This paper reports on a comparative case study of 13 industrial firms that had implemented an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system. Firms were compared based on their dialectical learning process. All firms had to overcome knowledge barriers of two types: those associated with the configuration of the ERP package, and those associated with the assimilation of new work processes. We examined the mechanisms through which firms attempted to overcome each type of knowledge barrier. We also observed different ERP implementation approaches: piecemeal and concerted. In the former approach, firms concentrated on the technology first and on process changes second. In the latter approach, both the technology and the process changes were tackled together. The learning challenges associated with each of these approaches were found to be different. Keywords: Enterprise Resource Planning, Process Theory, IT implementation, Dialectics of Change, Organizational Learning. ii 3 1. INTRODUCTION ...

This paper seeks to uncover dominant configurations of inter-organizational relationships across the USA and Japan in the automotive industry. We integrate relevant theoretical concepts from transaction cost economics, organization theory and political economy to develop a conceptual model of inter-organizational relationships based on the fit between information processing needs and information processing capabilities. This model is employed to collect data on 447 buyer-supplier relationships in these two countries. We empirically uncover a set of five naturally occurring patterns of inter-organizational relationships. These configurations provide rich explanations of the complexity of interorganizational relationships as well as offer differential insights across US and Japan. We discuss implications for further research pertaining to the logic and development of configurations.

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Effective organizational beaming requires high absorptive capacity, which has two major elements: prior knowledge base and intensity of effort. Hyundai Motor Company, the most dynamic automobile producer in developing countries, pursued a strategy of independence in developing absorptive capacity. In its process of advancing from one phase to the next through the preparation for and acquisition, assimilation, and improvement of foreign technologies, Hyundai acquired migratory knowledge to expand its prior knowledge base and proactively constructed crises as a strategic means of intensifying its beaming effort. Unlike externally evoked crises, proactively constructed internal crises present a clew performance gap, shift beaming orientation from imitation to innovation, and increase the intensity of effort in organizational learning. Such crisis construction is an evocative and galvanizing device in the personal repertoires of proactive top managers. A similar process of opportunistic learning is also

This Thesis is concerned with Technology Transfer -- in particular, with the industrialisation of formal specification techniques within the Information Systems domain in conjunction with: a socio-organisational philosopy an Object-Oriented modelling paradigm a potentially multi-organisational context a long-term perspective. In this Thesis, I: initially synthesise and develop and then provisionally validate a theory of information systems acquisition which draws on established theory within the domains of: -- Information Systems

As software becomes more crucial to organisational success, there is a tendency to turn towards third-party software houses for cheaper, faster and more effective solutions. This paper discusses the problems encountered by small suppliers, offering innovative software solutions to industry. It suggests that there is a common pattern to the development of such suppliers; and proposes a model of their evolution and development. This model, in turn, identifies a fairly consistent set of issues which should be addressed by organisations purchasing such innovative, strategic software products. The paper provides an appropriate criterion for judging the likely success of products purchased from such a software house, additional to the standard criteria of product quality and suitability.

julkisesti tarkastettavaksi yliopiston vanhassa juhlasalissa (S212)

We would like to thank Jan Rivkin for helpful discussions. Financial support by Harvard Business School and the Reginald H. Jones Center for Management Strategy, Policy and Organization is gratefully acknowledged. Contextuality within Activity Systems Abstract: To further our understanding of creating and sustaining firm competitive advantage, we need to recognize two types of contextuality within firms ’ activity systems. First, the benefit of activity configurations can be contextual—while some activity configurations are generically beneficial, others gain their value only as part of particular strategies. Second, interactions among activities can be contextual. While some interactions between activities are an inherent property of the activities themselves, other interactions are determined contextually by other activity choices made by a firm. We argue that competitive advantage is likely to be more sustainable if it is based on activities that are strategy-specific and that have contextual interactions with other activities.

Corporate Learning Strategies: Politics, the new order and teachers work. The paper is part of a work-in-progress thesis that examines teaching and learning within innovation-intensive corporations. The focus of the broader thesis is the power and politics that influences teachers work within transforming corporate environments. It is a qualitative analysis as conversations with executive managers, HR staff, learning practitioners and consultants to five corporations in semi-structured conversations about teaching and learning for their firms. Initial data presents an image of corporate learning strategies struggling for areas of cohesion and interconnectedness. In its broadest sense, the thesis investigates some of the overt truths and hidden realities within contemporary workplace learning. What are key issues that impact corporate learning and why do they present? Castells (1996) suggests that the economy of today is founded much more on innovation rather than production. Sophistication in computers and communications rewards ongoing ‘artistry ’ and innovation over learned, fixed skill sets. The human innovator and its product, knowledge growth are the ‘new ’ and valuable dynamics for our civilization.

It still disturbs us. The thought that human behavior can be explained in the same terms as systems of flora and fauna—i.e., in the language of ecology still provokes incredulity and irritation. The organizational ecologist is liable to be labeled reductionist, a victim of physics envy—or at least biology envy--and presumed to be incapable of, or uninterested in, understanding the more subtle complexities of human behavior and culture. Human organization, we are told, is obviously different. A review of recent thinking in intraorganizational ecology, however, reveals such complaints as at once overestimating the rigidity and determinism of ecological theories and underestimating the degree to which the central concepts of ecology (i.e., survival of the fittest and mechanisms of variation, selection, and retention) offer a plausible and useful way to interpret the internal workings of human organizations. Rather than reducing our understanding to mechanistic laws of blind chance and Panglossian optimization, they simply suggest for our attention some important constructs (particularly organizational routines) and provide testable ideas for how these may behave (through birth, competition, complementarity, adaptation, and death). To our minds, the language of ecology is not a substitute for or retreat from the language of psychology, sociology, and the other disciplines of organization theory, but rather a companion, a platform on which organizational theorists can attempt