• DocumentCode
    875701
  • Title

    Innovation from differentiation: pollution control departments and innovation in the printed circuit industry

  • Author

    King, Andrew

  • Author_Institution
    Dept. of Manage. & Operations Manage., New York Univ., NY, USA
  • Volume
    42
  • Issue
    3
  • fYear
    1995
  • fDate
    8/1/1995 12:00:00 AM
  • Firstpage
    270
  • Lastpage
    277
  • Abstract
    Theory predicts that managers will create specialized boundary-spanning departments to insulate a firm from changing surrounding conditions. Theory also predicts such insulating structures will inhibit adaptation. The author has found that in response to changing water-pollution regulation, top managers indeed created specialized pollution-control departments to insulate the existing process, but some of these departments acted not as insulators but as conduits for information and thereby helped both to improve the efficiency of the production process and to reduce pollution. The special role of these departments allowed unique access to and perspective on information from inside and outside the organization and gave them an incentive to use this information to improve core processes. Thus, this research suggests that pollution-control departments may belong to a class of boundary spanners that represent a special case for organizational design
  • Keywords
    electronics industry; printed circuit manufacture; research and development management; technology transfer; water pollution control; boundary-spanning departments; information transfer; innovation; managers; organization; pollution control; printed circuit industry; production process; water-pollution regulation; Environmentally friendly manufacturing techniques; Industrial control; Innovation management; Insulation; Pollution control; Printed circuits; Production; Protection; Regulators; Technological innovation;
  • fLanguage
    English
  • Journal_Title
    Engineering Management, IEEE Transactions on
  • Publisher
    ieee
  • ISSN
    0018-9391
  • Type

    jour

  • DOI
    10.1109/17.403745
  • Filename
    403745