People as Sources of Technology
Outside
Experts
tive
a
g
Ne
X X X
ive
t
i
X X
s
Po
Internal
Staff
Literature
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Customer Evaluation of Solutions as a Function of
Idea Source
0.7
0.6
0.7
0.4
0.6
0.3
0.5
0.2
0.4
0.1
0.3
0
0.2
0.1
Internal
0
External
Source of Idea
High
Low
Evaluation o
f Solution
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Proportion
Proportion
0.5
'Boundary Impedance' of the Organization
Outside
Experts
e
ativ
g
e
N
X X X
X X
Internal
Staff
Literature
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Science and Technology
• Science is Universal.
• Technology is Local.
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Technology
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Technology is defined in terms of:
The Business Goals
The Marketing Strategy
and most importantly,
The Culture
of the organization in which it is developed.
Technical problems are thus defined in terms
of that culture and its system of values.
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The Local Nature of Technology
•
•
•
•
•
•
This implies that:
Anyone outside of the organization cannot fully understand the
way that those within the organization define technical
problems without understanding the organization's culture.
This difficulty in understanding the problem is the principal
barrier to technology fransfer.
Barriers of this sort arise any time that we try to transfer
knowledge across organizational boundaries.
It thus holds true for internal communication as well as
communication with other organizations.
It is one of the causes of poor interfunctional relations in
organizations.
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Quality of Transfer
(Fewer ECs)
Performance in Transferring Designs to Manufacturing
as a Function of CAD System Use for Communication
High
p < 0.02
Low
0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1
Mean Communications per Day
(Through CAD System)
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1.2
1.4
Using a Common Reference to Reduce Ambiguity in
Communication
Product
Development
Manufacturing
Engineering
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References
Allen, Thomas J., 1984. Managing the
Flow of Technology: Technology
Transfer and the Dissemination of
Technological Information within the R
and D Organization, MIT Press,
Cambridge, MA.
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