To cover background literature I would appreciate pointers to what you
all might think of relevant to such a study.
-----
Host's Note --
I asked Steen to expand a bit on his request. Below is the additional
information and background he sent.
-- Rick Karash, rkarash@world.std.com, host for learning-org
-----
>From martiny@innovia.ping.dk Thu Jan 5 21:23:11 1995
Date: Wed, 04 Jan 1995 09:47:15 MET
From: Steen Martiny <martiny@innovia.ping.dk>
To: Richard Karash <rkarash@world.std.com>
Subject: Re: Your request to learning-org
On Tue, 3 Jan 1995 22:38:29 +0001 (EST), "Richard Karash" <rkarash@world.std.com> wrote:
> I'd be delighted to post your request for info, but I suggest that you
> expand a little on your research area. Could you perhaps give a few words
> on what technology characterization is, your hypotheses, and how you see
> this research area related to organizational learning?
Dear Rick,
Sorry for being too brief, here is an expanded description.
We are researching models which shall be useful to pinpoint
the fundamental charecteristics of the technology relevant to an
organization. We believe that such understanding is of importance in
creative learning of the organizations position.
To cover background literature I would appreciate pointers to what you
all might think of relevant to such a study.
The goal for me is to identify how to characterize "the technology of a
corporation". Should you hear long tech speeches from the engineers
(which would be full of details and difficult to oversee) or should you ask
the customers for what they see as the technology of the products (which
presumably would leave out a lot of silent knowledge known to "everybody")
or should you go to an academic institute in the relevant area to learn the
trends of the industry (which would fill you with a lot of warm air of no
immidiate relevance) ? The final total would be lots of details, lack of
comprehensiveness and lack of overview.
Well, management science has touched the area. Joan Woodward of the Tavistock
school told us that unit - mass - continuous production was a fundamental
thing to look for. Charles Perrow classifies tech by the independent variables
"task variability" and "problem analyzability". Perrow's 2 variables lead to
a 4-field matrix of tech types. Mintzberg combined these and others (like
Thompson) into the variables "regulating" and "sophistication". However,
to me all these are quite course ways of characterizing technologies. I do
not think this makes enough sense in practical situations.
I have been quite attracted to Zeleny's way of looking on technology. Found
in Human Systems Management Vol 6 109-120 (1986) and reprinted in Noori &
Radford's "Readings and Cases in the Mngt of Technology", Prentice-Hall (1990).
He uses the following four components of technology: Hardware, software,
brainware and (external, societal) support net embedding.
There might be many other ways of separating the term technology into its
components. I am looking high and low in the literature, which is vast on
technology management, R&D and all kinds of stuff, but generally thin on
how to describe the technology involved.
Therefore I am asking for any hints from what all you people might of in the
search for modelling technology as such.
Happy new year
Steen M.
-- Steen Martiny | | Innovia martiny@innovia.ping.dk | | Hjortholmsvej 16 A FAX (+45) 42 85 43 67 | | DK-2830 Virum (Denmark)