and surveying the degree to which people in the division feel that their jobs provide them with adequate levels of autonomy, learning, variety and other relevant psychosocial factors. (3) Systematically identifying and analyzing the source and cause of delays or disturbances in the technical system which negatively impact cost, quality, timeliness or other significant performance criteria. Technovation

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A

(4)

Generating recommendations which will (a) be responsive to current and future environmental demands, (b) provide well designed jobs whidh meet employees’ needs so as to elicit and sustain their commitment, and (c) provide employees the training and knowledge for controlling or eliminating delays in the technical system at their source.

The design team was trained to collect and analyze data for each of the above areas. However, the most important findings were derived from identifying the factors which introduced delays into the product development process. 8. Factors projects

which

delayed

1.

Factors

that

delay

research

projects

Factors

Mean

Lack of knowledge Unrealistic timeframes Lack of technical documentation Lack of planning Lack of internal consulting Missing parties Unclear procedures Failure to utilize knowledge Overstructured forums Divergent values Diffused responsibilities Lack of knowledge sharing Wrong parties Lack of cooperation Lack of external consulting Understructured forums Language barriers

4.14 4.65 4.60 3.93 3.63 3.46 3.44 3.37 3.35 3.33 3.16 3.11 3.11 3.10 3.01 2.94 2.38

N = 82. Responses are rated on a seven-point 1 = low impact and 7 = high impact.

Volume

(in order

of

research

The results of the technical system analysis revealed that the factors which delayed research projects in product development were organizational rather than technical in nature. A survey instrument designed by the author and the design team was administered to 130 professional employees (scientists and engineers) who were involved in two concurrent projects. The survey was completed by 82 professionals, yielding a 63% response rate. Professionals were asked to rate on a seven-point Likert scale the impact of 17 possible variances on the performance of their research projects. Accordingly, Table 1 lists in order of severity the variances that were found to have the most significant negative impact on research projects in FIR. Professional employees rated a lack of knowledge (M = 4.74), unrealistic timeframes (M = 4.65) and poor technical documentation (M = 4.60), as having the most significant negative impact on the performance of research projects in product development. Across both projects, the key factors which delayed projects occurred when: (1) critical Technovation

TABLE severity)

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Likert scale, with

knowledge and information for making decisions was lacking, (2) commitments to time schedules were made with inadequate input from those that were actually working on key technologies, and (3) relevant information from previous experiments was missing because of poor technical documentation. The implications of the findings are discussed in the following sections. 8.1.

Lack of conceptual knowledge

Because the development of technology in this inventive technical culture was based largely upon an empirical method of experimentation, the level of conceptual knowledge applied to key decisions involving, the selection and implementation of new technology was often inadequate. A lack of conceptual knowledge often delayed projects as scientists had to rely upon their own isolated empirical know-how, and consequently had no reliable method for predicting or anticipating the problems which could occur when technologies reached the 409

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implementation development. 8.2.

Unrealistic

scale-up

and

stage

of

timeframes

The analysis indicated that relative to the total time to develop a new product, the proportion of time devoted to identifying and conducting experiments was a much shorter segment compared to the time it took to scaleup and implement. Follow-up interview data revealed that the imposition of unrealistic timeframes for projects exerted pressures upon scientists to converge quickly towards a decision to implement a technical approach. Under the pressure of stringent timeframes, scientists often made decisions to scale-up their laboratory materials prematurely-before they were able to develop an adequate conceptual level of understanding. Yet, it was apparent that the greatest rewards went to those scientists who could respond to crisis situations. Scientists who could invent rapid and novel solutions for fixing immediate problems became highly visible in the organization. Thus, in this research culture, technical heroes were worshipped for their ability to rapidly invent and implement technology. Under these conditions, it was difficult for professional employees to learn. Learning how to develop conceptual knowledge was sacrificed for the sake of expediency, thereby precluding the expected level of success. The occurrence of unrealistic timeframes as a factor did not imply the need to extend overall projects schedules, but rather, scientists needed to allocate a greater proportion of their time to developing a fundamental understanding and conceptual knowledge of the technical building blocks used in the product. 8.3.

Lack of technical

documentation

The previous two factors were exacerbated by the fact that the results of experiments per410

formed in the past were not well documented; scientists and engineers had to rely upon the memory and recall of senior product managers. Product systems knowledge was primarily experiential; it was not codified, accessible or easily communicable. As one scientist put it: L‘. . . to the rest of the organization, the product is an empirical mystery composed of 50 000 permutations of variables.” Because most scientists were dependent on senior managers for product systems knowledge, their attempts at presenting contradictory data or voicing dissenting opinions were often summarily dismissed or discredited by senior managers who had an experiential command over the product systems data base. These group dynamics became debilitating and subsequently eroded the potential for maintaining collaborative and collegial superiorsubordinate relationships. In sum, lacking conceptual knowledge and technical documentation, scientists found it difficult to meet expected deadlines. As time pressure increased, decisions to scale-up technology were often made prematurely. The combinatorial impact of these key factors created a vicious spiral, detracting from the quality of technical decisions-thus prolonging the implementation phase. 9. Organizational recommendations

redesign

After analyzing the implications of the data gathered from these analyses, the design team developed recommendations for organizational version of those change. 4 A summarized changes includes the establishment of: The (1) Product development teams. primary task of product development teams is to coordinate and perform all efforts to deliver a product prototype of demonstrated customer acceptance, that

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is manufacturable, of high quality, on time and on budget, and is profitable to the company. Product development teams will comprise multidisciplinary employees that will follow products through the various stages of development. These stages include idea generation, development, concept feasibility product definition, development, scale-up, manufacturing and product improvement. As a function of the new design, all teams will be trained in numerous group process skills including team building, conflict resolution, valuing diversity, stress management and communication other interpersonal techniques. (2) Technology development teams. The primary task of a technology development team is to design, carry out, analyze and document small-scale experiments that lead to a theoretical knowledge of technical building blocks which fit into the overall corporate strategy for future products. Technology development teams are closely linked with product development teams, enabling the latter to leverage technologies across many products with wide application. equipment teams. The (3) Large-scale primary task of the large-scale equipment teams is to support the different product and technology teams in the area of experimentation that necessitates the use of equipment that cannot feasibly be owned or operated by those teams. Large-scale equipment teams exist to support all efforts to advance product and technology goals. Selfmanaged teams composed of technicians will be responsible for minimizing down time, ensuring the accurate and quick turn around of information, scheduling designed experiments and performing complex maintenance tasks. Technovation

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(4) Support teams. Support teams include services such as finance, personnel, training and the trades. The purpose of support teams is to provide division-wide services that cannot be reasonably distributed to the other teams. Interface teams. The primary task of interface teams is to: provide a forum for communication between teams which have a need to interact; provide a forum for common decision making on issues which are relevant to both teams; provide a venue where all the relevant skills from both teams can be brought together for sharing expertise and learning; provide a focus of joint ownership and information exhange for important tasks which need cooperation between teams. Membership in interface teams is temporary and dictated by the needs of emergent and changing tasks. As noted earlier, the Director of FIR envisioned a learning organization, in which the majority of professional employees would be organized and trained so that they could develop a shared view of the whole. Rather than remaining more narrowly focussed and exclusively identified with their technical disciplines, the new organization design needed to facilitate professionals in associating themselves strongly with both the end product and the entire development process.s Figure 3 illustrates the newly proposed organization design which is intended to accomplish these requirements.

10.

Interim

results

It is too early at this stage to determine the full impact of the newly designed team structures on performance, yet it is clear that the change effort has improved communication and planning processes. Before the change effort, product review meetings were frequent, 411

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predictive abilities for developing technologies which can be applied and scaled-up successfully in product prototypes. Duncan and Weiss [12] refer to this capacity as having developed “. . . some prior knowledge about the relationship between action and outcomes”. As this case study has shown, without a knowledge of ‘action-outcome’ relationships, professionals were handicapped by their inability to reliably predict or anticipate the potential problems which emerged when technologies were scaledup in prototypes. However, this shortcoming is not at all unique to this product development organization, as Foster [13] observes:

Fig. 3. Polaroid Film Imaging Research’s team-based organization design.

lengthy and unwieldy. In the past, as many as 30-40 people were expected to attend review meetings, and these lasted sometimes as long as 4 hours! The R&D audit helped to clarify the essential information that was needed for review meetings; all other non-value added activities were eliminated. Now, review meetings are less frequent and more manageable.

11.

Conclusions

The results from this case suggests that the effectiveness of product development efforts is influenced by essentially two organization design criteria. The first criterion emphasizes that the effectiveness of product development is largely dependent upon organization designs which facilitate the development, availability, and eventual utilization of conceptual knowledge. The development of a conceptual knowledge base enhances professional employees’ 412

” Too many companies develop products empirically. They know things work, but not why they work. They rush through engineering and then hit some major problems that require an understanding of the support science which they don’t have. There is no base for understanding limits, or fixing peranticipating progress, formance problems as they inevitably occur when a product is developed too quickly.”

The second design criterion requires that professionals continually develop and update their knowledge and appreciation of product system interdependencies. As Drucker [14] has pointed out, in the information-based organization, managers need to provide specialists ‘a view of the whole’. However, holistic-orproduct systems knowledge-is difficult to develop in highly differentiated hierarchical organizabetween technical tions. Rigid boundaries disciplines encourages overspecialization which often results in suboptimal solutions. Under these conditions, a professional approaches a decision to a localized sub-problem without understanding how the outcome of his/her decision will impact other departments or other interrelated sub-problems. The development of product systems knoworganizational innovative requires ledge arrangements which promote an intensive Technovation

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exchange of know-how between specialists and cross-disciplinary contact, or what Quinn refers to as ‘interactive learning’ [ 151. Similarly, the existence of technical and consumer uncertainty requires flexible organizational arrangements with fluid assignments and overlapping boundaries which allow specialists to develop and share the knowledge that they need [16]. R&D managers know from experience the futility of trying to tell professionals how they should do their jobs. Drucker [14], commenting on the ‘new realities’ of the informationbased organization, declares that: ‘ln information-based organizations, knowledge will lie primarily at the bottom, in the minds of specialists who do different work and direct themselves . . . Because the players in an information-based organization are specialists, they cannot be told how to do their work. . . . Theprofessional specialist however tends to be ever more specialized. By itselfi specialized knowledge has no results unless it focuses on the needs and goals of the entire organization. The flute part is an essential part of a Beethoven symphony, but by itself it is not music. It becomes music by becoming part of the ‘score’ . . . Yet (today) neither business nor government agency has a ‘score ’ to play by. ” The maestro model of management may have worked at Polaroid during its entrepreneurial phases, when Land functioned as both the composer and conductor of the organization’s ‘score’. However, in Land’s era, products were less technically complex, customer needs and preferences were less sophisticated, and competition in the instant imaging business was less intense. Today, even Land-the undeniable genius that he waswould have difficulty composing and orchestrating new product development activities at Polaroid (or at any other high technology organization) single-handedly from the top of Technovation

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the organizational pyramid. In increasingly global markets and turbulent environments, the composition of the organization’s ‘score’ is a highly uncertain, evolutionary and an emergent phenomenon. While Drucker’s comparison of the knowledge-based organization to a classical symphony orchestra is useful for illustrating the realities of specialization, it misses the mark. Granted, the players in a are highly classical symphony orchestra specialized, but their individual performances are all guided by a well defined, predetermined and certain ‘score’. A more accurate and useful analogy would be to think of the knowledgebased organization not as a classical symphony orchestra, but rather, as a jazz ensemble. The score which guides the performance of individual musicians in a jazz ensemble is also emergent and defined in real-time through the synchronous interactions and individual interpretations of a common theme. Savage [17] also uses the jazz ensemble analog as a means for illustrating how the emergent interaction of vision and knowledge guides the performance of specialists in the knowledge-based organization: “An enterprise’s interaction with the market is not just passive listening; it is listening to and playing the music at the same time, the way jazz musicians pick up a theme and work with it. The theme aligns their vision; then each musician interprets the theme based on his or her individual knowledge. As they play, they inspire and challenge each other to new combinations, new modes of expressing themselves around the basic theme . . . The same thing can happen within a company that listens to the themes of the marketplace. As functions learn to work in parallel, they improve their timing, reduce cycle time, and improve quality and time-to-market the alignment of their vision and knowledge allows them to discern market patterns, product design, 413

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process strategy, and service capabilities concurrently. ”

As leader of a jazz ensemble, the role of the R&D manager in redesigning the knowledgebased organization is to set the tempo by creating a shared vision and articulating the desired future state, while simultaneously empowering professionals to co-determine the details and specifics o.f the new organization design. Results derived from the sociotechnical systems analysis of this R&D organization revealed discrepancies between the current reality and the desired future state. Rather than trying to impose complex change from the top-down, the creation of a temporary change team and administration of a comprehensive R&D audit provided a structured approach and participative process whereby those affected by the impending change were actively involved in learning how to plan and implement the change. By employing a sophisticated R&D audit, Polaroid actively involved managers, professionals and technicians in a process by which they diagnosed the social system issues which affected their R&D work climate and identified the technical system factors which delayed research projects. The results of the audit proved useful, leading the temporary change team to recommend the formation of a permanent team-based structure. Resistance to the newly proposed team-based organization was minimal. Managing change is not easy for any R&D manager, especially when it will affect where, with whom, and how professional employees do their jobs. Polaroid’s high involvement strategy for managing change will have many pay-offs as change is the only constant in today’s global marketplace.

Notes ’ The views represented in this article are solely the author’s, and do not officially represent the opinions or

414

views of the Polaroid Corporation. Factual data related to this case were presented by Polaroid employees at several meetings of the ‘R&D Network’, a conference sponsored by the Department of Organizational Behavior at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. 2 That Land downplayed the importance of the group and teamwork is evident in the comments he made in a speech addressed to the Boston Patent Law Association. He was quoted as saying, “I think whether outside science or within science there is no such thing as group originality or group creativity or group perspicacity. I do believe wholeheartedly in the individual capacity for greatness, in one way or another in almost any healthy human being under the right circumstances; but being part of a group is, in my opinion, generally the wrong circumstances. Profundity and originality are attributes of single, if not singular, minds. Two minds may sometimes be better than one, provided each of the two minds is working separately while the two are working together; yet three tend to become a crowd.” For a more complete transcription of his speech, see ref. 7. 3 For a more detailed description of the sociotechnical systems analysis method, see refs 1, 2 and 4. 4 These design recommendations were presented by several members of the FIR design team at an industryuniversity ‘R&D Network’ meeting held at Case Western Reserve University in March, 1990. 5 This holistic-product orientation is what William Souder refers to as the ‘task-dominant’ mode1 of technology transfer. According to Souder, functional specialists in task-dominant organizations “do not exclusively identify with one area of expertise” and tend to define their role and responsibilities in “terms of total project contributions rather than their individual functions”. For a more detailed discussion of the taskdominant mode1 I refer the readers to ref. 11.

References W.A. Pasmore and J. Sherwood, Sociotechnical Systems: A Sourcebook. .University Associates, San Diego, CA, 1976. W.A. Pasmore, Designing Effective Organizations: The Sociotechnical Systems Perspective. Wiley, New York, 1988. E.L. Trist, G. W. Higgin, H. Murray and A. Pollock, Organizational Choice: Capabilities of Groups at the Coal Face Under Changing Technologies. Tavistock, London, 1963.

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4 5

6

7 8

9 10

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C.H. Pava, Managing New Office Technology. Free Press, New York, 1983. W.A. Pasmore and K. Gurley, Enhancing R&D across functional areas. In: R. Kilmann and I. Kiimann (eds), Making Organizations More Competitive. Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, CA, 1991, pp. 368-396. R.E. Purser and W.A Pasmore. Designing effective knowledge utilization systems in R&D: A case study of nonroutine sociotechnical systems change. In: M.W. Lawless and L.R. Gomez-Mejia (eds), Strategic Leadership in High Technology Organizations Proceedings. Boulder, CO, 1990, pp. 274-278. P.C. Wensberg, Land’s Polaroid. Houghton Mifflin, Boston, MA, 1987. C. Karlsson, High rates of innovation: The Japanese culture shock to Europe. European Management Journal, 7(l) (1989) 31. W. Burke, Organization Development: A Normative View. Addison-Wesley, Reading, MA, 1987. M. Tribus, Applying quality management principles. Research Management, November-December (1987) 11-21. WE. Souder, Managing New Product Innovations. D.C. Heath, Lexington, MA, 1987. R. Duncan and A. Weiss, Organizational learning: implications for organizational design. In: L.L. Cummings and B. Staw (Eds.), Research in Organizational Behavior. JAI Press, Greenwich, CT, 1979, pp. 75-123. R. Foster, The Attacker*s Advantage. Summit Books, New York, 1986. P.F. Drucker, The New Realities. Harper and ROW, New York, 1989. J.B. Quinn, Managing innovation: Controlled chaos. Harvard Business Review, May-June (1985) 76-83. W.E. Souder, Managing New Product Innovations. D.C. Heath, Lexington, MA, 1987. CM. Savage, Fifth Generation Management: Integrating Enterprises through Human Networking. Digitaf Equipment Press, Boston, MA, 1990.

Ronald Purser is currently an assistant professor at the Center for Organization Development at Loyola University in Chicago, IL and is a Visiting Faculty member for the Organization Development program at Sonoma State University in Rohnert Park, CA. He received his Ph.D. in Organizational Behavior from Case Western Reserve University. Dr. Purser has published several articles and symposia related to the design and improvement of knowledge work organizations. His current research interests include the study of knowledge-based organizations using the sociotechnical systems perspective, and the creation of

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organizational redesign methods for reducing product development cycle time and improving R&D performance. Dr. Purser is a member of Organization Development \ and Technology and Innovation Management divisions of the Academy of Manage_ ment, and is an associate the member of IEEE Engineering Management ” Society. In addition, he is Director of the Quantum Consulting Group whose clients include numerous Forfi: tune 500 companies.

Nouvelle conception des organisations pour le d~veloppement des produits bashes sur connaissance: une 6tude de cas de changement dans les systemes socio-techniques RESUME

Beaucoup de sections de recherched~veloppeme~t des entreprises des Etats Unis se mettent a la recherche des systemes plus effectifs pour l’organisation du processus de developpement des produits base sur connaissance. Malheureusement, il y a relativement peu de mkthodes complets pour la nouvelle conception des organisations pour le developpement des produits bases sur connaissance. Cet etude decrit la faccon dont des methodes des systemes socio-techniques ont et6 utilists pour concevoir a nouveau une section trb sophistiquee pour le developpement des produits A base chimique d’une entreprise de haute technologie, Des methodes des systemes socio-techniques ont fourni les responsables de la recherche-d~veloppement et les employ&s d’un structure, professionels approche analytique et hautement participatif pour gerer le processus de changement dans leur section. Base sur des principes de conception des un equipe de systemes socio-techniques, changement form6 par des employ& professionels a concu et admininstre un audit organisationel pour estimer l’effectivitk des

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R. Es Purser

pratiques actuels de travail et les facteurs qui ont retarde les projets de recherche. Les resultats de l’audit ont indique que les dtlais dans les projets de recherche ont tte causes par des facteurs organisatione~s plutdt que techniques et qu’il serait necessaire d’amener des changements importants a la structure organisationelle et les pratiques de travail. L’equipe de changement a propose que la section soit conCue a nouveau comme organisation permanente pour le developpement des produits basee sur equipe. Die Umgestaltung der wissensbasierten ~~rst~llungsorgenisation: Eke Fallstudie der soriotechnischen Systemver3nderung ABRISS

Viele R&D Organisationen in U.S. Betrieben sind daran, effektivere Methoden zu entwickeln, den wissensbasierten Hersteli~ngsprozess zu organisieren. Leider gibt es verhaltnismairjig weniger umfassende Methoden, den wissensbasierten Herstellungsproze6 umzugestalten. Dieser Fall beschreibt, wie die soziotechnische System-Methode angewandt wurde, urn eine technisch hochentwickelte Abteilung in einem chemischen Herstellungsprogramm umzugeste~ten. Soziotechnis~he System-Methoden gaben dem R&D Manager und dem fachlich gelernten Angestellten eine strukturierte, analytische und von den Teilnehmern Mitwirkung erfordernde Methode, die Anderung in der Leitung der Abteilung anzugehen. Das Team von fachlich gebildeten Angesteltten stiitzte sich auf Richtlinien der soziotechnischen Systementwicklungsmethode und prtifte die Organisation, urn die Effektivitat von gegebenen Arbeitsmethoden zu ermessen und jene Faktoren zu isolieren, die Forschungsprojekte verzogern. Ergebnisse dieser Prtifung zeigten, da6 Verz~gerungen von Forschungsprojekten auf organisatorische und nicht technische Faktoren auf 416

zur~ckzuf~hren waren, und da6 wesentliche Anderungen in der Organisation und in den Arbeitsmethoden erforderlich waren. Das Team schlug vor, die Abteilung zu einer teamorientierten Organisation zur Herstellung des Produkts umzugestalten. La ramodelaci~n de organizaciones dedicadas al desarollo de productos basados en conocimientos: el estudio de un cambio de sistemas sociotecnicos RESUMEN

Muchas de la organizaciones de investigacibn y desarollo de las corporaciones grandes de 10s EE.UIJ. empiezan a buscar formas mb efectivas de organizar el proceso de desarollo de productos basados en conocimientos. Desgraciadamente, existen m&s bien pocos metodos para la remodelaci&n de las organizaciones de desarollo de1 product0 basado en cono~imientos. En este case se describe ia manera en la que se aprovecharon 10s sistemas sociotecnicos para volver a diseiiar una division sofisticada de desarollo de1 product0 de base quimico de una organizacibn de alta tecnologia. Los mktodos de sistemas sociot~~nicos proporcionaron a 10s directives de investigacibn y desarolio y a 10s empleados profesionales un enfoque estructurado, am&co, y con un alto grado de participacibn para adaptame a 10s cambios dentro de la misma division dondre se encontraban. Basandose en 10s principios de diseiio de 10s sistemas sociotecnicos, un equip0 de cambio constituido totalmente por empleados profesionales, disenaron y analitica administraron una investigation profunda organizational, para asesorar la efectividad de las actuales practicas de trabajo y de 10s factores que demoraron a 10s proyectos de investigation. Los resultados de la investigacion demostraron definitivamen~e que ‘las demoras fueron causados m&s bien por factores organizacionales a proyectos de la investigation y destaca 10s cambios necesarios.

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