Harvard Business Review on
Knowledge Management
Articles 7-8
Presented for MIS 580
By Harry Xenophontos
Research that Reinvents the
Corporation
•Published in 1991
•By John Seely Brown
•Former Director of Xerox
Research Center, PARC
•Real case study example
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Article Outline
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The Corporation Invention
Technology Gets Out of the Way
Harvesting Local Innovation
Coproducing Innovation
Innovating with the Customer
PARC: Seedbed of the Computer Revolution
How Xerox Redesigned its Copiers
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The Corporation Invention
“The most important invention that will come
out of the corporate research lab in the
future will be the corporation itself ”.
 Understand how people really work
 How technology can help them work more
effectively
 Use research to reinvent the corporation
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The Corporation Invention
 Pioneering Research Principles
 New work practices is as important as new
products
 Learning from innovation
 Can’t just produce innovation
 Ultimate innovation partner is the customer
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Technology Gets Out of the Way
 The technology itself will become invisible
 Example: Photocopier
 “Information Technology is everywhere and
can be customized to match more closely
the work to be done”.
 Disappearance of the copier as a stand alone
device.
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Technology Gets Out of the Way
Remote Interactive Communication (RIC)
 IT’s transformation of the copier
 Complex computing and communication
devices- Sensors that collect information
 Artificial intelligence techniques
 Customer - never see the machine fail
 Xerox - way to listen to the customer
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Harvesting Local Innovation
 IS customization to support work practices
 Nature of innovation, organizational
learning and good product design
 PARC Anthropologists:
 Employees do their work different than they
say they do or trained to do
 Potential to be remarkable innovative
 By capturing the innovation and learn from it
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Harvesting Local Innovation
 Customized user-system program (CUSP)
 Allows users to modify the system themselves
 Buttons - people without a lot of training in
computers can make modifications
 Xerox tech reps learn most out in the field
 Have anyone had a similar experience?
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Coproducing Innovation
 Communicate fresh insights so that others
can grasp their significance - tech transfer
 How the corporation rejects certain ideas
 Uncover features that need to change
 Conceptual envisioning environment
 Envision new products before are actually built
 Share understanding with partners to
coproduce new technologies and practices
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Innovating with the Customer
“research’s ultimate partner in coproduction is
the customer”
 Customers may be unaware of their needs
 Product may not yet exists
 Prototyping a need or use before
prototyping a system
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PARC: Seedbed of the Computer
Revolution
 Basic research in computing and electronics
 How complex organizations use information
 Throughout the 1970s PARC innovations:
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Bit map - display with easy interface
LAN - distributed computing
Overlapping screen windows
Point and click editing
Smalltalk - first object oriented programming language
Laser printing prototype - billion dollar business (1990)
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How Xerox Redesigned Its
Copiers
 In 1980s service calls were increasing
 Unreliable printers
 Xerox’s quality reputation was at stake
 Source of the problem was the copier design
 By adding new functions the copiers
became very complex
 Research video experiment - proposed
alternative design - dramatic results change
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Research That Reinvents the
Corporation
 Xerox letter from J. S. Brown, Corporate
VP to a young researcher
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Essential tools are trust and intuition
Radical approach to research
Improving current technology
A research plotted path is the one you invent
Following your instinct is most important
 A successful company must use research
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Managing Professional Intellect:
Making the most of the Best
 Published in 1996
 By:
 James Brian Quinn
 Philip Anderson
 Sydney Finkelstein
7/12/2016
 Philosophical
Article
 Where we are going
in the future
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Article Outline
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What is Professional Intellect?
Developing Professional Intellect
Leveraging Professional Intellect
Inverting Organizations
Creating Intellectual Webs
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Managing Professional Intellect
Overview
“A corporation’s success today lies more in its
intellectual and systems capabilities than its
physical assets”
 Little attention to managing intellect - creates
the most value in the new economy
 Don’t work hard - work smart
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What is Professional Intellect?
 The professional intellect of an organization
operates in four levels:
 Cognitive knowledge - know what
 Advanced skills - know how
 Systems understanding - know why
 Self motivated creativity - care why
(This order represents increasing importance)
 A professional’s activity is directed at perfection,
not creativity
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Developing Professional Intellect
Best practices for managing intellect
1. Recruit the best
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Microsoft interviews 100s for each one it hires; Four Seasons 50 for 1
Most qualified professionals want to work with the
best in their fields
2. Force intensive early development
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The learning curve depends heavily on interactions
with customers
Ensure growth through complexity, mentoring,
rewards for performance and strong incentives
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Developing Professional Intellect
Best practices for managing intellect
3. Constantly increase professional challenges
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Leaders - demanding, visionary, intolerant
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Set almost impossible “stretch goals”
Push workers beyond book knowledge, simulation
models, controlled laboratories
4. Evaluate and weed
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Professionals - evaluated, compete, knoe they have
excelled against their peers
Andersen Consulting - only 10% moves to partnership
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Leveraging Professional Intellect
 For years, could create leverage by
 More intensive training and work schedule
 Increasing the number of associates
 Changing the traditional economics of managing
professional intellect
 New software tools, incentive systems and organizational
designs for much higher levels
 Overcome professionals’ reluctance sharing information
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Inverting Organizations
 Successful reorganizations
 abandon hierarchical structures
 Breaking away from traditional thinking
 NovaCare organizes around the work of its
therapists - CEO refers to them as ‘bosses’
 Supporting Organizations
 The center provides support services
 Enough expertise to be self-sufficient
 Act independently to meet specific customer needs
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Inverting Organizations
Individual Professionals
Person 1
Person 1 Person 1 Person 1 Person 1
Person 1 Person 1 Person 1 Person 1
Support Staff
Person 1 Person 1
Person 1
Person 1 Person 1
Person 1
CEO
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Creating Intellectual Webs
 Spider’s Webs
 Forms to accomplish a particular project and
disbands when the project is completed
 Appropriate when knowledge is dispersed
among many specialists
 As opposed to HealthCare, tech troubleshooting
units and universities that we saw earlier, many
consulting firms, investment banks, research
consortia and medical teams use this approach.
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Spider’s Web
Specialists
Client-relationship
managers
Person 1
Person 1
Person 1
Person 1
Person 1
Person 1
Person 1
Person 1
Person 1
Person 1
Person 1
Person 1
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Managing Professional Intellect
Summary
“Managing human intellect-and converting it
into useful products and services-is fast
becoming the critical executive skill of the
age”
 Professional intellect creates most of the value
in the new economy, in service and
manufacturing industries alike
 Interest in intellectual capital, creativity,
innovation, and learning organizations
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External Sources
 IT Doesn’t Matter, by Nicholas G. Carr,
Harvard Business Review
 IT will become a commodity
 IT investment and strategy will change
dramatically
 Technology will get out of the way
 The technology itself will become invisible
 Comparison with railroads and power
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Additional Resources
 IT Does Not Matter…Or, Does it?
Has IT moved from a strategic to a purely tactical
function?
By Deepak Sarup, FCA, CISA
Information Systems Audit and Control Association,
www.isaca.org
 “Companies need to keep evolving and changing
to harness the power of advances in IT”
 It is not technology but the use of information that
provides the competitive edge
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Personal Opinion and Comments
 IT will need to be used to research and create
innovation, but business processes and knowledge
workers’ management approach will make more
importance.
 So, part of IT does matter, part of IT does not.
 Customers will drive organizations according to
their needs, and they might get tired using
technology, or even worse depend on technology
for most part of their life.
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Thank You
“Knowledge is Power: So Don’t Forget to Recharge.
HBSP - The Power of Ideas at Work”
7/12/2016
 Comments
 Discussion
 Opinions
 Questions
 Critiques
 Answers
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