Profiles of leaders, followers, and laggards in programmable automation adoption

Programmable automation (PA) helps firms compete in a marketplace that is increasingly requiring higher quality production and continual product redesign. Yet only a small percentage of firms actually use some form of this technology, and even they have not capitalized on its full technical potential. Why do some firms choose to adopt PA technologies while others do not? How is the use of these technologies related to the firm's technology strategy, human resources, and organization design? Results show that leaders operated in more technologically intensive industries that were experiencing more overall growth. Leaders generally held a technology strategy that emphasized product quality and product differentiation in the form of minor and major product changes, but not fundamentally new products. Finally, leaders were more likely to have a hybrid organic-mechanistic type of organization design that was relatively flat and emphasized personal control.

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