Developing successful organizational strategy and innovation - Organizational Design, Competences, and Technology - Introduction

3 important questions on Developing successful organizational strategy and innovation - Organizational Design, Competences, and Technology - Introduction

Inside an organization, technology exists at three levels:

  1. Individual level; technology is the personal skills, knowledge and competences that individual woman and men possess.
  2. Functional or departmental level; the procedures and techniques that groups work out to perform their work create competences that constitute technology.
  3. Organizational level; the way an organization converts inputs into outputs.
  • Mass production: The organizational technology that uses conveyor belts and a standardized, progressive assembly process to manufacture goods.
  • Craftwork: The technology that involves groups of skilled workers who interact closely to produce custom-designed products.

Three principal approaches to measuring and increasing organizational effectiveness.


  • External resource approach; uses technology to increase its ability to manage and control external stakeholders.

  • Internal systems approach; uses technology to increase the success of its attempts to innovate; to develop new products, services and processes; and to reduce the time needed to bring new products to market.
  • Technical approach; uses technology to improve efficiency and reduce costs while simultaneously enhancing the quality and reliability of its products. Organizations use technology to become more efficient, more innovative, and better able to meet the needs and desires of stakeholders.

Three theories of technology that are attempts to capture the way different departmental and organizational technologies work and affect organizational design

These theories are complementary in that each illuminates some aspects of technology that the others don’t. All three theories are needed to understand the different kinds of technologies.

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