Organizing for innovation

Abstract The authors argue that process organizing may be a promising route to creating sustainable competitive advantage within a business environment which is becoming increasingly turbulent and complex. Developing invisible assets, and tacit knowledge in particular, is crucial in creating such advantages. This article first presents a framework for process organizing which focuses on the relationship between company vision, the creation of multifunctional teams and the complementary relationship between team members. It then presents a model for making process teams work by emphasizing a number of criteria which should be met in re-engineering work processes, and indicates managerial and theoretical implications.

[1]  R. Reed,et al.  Causal Ambiguity, Barriers to Imitation, and Sustainable Competitive Advantage , 1990 .

[2]  George Katona,et al.  Essays on behavioral economics , 1980 .

[3]  Peter Checkland,et al.  Systems Thinking, Systems Practice , 1981 .

[4]  Thomas H. Johnson,et al.  Relevance Lost: The Rise and Fall of Management Accounting , 1987 .

[5]  Mik Wisniewski,et al.  Beyond Dispute: The Invention of Team Syntegrity , 1994 .

[6]  M. Snowdon.  The Heart of Enterprise , 1979 .

[7]  E. Trist,et al.  The Social Engagement of Social Science: A Tavistock Anthology: Vol. 1: The Socio-Psychological Perspective. , 1991 .

[8]  S. Martin,et al.  “Redesigning the future” , 1987, Journal of general internal medicine.

[9]  Jon R. Katzenbach,et al.  The Wisdom of Teams: Creating the High-Performance Organization , 1992 .

[10]  I. Nonaka,et al.  The Knowledge Creating Company , 2008 .

[11]  G. Katona.  Toward a macropsychology. , 1979 .

[12]  R. Kanter.  The Change Masters , 1983 .

[13]  Ashby Wr,et al.  Constraint analysis of many-dimensional relations. , 1965 .

[14]  P. Drucker.  Post-Capitalist Society , 1993 .

[15]  Thomas J. Peters,et al.  Thriving on Chaos: Handbook for a Management Revolution , 1988 .

[16]  Jon-Arild Johannessen,et al.  The information intensive organization: A study of governance, control and communication in a Norwegian shipyard , 1993 .

[17]  Thomas H. Davenport,et al.  Process Innovation: Reengineering Work Through Information Technology , 1992 .

[18]  Lyman D. Ketchum,et al.  All Teams are not Created Equal: How Employee Empowerment Really Works , 1992 .

[19]  Paul S. Goodman,et al.  Change in organizations , 1982 .

[20]  Erich Jantsch,et al.  The self-organizing universe , 1980 .

[21]  Russell L. Ackoff,et al.  On purposeful systems , 1972 .

[22]  S. Hart.  A Natural-Resource-Based View of the Firm , 1995 .

[23]  S. Winter.  Knowledge and Competence as Strategic Assets , 1987 .

[24]  R. H. Waterman,et al.  In Search of Excellence , 1983 .

[25]  E. Trist,et al.  Towards a Social Ecology: Contextual Appreciation of the Future in the Present , 1973 .

[26]  A. V. D. Ven,et al.  Central problems in the management of innovation , 1986 .

[27]  W. Edwards Deming,et al.  man who discovered quality , 1990 .

[28]  K. Weick.  The social psychology of organizing , 1969 .

[29]  R. Kanter,et al.  The Challenge of organizational change : how companies experience it and leaders guide it , 1993 .

[30]  R. T. Beaty,et al.  The competitive challenge , 1993 .

[31]  Joseph T. Mahoney,et al.  The resource-based view within the conversation of strategic management , 1992 .

[32]  Magoroh Maruyama,et al.  THE SECOND CYBERNETICS Deviation-Amplifying Mutual Causal Processes , 1963 .

[33]  Linda L. Putnam,et al.  Communication and organizations : an interpretive approach , 1985 .

[34]  P. Drucker.  Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices , 1974 .

[35]  Daniele Archibugi,et al.  Technology and innovation: an introduction , 1995 .

[36]  S. Beer.  The Brain of the Firm , 1972 .

[37]  Jon-Arild Johannessen,et al.  The Challenge of Innovation in a Norwegian Shipyard Facing the Russian Market , 1993 .

[38]  E. Lawler.  High-Involvement Management , 1986 .

[39]  R. Collcutt.  Book reviewA guide to controlling your corporate future: Russell L. Ackoff, Elsa Vergara Finnel and Jamshid Gharajedaghi Wiley, New York, 1984, vii + 165 pages, $19.95 , 1985 .

[40]  M. Hammer,et al.  Reengineering the Corporation , 1993 .

[41]  H. Harrington.  Business process improvement , 1991 .

[42]  Joseph Moses Juran.  Juran on Leadership For Quality , 1989 .

[43]  C. Prahalad,et al.  Competing for the Future , 1994 .

[44]  Arnold M. Rose,et al.  An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy. , 1944 .

[45]  T. Bonoma.  Case Research in Marketing: Opportunities, Problems, and a Process , 1985 .

[46]  W. Ashby,et al.  An Introduction to Cybernetics , 1957 .

[47]  Dean Tjosvold,et al.  Team Organization: An Enduring Competitive Advantage , 1991 .

[48]  Russell L. Ackoff.  A concept of corporate planning , 1969 .

[49]  Robert Jacobson,et al.  The “Austrian” School of Strategy , 1992 .

[50]  Kenwyn K. Smith.  The Movement of Conflict in Organizations: The Joint Dynamics of Splitting and Triangulation. , 1989 .

[51]  Rita Gunther McGrath,et al.  Defining and developing competence: A strategic process paradigm , 1995 .

[52]  G. Kreweras.  Creating the corporate future: Russell L. ACKOFF Wiley, New York, 1981, xi + 297 pages, £10.85 , 1982 .

[53]  Peter Checkland,et al.  Diagnosing the system for organizations: S. BEER Wiley, Chichester, 1985, 152 + xiii pages, £7.50 , 1986 .

[54]  George P. Richardson,et al.  Feedback Thought in Social Science and Systems Theory , 1991 .