Susan Mohrman explains that the organizational sciences have an unprecedented opportunity to generate information that is useful to organizations and can make a difference in how organizations evolve and in the quality of life of people.
Research and Insights Archive
Research and Insights from the Center for Effective Organizations
Available Content
Designing the Innovating Organization
Innovation is one of those curious phenomena which is universally desirable. Jay R. Galbraith argues that when it comes to creating it inside of existing organizations, innovation is one of the most difficult things to produce let alone to master.
The Impact of Team Level Strategic Context on Team Process Innovation
In this study, Mary E. Zellmer-Bruhn and Cristina B. Gibson apply the concept of strategic context (Prahalad & Doz, 1987; Schulz & Jobe, 1997) to the team level and examine how team strategic context relates to team process innovativeness.
The Search for Flexibility: Skills and Workplace Innovation in the German Pump Industry
David Finegold and Karin Wagner find that the existence of a highly skilled workforce may deter the adoption of multifunctional work teams, but that countervailing strengths of the German skill-creation system can potentially help firms develop a new, distinctive German production model.
Learning and Knowledge Management in Team-Based New Product Development Organizations
S. Mohrman, R. Tenkasi, and A. Mohrman, Jr. discuss how configuring organizations into cross-functional new product development teams introduces new knowledge management and learning challenges.
Reward Innovations in Fortune 1000 Companies
This paper by G. Ledford, Jr., E. Lawler III, and S. Mohrman summarizes data on reward innovations from a unique sample of large U.S. firms, based on survey data collected in 1987, 1990, and 1993.
Global Change As Contextual Collaborative Knowledge Creation
R. V. Tenkasi and S. Mohrman argue that the traditional models of international technology transfer may be inadequate to represent the complexities involved in effective global change since they rely on an ‘objectivist’ conception of knowledge, that views knowledge as an objective commodity to be transmitted from source to receiver.
Systems are Not Solutions: Issues in Creating Information Systems that Account for the Human Organization
Edward E. Lawler III, Philip H. Mirvis
1981 (republished 1994)
The Socio-Cognitive Dynamics of Knowledge Creation in Scientific Knowledge Environments
Ramkrishnan V. Tenkasi argues that despite increasing emphasis on knowledge work and knowledge workers, the dynamics of knowledge creation in a knowledge intensive domain such as Research and Development is an elusive topic.
Realizing a Corporate Philosophy
This paper by G. Ledford, Jr., J. Wendenhof, and J. Strahley examines the case of Eaton Corporation, which has developed an innovative process to turn its ideas into day-to-day reality.
Processes of Global Organization: Learning from the Eradication of Smallpox
Tojo J. Thachankary, Ramkrishnan V. Tenkasi, and David L. Cooperrider analyze the global eradication of smallpox, the first and the only completely successful global effort in disease eradication.
Raising Awareness of Interpretive Processes in Knowledge Work
Ramkrishnan V. Tenkasi, Richard J. Boland, Jr., and Ronald E. Purser argue that in contrast to routine work systems such as traditional manufacturing where work is defined, repetitive, and embedded in clear, shared goals, knowledge work or non-routine work as in new product development is an inherently complex, uncertain and ambiguous process.