Managing the Innovation Process Introduction and Overview

Work Groups and Knowledge Sharing in a Global Organization Work Groups and Knowledge Sharing Service Improvement – Gathered data from marketing employees in another division – Held customer meeting to discuss ways to improve infrastructure 10 members (2 cities in China) Project Mgt, Quality, Engineering •Wireless Network Upgrade Work Groups and Knowledge Sharing Product Development – Modified chip design borrowed from another organizational group – Presented a technical paper on the results at company conference 9 members (US, Israel, Singapore) CAD, Applications, Engineering •Digital Signal Processing Device Why create these work groups? • Projects – require knowledge, skills, and abilities of members who are geographically dispersed and/or have functional expertise (DeSanctis & Monge, 1999; Jarvenpaa & Leidner, 1999; Maznevski & Chudoba, 2000) – Geographic dispersion: work force spread across manufacturing facilities, R&D labs, design centers, field offices, and headquarters – Cross-functionality: tasks demand specialized personnel for product specifications, service requirements, and customer needs Costs of geographic dispersion – Difficult to develop common understanding – Trouble coordinating work at a distance The Probability that two people will communicate as a function of the distance separating them (1-100 meters) - Communication drops significantly after 100 feet (Allen, 1977) Costs of cross-functionality – Problems reconciling dissimilar points of view – Challenging to integrate different ideas The technical people The field people The manufacturing people “Thought-worlds” can inhibit product innovation (Dougherty, 1992) The planning people Benefits of social networks – External task communication / knowledge sharing (Tushman & Katz, 1980; Ancona & Caldwell, 1992, Hansen, 1999) – Tap unique, non-redundant sources of knowledge (Burt, 1992; Granovetter, 1973; Lin, 2001) China US a b Quality Engineering Propositions • (1) – the relationship between external knowledge sharing and performance will be stronger when work groups are dispersed • (2) – the relationship between external knowledge sharing and performance will be stronger when work groups are cross-functional Field Study • Research site – Fortune 500 telecommunications company, 100,000+ employees, global operations • Data sources – 20 group interviews, 182 group leader surveys, 957 group member surveys (73% response rate), and performance ratings • Project types – product development, service improvement, process management, manufacturing operations Work Groups • Geographic dispersion Mean (SD) = 3.42 (1.13) Range (1.00-6.47) • Cross-functionality Mean (SD) = 0.90 (0.47) Range (0.00-1.89) 1 - immediately next to 2 - same hallway 3 - different hallway 4 - different floor 5 - different building 6 - different city/state 7 - different country * Engineering * Manufacturing * Quality * IT * Marketing * HR * Finance Knowledge Sharing Step 1: Face-to-face interviews (20 work groups) – tacit/codified, stand-alone/dependent, examples Step 2: Five categories (1:never – 5:a lot) – (a) general overviews, (b) specific requirements, (c) analytical techniques, (d) progress reports, and (e) project results Step 3: Aggregation – Intragroup: Mean (SD) = 3.90 (.39) – External: Mean (SD) = 2.38 (.58) Performance • 182 work groups rated in competition on dimensions of teamwork, problem selection, appropriateness of method, innovativeness, quality of results, and clarity of presentation Mean (SD) = 1.65 (0.68) 3 2 1 Corporate N=21 Divisional Regional N=77 N=84 Results Work Group Performance (mean) 2.2 1.8 Hypothesis 1 Hypothesis 2 Geographically Dispersed CrossFunctional High High Low Low 1.4 External Knowledge Sharing Low High External Knowledge Sharing Low High Summary • Dispersed, cross-functional work groups are increasingly common in global organizations • There are coordination costs for dispersion and cross-functionality in work groups • However, work groups can benefit when members share knowledge externally