پیش بینی های سازمانی و استراتژیکی از موفقیت پیاده سازی فن آوری تولید: یک مطالعه اکتشافی

In this study, we empirically investigate how organizational and strategic variables are related to success in technology implementation. Organizational culture, operations strategy, and the outcomes associated with manufacturing technology implementation are assessed from data collected from a sample of manufacturing plants across a wide range of industries. We then analyze the relationships between these variables using multiple regression analysis. Our findings indicate that both culture and strategy variables are significantly related to technology implementation, but the relationships are dissimilar for different types of implementation outcomes.

The traditional paradigm of operations management and manufacturing strategy holds that efficiency is possible only through the production of large volumes of standard products, while customization is necessarily penalized with higher costs. Advanced manufacturing technology (AMT) directly contradicts traditional thinking by promising the capability of providing both efficiency and flexibility. In particular, we define AMT as a group of computer-based technologies, including computer-aided design (CAD), robotics, group technology, flexible manufacturing systems, automated materials handling systems, computer numerically controlled machine tools, and bar-coding or other automated identification techniques (Sambasivarao and Deshmukh, 1995, Zairi, 1992 and Zammuto and O'Connor, 1992). Clearly, the most distinguishing feature of AMT is its capability to provide a combination of flexibility and efficiency. While these operational benefits are extremely important, they may generally be seen as a means to the ultimate end of financial benefits, namely improved profitability, market share, and sales growth. This paper therefore explores relationships associated with these competitive outcomes as well. Successful implementation of AMT often requires different types of organizations and/or management practices than are found in more traditional environments. This is because these technologies often directly challenge established norms and strategic options considered in a pre-AMT facility. Because these technologies are quite different from the equipment they may be replacing, the culture of the adopting organization itself may ultimately affect the level of success managers have with the technology. A firm whose organizational culture is characterized by flexibility-orientated values may be more likely to be effective in implementing AMT than one that is not (Zammuto and O'Connor, 1992). Prior research has recognized a link between organizational culture and operations strategy (Bates et al., 1996), so it stands to reason that a firm's operations strategy may also be a factor in implementation success. A firm whose strategy emphasizes operational flexibility might be expected to be more effective in implementing manufacturing technology than a firm emphasizing other competitive priorities. Our paper focuses on how organizational culture and operations strategy relate to operational and competitive outcomes in AMT implementation. The remainder of the paper is organized as follows. The second section examines the literature relating to AMT implementation, organizational culture, operations strategy, and operational and competitive benefits. The next section discusses our methodological approach and sample. We then present our findings and end with a discussion of the contribution of this research to our understanding of AMT implementation and how it may be relevant to practicing managers.

The findings of our analysis present some interesting implications. First, there are certain orientations of organizational culture that are likely to lead to positive results in implementing advanced manufacturing technology, and there are other orientations that are likely to lead to negative results. Contrary to our expectations, for operational outcomes, the cultural dimension that proved to be important was the internal/external orientation, rather than the flexibility/control orientation. Higher levels of internal orientation, whether reflecting flexibility (group culture) or control (hierarchical culture), were negatively related to operational success. A similar conclusion can be drawn for competitive outcomes, namely that an internal orientation is likely to lead to undesired results. However, higher levels of external orientation were positively related to competitive success, which was consistent with our expectations. Because this culture variable reflected two culture types (development and rational culture), these results also suggest that a somewhat balanced cultural orientation encompassing more than one orientation (in this case both control and flexibility) would likely lead to positive competitive outcomes. Operations strategy was particularly interesting, because for one type of outcome (operational success) it played a significant role, while for the other (competitive success) it did not. We can now tie these individual implications and results together into a broader set of recommendations. For both types of implementation outcomes, there seems to be a consistent pattern of what to avoid in an organization—namely, a culture that overemphasizes an inward-looking orientation. Having identified what is likely not to work, we can also identify what to encourage in an organization. Here, there are different recommendations for different types of outcomes. As a manager, one would want both operational and competitive success. Consistent with the findings of Voss (1986), our results imply that technology implementation should be linked to a firm's strategic objectives. For operational success in particular, a strategic emphasis on flexibility appears to be key. For competitive success, an outward-looking culture that incorporates a balance of both control and flexibility seems to be an important organizational characteristic. Values such as growth, change, creativity, and productivity should be encouraged within the organization. The lessons are therefore relatively straightforward—a manager should foster an externally oriented organizational culture and formulate an operations strategy that emphasizes flexibility as a key competitive priority. The importance of organizational culture to manufacturing strategy has been recognized in prior literature (1996), but little empirical research relating organizational culture to other areas of operations management is found in the literature. This study addresses that need in the literature by specifically considering the relationship between organizational culture, operations strategy, and technology implementation effectiveness. The results of this study suggest that both culture and strategy are linked to different types outcomes related to AMT implementation. Given our sample size and level of industry representation, however, we would caution that our findings should be viewed as exploratory. Investigation of these issues for a larger sample size and across a greater range of industries would useful, as would further refinement and validation of our measurement instrument. In addition, a good deal more work still needs to be done to explore these issues in greater detail. For example, one direction for future research might investigate why strategy and culture variables were related differently to different types of implementation outcomes. Another potentially valuable area of inquiry would be an examination of specific managerial actions that may lead to the development of different cultural types. These topics would provide interesting and valuable first steps for future research in this area.