People and Technology in the Workplace (1991) / Chapter Skim
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Improving the Development, Acceptance, and Use of New Technology: Organizational and Interorganizational Challenges
Improving the Development, Acceptance, and Use of New Technology: Organizational and Interorganizational Challenges
Pages 15-56
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Improving the Development Acceptance, and Use of New Technology: Organizational and Interorganizationa] Challenges ROSABETH MOSS KANTER Implementation of technological innovation rests largely on readiness for change, and change is not always received positively.
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Instead, we need to Took at the relationships between work units, at total organizational relationships and systems, and at interorganizational relationships if we are truly going to understand the context for the implementation of new technology. Such macro-level system variables augment process moclels of innovation development and adoption.
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1. The innovation process is uncertain.
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4. The innovation process crosses boundaries.
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5. The innovation process often changes work relationships anc]
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FOCUS: STRATEGY, RESOURCES, REWARDS My first major proposition is that greater organizational focus in the mix of an organization's businesses and activities, backed by appropriate rewards, supports investment in and effective implementation of new technology. The Business Mix There has been a great clear of discussion recently, among anaTysts of corporate strategy, about the relative merits of cliversified versus focused organizations.
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However, the quest for focus and synergies also comes from growth goals, especially in global technology companies, which face brutal, fast-paced competition, and thus must transfer intelligence and innovation across the boundaries of business units and countries. Focus permits the attainment of critical mass and sustained competence.
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Effective adoption and use of technological innovation require a strategic decision that this innovation should get resources allocated to it, resources necessary to exploit its potential. For product ant!
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On a larger scale, Eastman Kodak recently contracted with IBM to run its management information systems department so that Kodak could tap IBM's expertise while focusing its own management attention on Kociak's core businesses. Some firms are demonstrating that it is possible to operate effectively even with most activities performed by independent contractors, if computer linkages permit coordination, as a cluster of British examples show.
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Thus, more focused organizations engaged in a less diverse mix of activities may be more likely to allocate resources for new technology that augments core strengths. At the same time, focus means a clear set of priorities that guide the actions of everyone at every level.
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, those weak in idea development also had a very weak innovation incentive program. The companies fell into three groups: innovation realists, innovation dreamers, and innovation ignorants.
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There is a quiet revolution in pay phiTosophy in the United States, as organizations move away from paying people for status or rank in the organization ant! toward paying people for contribution or performance isee Kanter, 1987, 1 989a, chapter 9 )
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For example, studies show that in some areas of manufacturing Japanese firms implement new process technology about four times as fast as U.S. firms, thus gaining a temporal advantage in putting their investing addition to the value of the technology in terms of raising productivity.
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Ocean Spray heard the same presentation, committed the next day, signed a deal by the end of the week, and obtained an 18-month exclusive license. For 18 months, Ocean Spray had a ate facto monopoly; market share shot up.
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employees to discuss technological developments with implications for Ocean Spray products. At one of those forums, a micicIle-level engineer brought the new packaging to the attention of top management.
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Some Japanese firms implement some kinds of technology more quickly than their U.S. counterparts because they are more likely to use cross-functional teams, build overlapping relationships between functions and between stages of the process, and stress communication that bridges the gap between specialties or functions.
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The importance of the quality of connections shows up again and again. A survey of 158 products in the electronics industry, half successes and half failures, made clear that conventional "external factor" explanations {state of the economy, foreign competition, and lack of funcling)
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After the project had succeeded, however, the team was broken up and put back in their functional departments; now the development of enhancements to the original product has slowed to the usual product development pacetwice the time of the "independent" cross-functional team. To capitalize on such lessons, Corning Glass views innovation as a total organizational problem that requires the cooperation and interaction of many different people, both inside and outside the company, at many different levels iIntraprell curia ~ Exce77ence, 19861.
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Status Barriers One barrier to more collaboration and communication across functions and across business units is cultural. A management style that I call "cowboy management" Canter, 1989a)
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other functions as well as with external suppliers. The company moved from a highly segmented process to one involving integrated project teams drawn from component divisions, functional departments, and external suppliers.
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Status barriers influence the acceptance of new technology as well as the ability of groups to communicate. A 1983 survey on the use of office automation was revealing in this regard.
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Until the new knowledge is stabilized or widespread, a group faces this threatening situation: "lower status" members who are superior in knowledge to "higher status" ones. In most workplaces, the people closest to office automation and the ones most likely to learn it first are the secretaries.
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Commitment The final factor enabling organizations to move fast is high levels of employee commitment that produces sheer hard work. Change always requires above-and-beyond effort; companies that implement innovation quickly count on employee goodwill.
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Three kinds of flexibility are relevant to the change process: at the work unit level, across work units, and in the innovation project itself. Work Systems Rapid change and intense competition mean that people at every level of the company need to be more flexible, drawing from a broader range of skills, with more open-ended assignments that permit them to solve problems rather than be concerned about jurisdictions.
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Under GM management, there hacl been more than 30 separate classifications for one major production area; in a similar Toyota plant, there were just 3. Similarly, Procter & Gamble has some of the most advanced manufacturing technology in the world, especially on the social system level.
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"Desperately Seeking Synergies" Innovation is aicled also by collaboration across work units in the pursuit of new ways to combine their resources to produce mutual benefits. One of the key findings from research about innovations is that innovation generally requires teamwork from more than one area.
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What is the justification for independent decisions on the part of indepenclent business units when a collaborative effort could reduce costs for the whole organization and perhaps even produce a better system? At American Express the search for synergies was part of chairman James Robinson's "One Enterprise" campaign, an effort to balance the autonomy and results consciousness of entrepreneurial business units with the willingness to share information, staff, systems, or programs across units.
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Projects cannot be launched and ignored- as though the resources couIc3 be cloled out and that's that; change of any kind, development of the new, and implementation of innovation require constant management vigilance. Because of the likelihood that pitfalls and problems will arise between idea or strategy and results, a truth of management jif not of lifer is that "everything looks like a failure in the micicIle." In nearly every innovation project, doubt is cast on the original vision because problems are mounting and the end is nowhere in sight.
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Indeed, restructuring of the organization often occurs during the innovation process, including joint ventures, changes in organizational responsibilities, use of new teams, and altered control systems Schroeder et al., 1986J. Of course, there is a clanger that intervention to save a project might actually hurt it.
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Interorganizational relationships play a role in the spread and use of new technology. Joint ventures and strategic alliances are sometimes considered a fac3 of the 1980s, but behind any fad is genuine substance.
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For the cleaTers, the advantage is a faster, more efficient process; for the bank, the advantage is that it gains information as well as customers. In another realm, Nichols Institute, a CaTifornia-based medical testing company, has developer!
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et al., 19891. Organizatiorl-Spanning Technology Third, the use of some technology, not only by its nature but also by its origin, does not rest on issues within work units but on relationships between organizations.
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Similarly, a Massachusetts Center of Excellence on applied technology involves business leaders, union leaders, and educators in the state to plan how new technologies can best be disseminated so that people are educated fallout them in advance gain needed skills, and therefore, greet them with minimum resistance. The government's role as a "partner" is to remove barriers to use of new technology and to set conditions fostering innovation.
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In the medical field, Nichols Institute has clevelopec3 a collaborative model for technology transfer that has helped bridge the gap between academic laboratory research clevelopments and wiclesprea(1 applicability to the patient population. The company was founcled in 1971 as a specialized endocrine laboratory, later adding specialized testing procedures in genetics, toxicology, oncology, and immunology.
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Academic Associates keeps a foot in both worlds, directing the transfer process at Nichols Institute while maintaining their responsibilities at the university level. Closely linked with the academic world, Nichols Institute Academic Associates have been quick to respond to new technology when it arises.
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Thus, the existence of conferences, meetings, and special interest associations should all be valuable in diffusing innovations, even product innovations, which have to be brought to the attention of specific groups. Again, this can occur within as well as outside a particular organization.
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One way organizations cope with the risks inherent in sharing Ideas is by creating an ownership structure that safeguards investments and aligns incentives for cooperative behavior. A study of 195 collaborative arrangements in biotechnology Comparing collaborative arrangements for R&D with those involving technology transfer, supply, marketing, manufacturing agreements)
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The domains roughly circumscribed by my four "Fs" strategy and goals, organizational design and corporate form, hierarchical and cross-workunit relationships, and interorganizational relationships may be the most critical areas to examine, as they define the context for the use of new technology. "Perfect" management of innovation projects may not be enough unless organizations are designed to facilitate technology development, use, and transfer.
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Tracy O'Rourke. Harvard Business Review 67t [anuary-February)
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The Harvard Business Review 67{November/December,:85-92. Kiesler, S
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1986. Managing internal corporate joint ventures: A process approach.
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56 PEOPLE AND TECHNOLOGY IN THE WORKPLACE Towards mechanisms for permanent quality of work life. Journal of Applied Behavioral S cience 16:371 -388.
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