to stimulate the next wave of research on organization learning. It provides a conceptual framework for research on the differences and similarities of learning by individuals, groups, and organizations.

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This paper presents a new unifying theme for design theory by emphasizing the importance of context . We arrive at our conclusions by examining and then criticizing the legitimacy of universal methods in design upon which the critical importance of context emerges. The collaborative aspects of design focuses attention on the conception of shared meaning. We introduce and elaborate the concept of shared memory as the embodiment both of context and of shared meaning. Using the concept of shared memory in vertical and horizontal forms, within and between disciplines respectively, we both account for past observations of design in practice and recommend actions to improve design in the future. We examine several practical implications of the growing importance of shared memory in industrial firms and for design teams. We then consider and recommend specific research programs which will help designers capture and make better use of this critical resource.

The premise of our work is that designers, in the process of doing their work, create models of various kinds, for various purposes, and that it is the negotiation of the structure and content of these models that comprises the bulk of the task of doing design. We give here an overview of a framework for enabling designers to capture and structure as much of the information they use and generate as is possible. We have designed and implemented such a system for creating models in a computer that can be shared with other designers in the course of an ongoing design, made persistent for future recall, classified and categorized so as to facilitate both the study of how design is done in a given organization and the study of design in general.

: This study addresses the following questions: (1) can organizations learn how to manage infrequent and heterogeneous tasks ? (2) If they can, then what are the mechanisms that might explain learning under these circumstances ?, and (3) what are the limitations under which these mechanisms operate ? A model based on explicit knowledge codification and tacit experience accumulation is submitted and tested using data from a sample of 183 acquisitions in the US banking industry. Measures of post-acquisition integration strategies and of preacquisition resource characteristics are included in the model. We find that tacit knowledge accumulation significantly impacts performance when the experiences are highly homogeneous, and that knowledge codification improves acquisition performance in the context of high post-acquisition integration, i.e. when the organizational challenge is particularly complex. Also, the level of integration between the two firms involved in the acquisition positive...

Knowledge about work processes is a prerequisite for performing work. We investigate whether a certain mode of knowledge, knowing-why, affects work performance and whether the knowledge held by different work roles matters for work performance. We operationalize these questions in the specific domain of data production processes and data quality. We analyze responses from three roles within data production processes, data collectors, data custodians, and data consumers, to investigate the effects of different knowledge modes held by different work roles on data quality. We find that work roles and the mode of knowledge do matter. Specifically, data collectors with why-knowledge about the data production process contribute to producing better quality data. Overall, knowledge of data collectors is more critical than that of data custodians.

We compare buyer-supplier links established by pairs of Japanese-owned automobile assemblers and component manufacturers operating in Japan and in North America during 198%90. Eight assemblers and more than I70 Japanese component manufacturers had established North American manufacturing facilities. In total, Japanese automobile assembly organizations operating in North America had recreated about a quarter of their Japanese supply links. The suppliers that set up North American facilities had recreated almost 60 percent of their links with traditional buyers and formed more than 16 percent of the possible extension links with new assembler partners. We identifi several economic and organizational factors that influence whether an existing buyer-supplier link will be recreated in a new location and whether firms that do not have a buyer-supplier relutionship at home will form an extension link in the new location. We find that the presence of a long-term buyer-supplier relationship, buyer and supplier entry timing to the new location, the joint venture status of the buyer, supplier size, and the breadth of a supplier’s sales base in the home market influence the likelihood that links will be recreated and extension links will be formed. Companies that set up business operations outside their domestic market often form supply links with home-country suppliers that also have established foreign facilities (Vernon, 1971; Grubel, 1977; Terpstra and Yu, 1988). The suppliers frequently make major contributions to the success of an assembler’s international facilities

This paper discusses what knowledge specialty contractors may contribute to the early design of architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) products. In current practice in the United States, specialty contractors are seldom involved in the early design effort, but their early involvement is increasing. The paper reports on research that focused on the processes for designing and building semiconductor facilities. The research consisted of conducting a series of one-to-one interviews with experienced practitioners, ranging from labour managers to lead designers and owner representatives. The aim was to unveil what kinds of knowledge specialty contractor may contribute to early design in order to improve process efficiency and product quality. We catagorize this knowledge and provide examples that stem from current practice or that present opportunities for implementation. We discuss reasons why specialty contractor knowledge may be ignored. Changes taking place in the AEC industr...

doi 10.1287/mnsc.1060.0630

For over twenty years, metrics have been being invented to measure software quality. And yet quantifying quality presupposes agreement on what constitutes quality. Quality has been portrayed as an absolute quantity, subject to objective measurements. We believe this effort has been misguided. We argue that quality, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder -- that is, that quality is not absolute, but depends on the perspective taken by the evaluator. As such, any direct measure of quality must necessarily be subjective, summarizing the impressions of some particular class of people who interact with the product. Indirect measures of quality are less objective than they may appear to be -- beyond the arbitrariness of the choice of measure, and any difficulty in its interpretation, there is always the tenuous link of the metric to the perception of quality by any specific group. The need for this novel point of view is especially clearly illustrated by mathematical software. Keywords ...