Two references:
Oscar Hauptman and ?? wrote a note on this subject at the Harvard Business
School. I don't know if they ever turned it into an article. Oscar has
also done a lot of extending of Perrow's framework, but I'm afraid I don't
have the citations. Here is his e-mail address: ohauptma@ccs.carleton.ca
I am writing some material on the structure of technological knowledge,
which includes the concept of knowledge maps for an organization.
Currently the most accessible version of this is an article in the latest
Sloan Management Review (Fall 1994), "Measuring and Managing Technological
Knowledge."
Good luck, let me know what you come up with.
Roger Bohn
At 2:23 AM 1/2/95, Steen Martiny wrote:
>Dear Rick,
>Sorry for being too brief, here is an expanded description.
>
>We are researching models which shall be useful to pinpoint
>the fundamental charecteristics of the technology relevant to an
>organization. We believe that such understanding is of importance in
>creative learning of the organizations position.
>
>To cover background literature I would appreciate pointers to what you
>all might think of relevant to such a study.
>
>The goal for me is to identify how to characterize "the technology of a
>corporation". Should you hear long tech speeches from the engineers
>(which would be full of details and difficult to oversee) or should you ask
>the customers for what they see as the technology of the products (which
>presumably would leave out a lot of silent knowledge known to "everybody")
>or should you go to an academic institute in the relevant area to learn the
>trends of the industry (which would fill you with a lot of warm air of no
>immidiate relevance) ? The final total would be lots of details, lack of
>comprehensiveness and lack of overview.
>
>Well, management science has touched the area. Joan Woodward of the Tavistock
>school told us that unit - mass - continuous production was a fundamental
>thing to look for. Charles Perrow classifies tech by the independent variables
>"task variability" and "problem analyzability". Perrow's 2 variables lead to
>a 4-field matrix of tech types. Mintzberg combined these and others (like
>Thompson) into the variables "regulating" and "sophistication". However,
>to me all these are quite course ways of characterizing technologies. I do
>not think this makes enough sense in practical situations.
>
>I have been quite attracted to Zeleny's way of looking on technology. Found
>in Human Systems Management Vol 6 109-120 (1986) and reprinted in Noori &
>Radford's "Readings and Cases in the Mngt of Technology", Prentice-Hall (1990).
>He uses the following four components of technology: Hardware, software,
>brainware and (external, societal) support net embedding.
>
>There might be many other ways of separating the term technology into its
>components. I am looking high and low in the literature, which is vast on
>technology management, R&D and all kinds of stuff, but generally thin on
>how to describe the technology involved.
>
>Therefore I am asking for any hints from what all you people might of in the
>search for modelling technology as such.
>
>Happy new year
>Steen M.
>--
>Steen Martiny | | Innovia
>martiny@innovia.ping.dk | | Hjortholmsvej 16 A
>FAX (+45) 42 85 43 67 | | DK-2830 Virum (Denmark)
>
>
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*Roger Bohn Rbohn@UCSD.edu *
*Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies *
*University of California, San Diego 92093-0519 *
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