No title

122 CREATIVITY AND INNOVATION MANAGEMENT The Dynamic Marketing± Entrepreneurship Interface: A Creative Management Appr...

Author: Tudor Rickards (Editor)

3 downloads 350 Views 3MB Size Report

This content was uploaded by our users and we assume good faith they have the permission to share this book. If you own the copyright to this book and it is wrongfully on our website, we offer a simple DMCA procedure to remove your content from our site. Start by pressing the button below!
Report copyright / DMCA form

DOWNLOAD PDF

122

CREATIVITY AND INNOVATION MANAGEMENT

The Dynamic Marketing± Entrepreneurship Interface: A Creative Management Approach Harry NystroÈm In recent years increasing attention has been paid to the marketing ± entrepreneurship interface in the management literature. This work is valuable in pointing out the need for a multidisciplinary perspective and a more holistic approach to research in the area. The present article argues that there is a need to further extend the paradigm and study the interface in a more dynamic context, than that which is provided by traditional economic approaches to marketing and entrepreneurship. This is done by using a creative management approach, which ties together economic, organizational and psychological mechanisms, to try to understand the dynamic marketing and entrepreneurship interface in a strategic management perspective. The creative management approach should be viewed as a metamodel which includes the economic model as a way of describing the outcome of the dynamic process.

Introduction

T

o understand the dynamic marketing± entrepreneurship interface we need to start with the creative process as it is described and studied in the psychological literature on individual creativity (Runco and Albert, 1990; Glover, Ronning and Reynolds, 1989; Ford and Gioia, 1995). This process goes from vague, yet constructive, subjective images of desired future states to precisely formulated results, which may be objectively verified in relation to socially accepted criteria. The early, more holistic stages are mainly characterized by divergent thought processes, while the later more reductionistic stages are based on more convergent thinking. If successful the images are transformed into innovations, that is material or immaterial products which by some accepted criteria (e.g. social or economic) are judged as superior to existing products. Thought mechanisms or group dynamics (e.g. brainstorming) which are constructive during the earlier stages may well be destructive during the later stages, and mechanisms which are useful during the later stages (such as mathematical or verbal formalization) may be misleading during the earlier stages.

Images into innovations

Volume 7

Number 3

September 1998

At the same time both the earlier, more open, and the later, more closed, stages are necessary for the process as a whole to function, which makes managing the creative process very difficult and also probably explains why only the later stages usually are dealt with in economic approaches to management. This is further complicated by the fact that some individuals are better at handling the earlier stages and others the later stages, which makes it extremely difficult for both individuals and organizations to successfully switch from more open ways of thinking and acting to more closed ways. If we want to understand the dynamic marketing ± entrepreneurship interface, however, we need to consider the whole creative process and not only the later stages ± what we may call the static interface ± which most approaches to marketing and entrepreneurship emphasize (e.g. Kirzner, 1973) or the earlier stages which Schumpeter so brilliantly described in his pioneering work (Schumpeter, 1934).

From economic management to creative management The economic management approach is based on a number of assumptions: # Blackwell Publishers Ltd 1998. 108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF and 350 Main St, Malden, MA 02148, USA.

THE DYNAMIC MARKETING±ENTREPRENEURSHIP INTERFACE

. . . . . . . . .

Continuous change Objective knowledge Predictability Independent organizations Given product categories and markets Given technology Capital driven development Single value optimization Reducibility

Together these assumptions provide a relatively static view of how companies operate, emphasizing short term efficiency more than long term innovative development. This means that economic management approaches are mainly applicable to and useful in understanding the later stages of product and company marketing and development, what we may call the static marketing± entrepreneurial interface. The economic management approach reflects a modernistic view of the world (Habermas, 1985), which for a long time has dominated thinking and management theories in the US and Western Europe. It is characterized by formal order, clarity, determinacy, homogeneity, differentiation, information and systematic, analytical problemsolving, based on acquiring objective information. In the well-defined and structured situations for which this model has been developed it is highly useful and most economic and statistical calculations and a lot of dayto-day decisionmaking in companies are based on these assumptions. From a creativity point of view, it focuses on cognitive closure and the later analytical stages of the creative process, and views the earlier more open and intuitive cognitive processes during the earlier stages as mysterious and outside the realm of scientific discourse. If we take creativity to mean discovery processes, only Schumpeter addresses it. For others it is an economic externality.

The Creative Management Approach The creative management approach, on the other hand, may be viewed as extending the economic approach to consider both: . . . . . . . . . .

Continuous and radical change Objective knowledge and intuition Predictability and experimentation Independent organizations and networks Market, product and technological change Product and company development Capital and knowledge driven development Single and multiple solutions Contingency and determinacy Reducibility and holism

# Blackwell Publishers Ltd 1998

123

The economic approach is mainly applicable to and useful in studying the late stages of the creative process, and subsequently the late stages of product and company marketing and entrepreneurship (the static marketing± entrepreneurship interface). The creative management approach, on the other hand, deals with and is useful for studying all the stages and the total product and company development process (the dynamic marketing±entrepreneurship interface). While the economic approach and the late stages of the creative process may be seen as reflecting a relatively closed, modernistic world-view, the early stages may be seen as reflecting a more open, postmodern view (Lasch, 1990; Boje, Gephart, Jr. and Thatchenkery, 1996). The openness of social systems is a key differentiation of creative and social science approaches. Such a view may be seen as characterized by indeterminacy, ambiguity, disorder, informality, heterogeneity, differentiation, images, intuition and an edifying, rather than systematic discourse. These terms, as we have noted above, are mainly useful to understand the early stages of the creative process. Since the creative process and the dynamic marketing±entrepreneurship interface include both the early and the late stages we need, however, both the modernistic and the postmodernistic world-views for a wholistic understanding of the processes involved. Not only the modernistic view, as is implied by economic theory, or the post modern, constructionist, view, advocated by some social scientists as a better explanation of the world today.

Creativity, marketing and entrepreneurship ± some basic definitions To continue the discussion of the static and dynamic marketing interfaces, it is now necessary to provide some basic definitions to clarify the distinction. These terms are creativity, marketing and entrepreneurship. Each may be defined in a more static sense, to reflect the late stages of the creative process and the static marketing±entrepreneurship interface, and in a more dynamic sense, to reflect the early stages and the dynamic interface. In the static sense, then, we may define creativity as convergent thinking and refining and using existing knowledge to solve welldefined and structured problems. Creativity and analysis then become largely synonymous terms and collecting, formalizing and evaluating information provide the main basis for decision-making. This is the sense in which creativity is considered in economic

Static and dynamic interfaces

Volume 7 Number 3

September 1998

124


theory and in other modernistic approaches to decisionmaking, for instance in statistics and it is also the way in which we may use the term creativity to discuss the static marketing±entrepreneurship interface. Similarly, we may define marketing in the static sense as product marketing and use the term to refer to how established products are promoted and distributed to customers. Again this is the sense in which the term is used in traditional economic and marketing theory. Market analysis and marketing intelligence then become major aids in decisionmaking on the product level and marketing may be dealt with as a separate function in the firm, without explicitly considering the interaction between marketing and other variables. Entrepreneurship, finally, may be defined in a static way, as the efficient planning and organizing of given resources. With this definition, which again is consistent with the assumptions in the economic management approach, entrepreneurship may be seen as largely a question of how companies may search for an use information as a basis for planning and budgeting their ongoing operations. In a static perspective we may therefore view marketing and entrepreneurship (Carson and Coviello, 1996; Day, 1996) as different functions, which can be handled separately without considering the interaction between the two over time. This, then, is consistent with the reductionistic way in which different functions are dealt with in economic approaches to management, where traditionally no distinction is made between products and companies. And even today these functions are usually separated and dealt with in different management disciplines. Marketing, for instance, is still mainly viewed as product management and marketing and entrepreneurship as company management and marketing. If we are interested in the dynamic interface, however, the interaction between company development and product development is of major importance and we can no longer analyse them in isolation. The marketing of certain products may for instance influence the overall image of the company (NystroÈm, 1996) and thereby effect the marketing of other products as well. Or by developing the overall resources, competences and technologies in a company (NystroÈm, 1990; Hamel and Heene, 1994) a company may lay the foundations for new, as yet unanticipated, products, while specific product development may strengthen overall company development and thereby generate new unrelated pro-

Volume 7

Number 3

September 1998

ducts. To understand this type of creative interaction we need to define creativity, marketing and entrepreneurship in more dynamic terms, which essentially means considering both the early and late stages of the creative process and the way in which these terms may holistically contribute to our understanding of the total process. The static view obscures and denies the need for creativity and innovation, which is why we need a dynamic framework to understand and promote radical change. In the dynamic sense we will therefore define creativity as the way in which divergent and convergent thinking together may contribute to new knowledge (NystroÈ m, 1979). Since divergent thinking is largely based on visual images and intuition and convergent thinking on formalized analysis and deductive logic this means that we need to go beyond the analytical economic approach and consider also cognitive psychological mechanisms and individual differences in creative ability. Instead of directly influencing the decision making process by collecting and processing information, as in the economic approach, it becomes more a question of creating favorable individual and organizational conditions for creativity. This means, for instance, that organization culture and climate (NystroÈm, 1990) may be the most important factors to consider in the dynamic marketing±entrepreneurship interface. With regard to marketing, a more dynamic definition is that marketing is relationship marketing, the activities that relate a company to its environment. This means that both the product and company level of analysis may be considered, since these activities may either be product specific or refer to the organization as a whole. More specifically marketing may then be seen as the focusing and integration of internal and external opportunities (NystroÈm, 1990). In the static sense marketing then may be viewed as fixed focusing, while in the dynamic sense it may be viewed as flexible focusing. Both more fixed, e.g. product related focusing during the late stages and more flexible, image or company based focusing, during the early stages of the development process may be seen as included in this dynamic definition. As part of our creative management approach it is an integrated economic and psychological definition, which considers both image and product marketing and the role marketing plays in various stages of the creative process. A more dynamic definition of entrepreneurship, finally (NystroÈm, 1993), is that the


THE DYNAMIC MARKETING±ENTREPRENEURSHIP INTERFACE

entrepreneur is both an enactor of new conditions and manager of new knowledge during the early stages of the creative process as well as an efficient planner and organizer of given resources during the later stages. The postmodern activity based view of the entrepreneur is usually stressed in the organizational literature and the modernistic, planning based view in the economic literature, but to achieve a balanced view of the entrepreneur we need to include both these aspects to understand the dynamic marketing± entrepreneurship interface.

References Boje, D.M., Gephart, R.P. and Thatchenkery, T.J. (eds), Postmodern Management and Organization Theory, Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks, Calif. Carson, D. and Coviello, N. (1996) ``The Marketing± Entrepreneurship Interface'' In Vol. 1 Research Symposium on Marketing and Entrepreneurship. 95±103, UIC/AMA, Stockholm. Day, J. (1996) ``Considering the Marketing±Entrepreneurship Interface'' In Vol. 1. Research Symposium on Marketing and Entrepreneurship. 104±113, UIC/AMA, Stockholm. Ford, C.M. and Goia, D.A. (1995) (eds), Creative Action in Organizations, Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks, Calif. Glover, J.A., Ronning, R.R. and Reynolds, C.R. (1989) (eds), Handbook of Creativity, Plenum Press, New York and London.


125

Habermas, J. (1985) The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity, Polity Press, Cambridge, UK. Hamel, G. and Heene, A. (1994) (eds), Competence Based Competition, John Wiley & Sons, Chichester. Kirzner, I.M. (1963) Competition and Entrepreneurship, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago. Lasch, S. (1990) Sociology of Postmodernism, Routledge, London. NystroÈm, H. (1979) Creativity and Innovation, John Wiley & Sons, New York and London. NystroÈm, H. (1990) Technological and Market Innovation-Strategies for Product and Company Development, John Wiley & Sons, London. NystroÈm, H. (1993) ``Creativity and Entrepreneurship''È Creativity and Innovation Management, 2(4), 237±242. NystroÈm, H. (1996) Image Marketing and Entrepreneurship ± The Need for an Integrated Economic and Psychological Approach to Marketing Strategy. In Vol. 2. Research Symposium on Marketing and Entrepreneurship. 104±113, UIC/ AMA, Stockholm. Runco M.A. and Albert, R.S. (1990) (eds) Theories of Creativity, Sage Publications, Newbury Park. Schumpeter, J.A. (1934) The Theory of Economic Development, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA.

Harry NystroÈm is Professor at the Department of Marketing and Organization, Institute of Economics, SLU, Uppsala, Sweden and Visiting Professor at the School of Management, Oslo, Norway.

Volume 7 Number 3

September 1998

126


Leadership Style, Social Climate And Organizational Outcomes: A study of a Swedish University College GoÈran Ekvall and Lars Ryhammar The study raises the question of the dual influence of leadership style on organizational outcomes by way of climate and directly. Research material primarily collected for a study of the creative organizational and individual resources of a state university college in Sweden was utilized and further analysed. A sample of 130 teachers answered questionnaires about the creative climate in their departments, the department head's leadership style and the performance of the department in terms of creativity and productivity. The results indicate that in this organization the behavioural style of the manager affects organizational results only through influencing the social climate. The implications of the results considering the kind of organization studied are discussed.

Introduction

L Leadership is distinct from climate

Volume 7

Number 3

eadership, conceived as a process where one or more persons influence a group of persons to move in a certain direction, can have and often has a strong impact on the social climate in the group, through the way the leadership is executed, i.e. through what used to be called the leadership style. It is almost self-evident and no surprise to common sense that leadership possesses such power, as it is a social process itself and the social climate develops as social processes. Studies of different kinds have verified the role of leadership style for the climate formation; correlational studies (Ekvall and Arvonen 1984, Ekvall, Frankenhaeuser and Parr 1996), case-studies (TedgaÊrd 1987), action-research (Marrow, Bower and Seashore 1967), and studies with experimental design (Litwin and Stringer 1968). Yet it is not productive to include leadership in the climate concept and treat it as a special dimension of the climate alongside of other dimensions. James and Jones (1974) opposed making leadership style a part of the climate concept. They pointed out that ``closeness of supervision'' is a ``leadership process variable'', and that it should be treated as such; nothing is to be gained by bringing it into the climate concept. The crucial argument is that the manager and the type of leadership affect the

September 1998

organizational climate as a whole, in all its varied aspects and dimensions. It is consequently not reasonable to regard leadership style as an ordinary climate dimension along with others such as trust, challenge, risktaking, humour, freedom. Leadership style should for the sake of theoretical stringency be conceived as one of several determinants of the climate, not as a climate element or parameter. The term climate is a metaphor when applied to social settings such as companies, families, associations. It has been imported from meteorology and means weather conditions in a psychological, symbolic sense. In organization research and theory as well as in the management literature the concept `òrganizational climate'' has frequently been used since the 1960s. As applied in the framework of this article and the study described, it is regarded as a molar concept consisting of a conglomerate of attitudes, feelings and behaviours, which characterizes the life in the organization. ``Molar'' means that it is an attribute of the organization, not of its ``molecules'', the single individuals or the specific jobs. Relations between organizational climate and organizational outcomes, in terms of productivity, innovations, and job-satisfaction of employees, have been observed in numerous research projects. Hellriegel and Slocum # Blackwell Publishers Ltd 1998. 108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF and 350 Main St, Malden, MA 02148, USA.

LEADERSHIP STYLE, SOCIAL CLIMATE AND ORGANIZATIONAL OUTCOMES

(1974) stated that several studies clearly indicated the existence of a relation between climate and job-satisfaction. They also claimed to have found many studies demonstrating significant relations between climate and performance. But they also pointed out that these relations are neither as easy to interpret nor as convincing as those referring to job-satisfaction. Since then the research body has steadly grown, indicating the influence of climate on organizational outcomes, not least concerning creative/innovative achievements (Lauer 1995, Ekvall 1996). Most studies are of ex-post-facto-type or correlational, which brings uncertainty as to causality, but some experimental studies are reported, the most often quoted being that by Litwin and Stringer (1968). These researchers constructed three artificial companies for experimental purposes, and created three quite different climates in these by varing the management style. The result was three climates that had very different effects concerning job-satisfaction, innovation and productivity. Studies of the effects of the leadership style on organizational outcomes have a long and miscellaneous history with plenty of contradictory results but also convergencies (Andersen 1994). The relatively low maturity of the body of knowledge has several reasons. One is the variety of operationalizations concerning the leader behaviour dimensions, even when there is agreement on the conceptual level. Another arises from differences between the research projects and programmes concerning types of organizations studied, implying differences in leadership demands. A third reason lies in the effectiveness concept and the wide variation in performance criteria used; degree of goal attainment, profit, productivity, market shares, number of innovations, customer satisfaction and loyalty, quality of products or services delivered. A crucial issue that Andersen (1994) treated is the scope for the influence of leadership style regarding the influence of other structures and forces, internal and external, such as resources, technology, policies, administrative systems, labour market, laws, unions,

127

competitors etc. Andersen found in his study that the scope was rather narrow, which was mirrored in the modest correlations between the leadership style of the managers and the goal-attainment of their units.

Research question A second issue worth attention, considering the relationships between leadership style, organizational climate and outcomes, is a dual influence on outcome that leadership style may exert, as in Figure 1 below. Some parts of a manager's role-behaviour can be assumed to affect all or most members of the staff, directly or indirectly, and thus influence the development of the climate, and through this influence be important for the outcomes of the organization's operations. Some other parts of the manager's behaviour may influence the outcomes directly, without having impact on the climate; e.g. the manager initiating methods or routines that concern only a few members of the staff but still affect the quantity or quality of the unit's production. A question can be raised about the relative importance of these two separate routes of leadership style influence on organizational results. The present article brings up the question, utilizing for further analysis research material collected and reported by Ryhammar (1996).

Influence of leadership style

The organization under study È rebro, The state university college at O Sweden was established in 1977. At the time of the data-collection in 1993 it had five thousand students and 226 full-time teachers. The college is confined to basic academic education and the research resources are small. The organization consists of seven departments, three of which are special teachers schools: Kindergarten, Athletics and Music. The other four are departments for Economy, Social and Behavioural Sciences, Humanistics, and Technology.

Figure 1. A causal model of the influences of leadership style.


Volume 7 Number 3

September 1998

128


A stratified, random sample of 65 per cent of the teacher population was drawn, 149 persons. The stratification was made in regard to department size (number of teachers). In the questionnaire part of the study, which the analyses in this article are based on, 87 per cent of the sample, 130 teachers, participated.

Methods The questionnaire on leadership behaviour style operationalized the CPE-model (Ekvall and Arvonen 1991). The model covers three dimensions: Change/development orientation, Production/task /structure orientation and Employee/relations orientation. Each dimension index is based on ten behaviour descriptive items. The manager's subordinates fill in the questionnaire. The mean score of their ratings constitutes the manager's score in the dimension index. The teachers taking part in the present study rated the leadership style of their department heads. The organizational climate was measured with the Creative Climate Questionnaire (Ekvall 1991; 1996). This questionnaire covers ten climate dimensions: Challenge, Freedom, Ideal-support, Trust/Openness, Dynamism/ Liveliness, Playfulness/Humour, Debates, Conflicts (impediment), Risk-taking and Idea-time. The teachers filled in the questionnaire with respect to their departments. Mean scores of their ratings constitutes the department's climate scores in the dimensions. Two scales from a questionnaire, The Work Environmental Inventory (version 4), developed by Amabile and Gryskiewicz, was applied as measures of organizational outcomes for the different departments (Amabile and Gryskiewicz 1989; Amabile 1991). The one scale includes six items about creativity. The respondent is requested to rate how

creative and innovative the organization is and how the work environment is conductive to creativity of the respondent and to his/her work group. This scale is denominated ``creativity''. The other scale is denominated ``productivity''; the respondent has to rate the organization as to effectiveness, efficiency and productivity on the six items. Even these ratings were made by the teachers and focused on departments.

Statistical analysis A combined measure of leadership style was created by summing each respondent's rating of the three dimension indexes. The leadership score of the department head thus was the mean combined score of all the subordinates' scores. In the same way a combined ``global'', measure of the climate of the department was created, by summing the scores on each of the indexes (with Conflicts inverted). Correlations between leadership style, organizational climate and creativity-productivity (Pearson r) were run in order to establish the straight relations between the three constructs/indexes and have indications of the degree of influences. Partial correlations (rpart) between leadership style and the outcome indexes, with climate constant, were then calculated with the aim of establishing pure relations between leadership style and outcomes. All correlations were computed on the individual respondent level, N being 130. The reason why the department level was not used was the small number of departments.

Results In Figure 2 below the correlation coefficients with creativity as outcome variable are inserted into the causal model.

Figure 2. Correlations (r) betweeen the three indexes and a partial correlation (rpart) between leadership style and creativity with climate constant.

Volume 7

Number 3

September 1998


LEADERSHIP STYLE, SOCIAL CLIMATE AND ORGANIZATIONAL OUTCOMES

The results indicate that leadership style in the studied organization may not exert a separate and direct influence on creative outcomes. The role of leadership here seems to be a substantial contribution to the development of a climate that supports creativity. In Figure 3 below the same information as in Figure 2 is presented but with productivity as the outcome variable. Here we find a significant correlation between leadership style and the outcome index, productivity, but it disappears when the influence of the third variable, climate is removed. As with creativity the results indicate that leadership style may not exert a separate and direct influence on the outcome, in this case productivity, but seems to give a substantial contribution via the climate.

Discussion A Swedish State College is an organization for academic education up to masters level. Education and training is the main assignment. Research activities occur only to a small extent. This has consequences for the outcome measurements in the present study. The ratings of the outcome variables refer mainly to creativity and productivity in education and training, research achievements might have been considered, only marginally. It can however be assumed that the creativity rating is somewhat more mixed than the productivity one. The fact that the internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha) was lower for the creativity index than for the productivity index (.80 against .88) is probably a reflection of the broader spectrum of events influencing the creatvity rating. It might also be a reasonable assumption that the creativity index has a lower construct validity than the productivity index. The differences found in the correlations stronger with productivity than creativity might, to some extent at least, be

129

explained by weaker reliability and validity of the creativity index. The interpretation of the partial correlations between leadership style and outcome variables, with climate constant, is critical for the conclusions drawn. Statistically the coefficients found indicate that the straight correlations between leadership style and outcome variables are artefacts, products of their correlations with a third variable, i.e. climate. To bring the analysis further and take steps from the pure statistical towards the leadership reality presents several hypothetical meanings to the partial correlations: a. In case of no climate variation, no correlation between leadership style and outcomes. b. If climate did not matter, no correlation either. c. If the social phenomenon called climate did not exist, no correlation of leadership style to outcome variables. A further step, into the causal model, would mean that the leadership style affects organizational results only through influencing the social climate; climate as the lever of leadership style. The organizational environment of a university college with its academic values of freedom tends to make the formal leadership less influential than in more hierarchial and strictly managed organizations. The data from the actual college showed that values of structure and planning were less salient than in other kinds of organizations and the freedom was rated higher and with small variation between the raters (Ryhammar 1996). The results of the analysis presented in this article do not therefore constitute a solid base for generalization to other types of organizations. A hypothesis, might however be justified, saying that the manager's role as climate builder becomes more important, the more professional and independent the staff is. And an observation, not to degrade the role of leadership because of low correlations to organizational performance criteria, over-

The importance of the manager's role

Figure 3. Correlations (r) between the three indices and a partial correlation (rpart) between leadership style and productivity with climate constant. # Blackwell Publishers Ltd 1998

Volume 7 Number 3

September 1998

130


looking its impact on climate, could also be of relevance.

References Amabile, T. (1991). Work Environment Inventory, version 4. Brandeis: Center for Creative Leadership, Brandeis University. Amabile, T. and Gryskiewicz, N.D. (1989). The Creative Environment Scales: Work Environment Inventory. Creativity Research Journal, 2, 231±253. Andersen, J.A. (1994). Ledelse og Effektivitet (Leadership and Effectiveness). Lund: Lund University Press. Ekvall, G. (1991). The organizational culture of idea-management: a creative climate for the management of ideas. In Henry, J. and Walker, D. (eds.) Managing Innovation. SAGE. Ekvall, G. (1996). Organizational Climate for Creativity and Innovation. European Journal Of Work And Organizational Psychology, 5(1), 105±123. Ekvall, G. and Arvonen, J. (1984). Leadership Styles And Organizational Climate For Creativity. The Swedish Council for Management and Work Life Issues. Ekvall, G. and Arvonen, J. (1991). Change-Centered Leadership: An Extention of The Two-Dimensional Model. Scandinavian Journal of Management, Vol 3, No 3. Ekvall, G., Frankenhaeuser, M. and Parr, D. (1996). FoÈraÈndringsin-riktad ledarstil, stress och kreativt organisationsklimat. In Ekvall, G. (ed.) NavigatoÈr och InspiratoÈr. Lund: Studentlitteratur.

Volume 7

Number 3

September 1998

Hellriegel, O. and Slocum, J.W. Jr. (1974). Organizational Climate: Measures, Research and Contingencies. Academy of Management Journal, 17, 255-280. James, L.R. and Jones, A.D. (1974). Organizational Climate: A review of theory and research. Psychological Bulletin, 81, 1096-1112. Lauer, K.J. (1984). The Assessment of Creative Climate: An Investigation of the Ekvall Creative Climate Questionnaire. State University of New York College at Buffalo Center for Studies in Creativity. Litwin, G. and Stringer, R. (1968). Motivation and Organizational Climate. Boston: Harvard University Press. Marrow, A., Bowers, D. and Seashore, S. (1967). Management by Participation. New York: Harper & Row. Ryhammar, L. (1996). Kreativ funktion, perceptgenetisk rekonstruktion och organisatoriska foÈrutsaÈttningar foÈr kreativ verksamhet. Lund: Lund University Press. TedgaÊrd, N.E. (1987). Det Nya SAS PaÊ AvdelningsnivaÊ. FAraÊdet (The Swedish Council for Management and Work Life Issues).

GoÈran Ekvall PhD is former Professor of Organizational Psychology at the University of Lund and a Research Fellow at the FA Institute, Stockholm, Sweden. Lars Ryhammar is a Lecturer at the State È rebro, Sweden. University at O


THE CREATIVITY CONTINUUM

131

The Creativity Continuum: Towards a Classification of Creative Problem Solving Techniques Elspeth McFadzean It can be argued that companies may innovate on a more regular basis if groups and individuals can be encouraged to think more creatively. One method of encouraging novel ideas is to undertake creative problem solving (CPS). There are a number of different techniques that can enhance creative thinking. Some of these techniques require less imagination and produce less novel results than others. Individuals and group facilitators must choose which creative problem solving technique(s) to use for their specific situation. Some techniques, for example, may leave an inexperienced group feeling uncomfortable (e.g. if they are asked to draw pictures or develop fantasies) although they are often more effective than the more analytical methods. It may be helpful, therefore, to classify creative problem solving techniques so that individuals can easily choose an appropriate technique for their specific situation. This paper offers such a classification, which categorises the creative problem solving techniques into paradigm preserving, paradigm stretching and paradigm breaking. Some implications and future research are also presented.

``Dreams, not desperation, move organizations to the highest levels of performance.'' Robert Waterman

Introduction

C

arr (1994) and Couger (1995) both suggest that organisations must be innovative in today's environment in order to gain a competitive advantage. Innovation is defined by Couger (1995, p. 35) as ``the process by which new ideas are put into practice''. This involves, in the first instance, the generation of novel ideas, then developing these ideas into a workable product, process or service. Sometimes this process may take years. For example, the Swiss chemist George Andeman discovered cellulosic material but it was almost half a century later when it was developed into a workable product by Comte Hilaire de Chardonnet who produced artificial silk under the name of Rayon (Hall and Smith, 1987). In order to develop unique and practical processes, products or services, organisations must encourage their employees to produce numerous creative ideas. In other words, they

# Blackwell Publishers Ltd 1998. 108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF and 350 Main St, Malden, MA 02148, USA.

must develop an environment within the organisation that encourages creativity (Carr, 1994). According to Couger (1995, p. 34): ``Management can concentrate on hiring and selection to employ persons with proven creativity. However, it is more important to enable the existing workforce to become more creative.'' One method of encouraging creativity is to bring together teams of people so that participants can spark off new ideas from other group members as suggestions are made (VanGundy, 1992). Top quality ideas have also been shown to occur when groups use a group support system that allows the participants to remain anonymous (Dennis and Valacich, 1993; Jarvenpaa, Rao and Huber, 1988). This is especially the case when larger groups are utilised (Dennis and Valacich, 1993; Gallupe et al, 1992). A third method of encouraging creativity is the use of creative problem solving (CPS) techniques. The most commonly used technique in organisations is that of Brainstorming (Osborn, 1957). This, however, has been shown not to be the most creative. Research has shown that other techniques produce

Volume 7 Number 3

September 1998

132


An alternative framework

more creative and better quality ideas (McFadzean, 1996). Object Stimulation and Guided Fantasy, for example, encourage participants to use unrelated stimuli, which helps them to develop more novel (and useful) ideas (McFadzean, 1996; Garfield, Satzinger, Taylor and Dennis, 1997). Creative problem solving techniques have been classified in a number of ways. For example, VanGundy (1992) classifies them by individual and group techniques and Brightman (1988) uses Simon's (1977) three stage model of problem solving ± intelligence, design and choice ± to classify them. This paper will explore and evaluate these classifications before offering an alternative framework. A realistic and useful framework for classifying CPS techniques is important because it can act as a guide for both facilitators and/or users for choosing the most appropriate creativity tool(s). Moreover, a classification will be useful for researchers who are exploring, comparing and contrasting different creativity techniques. The next section of this paper describes and evaluates the different classifications of creative problem solving techniques that are in the literature. A new classification is then presented in Section 3, showing a continuum ranging from paradigm preserving techniques to paradigm breaking techniques. The penultimate section discusses the implications of this classification and presents directions for future research. Finally a short summary of the paper is presented.

Techniques to facilitate creativity

Classifications by theorists

Volume 7

Number 3

Opportunity finding involves looking at the present and future environments and trying to ascertain potential opportunities and how these can be best implemented. For instance, G. D. Searle and Co., a pharmaceutical company, was undertaking research on a new anti-ulcer drug. Through an unlikely chain of circumstances and accidents, the laboratory staff discovered a new substance that, although would not help in reducing ulcers, was sweet to taste. Even though the company was not in the food business, they eventually developed and marketed the substance as the artificial sweetener NutraSweet (Robinson and Stern, 1997). In addition, existing products may be adapted for new market as was the case for 3M's Post-it note. In fact, the company was searching for new, strong glue. One type of glue that was produced was too weak. This less aggressive glue was adapted for a new market and the Post-it note was born (Nayak and Ketteringham, 1991).

September 1998

New opportunities can also be found by looking at today's problems. Chester Carlson, for example, developed photocopying technology because he recognised the difficulty of copying patent documents in the 1930s. Having produced the process of xerography, Carlson tried to sell his technology to over 20 US manufacturers including IBM, Kodak and General Electric. In 1947, the Haloid Corporation acquired the rights and Carlson went on to earn more than $200 million from his invention (Kennedy, 1991). These ideas have been developed by looking at the problem or opportunity from a different point-of-view. Creativity can therefore occur by looking at the situation from a different perspective. This change of perspective can be encouraged and nurtured and is not necessarily a talent that a person is born with (Couger, 1995). Edwards (1993, p. 3), for example, believes that people can be taught to draw: ``The magical mystery of drawing ability seems to be, in part at least, an ability to make a shift in brain state to a different mode of seeing/perceiving. When you see in the special way in which experienced artists see, then you can draw. This is not to say that the drawings of great artists such as Leonardo da Vinci or Rembrandt are not still wondrous because we may know something about the cerebral process that went into their creation. Indeed, scientific research makes master drawings seem even more remarkable because they seem to cause a viewer to shift to the artist's mode of perceiving. But the basic skill of drawing is also accessible to everyone who can learn to make the shift to the artist's mode and see in the artist's way'' (original author's emphasis). Edwards shows the transformation made by some of her pupils before and after they learnt to perceive as artists. Within a few months there was a huge improvement in their drawing skills (see Edwards, 1993, pp. 11±13). A different way of seeing therefore is an important aspect of the creative process. This process can be encouraged by using creative problem solving techniques. There is a large number of creative problem solving techniques ranging from the wellknown Classical Brainstorming which was developed by Osborn to the more imaginative techniques such as Wishful Thinking. These techniques have been classified by theorists in a number of different ways. For instance, Harvey Brightman (1988) used Simon's (1977) three stage model of the strategic problem solving process to classify the creativity



techniques. VanGundy (1988) also used the problem solving process to classify his techniques. For example, he uses techniques to re-design and analyse the problem, to generate new ideas and to evaluate and choose the most appropriate ideas that will solve the problem. In his book `Ìdea Power'', VanGundy (1992) also classifies creative problem solving techniques according to group and individual use. Neither classification, however, gives a clear, distinctive guideline of where the techniques should be categorised. Classical Brainstorming, for instance, could be used for both problem analysis and idea generation and Object Stimulation could be used both as an individual technique and as a group technique. A more powerful classification has been put forward by Couger (1995). He suggests that creativity techniques can be classified into two groups: analytical and intuitive. Couger (1995, p. 44) defines analyticallyoriented techniques as those that `ùse a structure to generate a logical pattern of thought''. These techniques include ForceField Analysis and Progressive Abstraction. Intuitive techniques, on the other hand, allow the participant to make giant leaps or to observe images or symbols in order to arrive at a solution. Wishful Thinking and Metaphors are two techniques that can be classified under the intuitive category. According to Couger (1995, p. 45): `Ìt is not surprising that technical people are predisposed toward the use of analytical techniques and behaviorally oriented people toward the intuitive techniques. Nevertheless, a wider range of solution possibilities can be derived if both types of techniques are applied.'' Couger suggests, therefore, that people, as individuals, prefer to use only certain types of techniques depending on their personalities. The techniques themselves, however, also produce radically different results. Analytical techniques follow a step-by-step structure, taking a logical path towards its conclusion. The solutions therefore tend to be less imaginative. Intuitive techniques, on the other hand, encourage the participants to burst out of the problem paradigm and look at the situation from a completely new and novel perspective. This generally helps participants to generate ideas that are a lot more creative. Work by Gryskiewicz proposed that the Creative Problem Solving approach adopted could be suggested by the style of creative idea needed (Gryskiewicz, 1988). A framework that classifies the different types of ideas generated by groups or indi-


133

viduals may therefore be useful to help classify creative problem solving techniques. One such framework was developed by Nagasundaram and Bostrom (1993). They suggest that ideas can be categorised into two general groups: paradigm preserving and paradigm modifying. When no new elements are introduced and the relationship between the elements of the problem remains unchanged then the idea is said to be paradigm preserving. Paradigm modification will occur when (1) new elements are introduced into the problem, (2) the relationship between the elements are changed, and (3) when both the relationship between the elements are altered and a new element is introduced. This framework, however, does not classify the techniques themselves, only their solutions. A more effective framework, therefore, would be a classification of both the techniques and the ideas/solutions they would be expected to produce.

A new classification of creative problem solving techniques A new framework for classifying creativity techniques can be developed using three categories, namely paradigm preserving, paradigm stretching and paradigm breaking. These three categories can be defined using Nagasundaram and Bostrom's classification:

A three category framework

1. Paradigm preserving ± where no elements or relationships are introduced. 2. Paradigm stretching ± where either new elements are introduced or new relationships are conceived. In other words, the problem space or paradigm boundary is stretched to enable group members to consider something new. 3. Paradigm breaking ± where both new elements and new relationships are introduced. This occurs when the paradigm's boundary is completely broken by the participants. These three categories describe the potential solutions or ideas that can be gained by utilising the creativity tools within them.

Paradigm preserving techniques The paradigm preserving techniques include the analytically-oriented techniques described by Couger (1995) plus other techniques, such as Brainstorming, that do not necessarily encourage participants to step out of their mindset. Brainstorming was first devised by Alex F. Osborn in the late 1930s in order to stimulate

Volume 7 Number 3

September 1998

134


small groups of individuals to come up with ideas on new product development, new methods of positioning existing products and new uses for old products. Later, however, Brainstorming was being used for different applications in a variety of settings such as education, health, manufacturing, government circles, and so on. There are four principles or rules to Brainstorming (Osborn, 1957). These are as follows: 1. There should be strictly no criticism or analysis during the idea generation phase. A relaxed and judgement-free atmosphere encourages the flow of ideas which would be severely impeded if participants were allowed to convey their judgement on each idea (Majaro, 1988). 2. Free-wheeling must be encouraged by the facilitator. The group members must be allowed to communicate an idea, however mundane, strange or wild, to the rest of the group. An idea that may seem impractical may contain a germ of a great solution. 3. The group's participants are encouraged to think of as many ideas as possible. The more ideas generated, the more likely that some very useful solutions will be developed. 4. Finally, the facilitator must encourage the group to combine and improve their ideas. The participants should build on the previous ideas ± called piggybacking ± and to look for ways of combining two or more ideas to generate a third idea not thought of previously. According to Nagasundaram and Bostrom (1993), Classical Brainstorming does not produce very many ideas that challenge or break away from a prevailing paradigm i.e. this technique produces more paradigm preserving ideas than paradigm breaking ideas. This is because these techniques only use free association. They do not force the participants to use their imagination to develop ideas (although some may do so) but piggyback on the ideas of others thus participants tend to follow a more structured process (see Figure 1). Other paradigm preserving techniques include Brainwriting, Force Field Analysis and Progressive Abstraction.

Paradigm stretching/paradigm breaking techniques Keeney (1993), Solomon (1990) and Evans (1993) suggest that creativity can be enhanced

Volume 7

Number 3

September 1998

Figure 1. Brainstorming by looking at the problem from a variety of perspectives and by breaking old mind patterns and forming new connections and perceptions. De Bono (1992, p. 53) describes creativity as moving ``sideways'' in order to try different concepts and perceptions. Jerry Rhodes and his colleague (Rhodes, 1991; Rhodes and Thame, 1988) suggest a new tool for thinking creatively. This is based around twenty-five mental operations called ``thunks''. The twenty-five thunks are divided into three colours of thinking: blue, green and red. These, in turn, are split into hard and soft. The blue thunks represent a person's attention to influence and form judgements based on reason and values. The hard blue thunks represent a sound approach to judging issues whereas the soft blue help people to strive towards what is ``good''. The red thunks help decision-makers to discover and convey information that is true. The two sides of ``truth'' are represented by the hard and the soft; that is the hard, factual and specific information and the soft, holistic perceptions. Finally, the green represents the discovery of new ideas. According to Rhodes and Thame (1988, p. 17): ``Hard green breaks the boundaries of systems, rules and procedures in order to experiment with possibilities of change. Fertile with wild speculation, hard green is extravagant with its ideas. Out of the abundance of its quick mind it turns and twists, deviates and doubles back. The soft mode of green brings mystery and magic.



Visions, dreams and inspiration are the invited guests of the intuitive soft green. The mind awaits the moment of awakening, in openness and receptivity, having prepared itself through hope, questions, and images of what might be possible.'' Breakthrough Thinking, a concept developed by Nadler and Hibino (1994), also enables decision maker(s) to view problems from a different perspective. They define this type of technique as follows (Nadler and Hibino, 1994, p. vii): ``Breakthrough Thinking is `software for the mind', the new principles and new processes to plan, design, reengineer, improve and find solutions to the problems you confront. It leads you to develop a vision of where you need to be and enables you to get there without ponderous data collection. Breakthrough Thinking extends the creative process to determine the right purposes to be accomplished, generate a large number of imaginative and original options, and develop the systems you need to implement effective solutions. This `fullspectrum creativity' provides structure for the imaginative mind and freedom for the structured mind. With Breakthrough Thinking, you can think smarter, not harder.'' Breakthrough Thinking is unlike traditional problem solving because it focuses on the future, that is the goals and purposes of the organisation or department, rather than what went wrong. This allows the decision-makers to view the problem from a different perspective and encourages the use of more creative problem solving techniques such as Excursion. Here, participants look at colourful photographs or graphic words and try to link the images to the problem (Johnson, 1991). This in turn may spark off a more creative solution. According to Glassman (1989), creativity is enhanced when experience, ideas and diverse elements are mixed together and then transformed using new combinations. This is known as association and is the basis of many creative problem solving techniques. One such technique is known as Object Stimulation. This technique involves the problem solving group developing a list of objects that are unrelated to the problem. The group describes each object and then uses these descriptions to stimulate ideas pertaining to the problem. VanGundy (1992) suggests that the purpose of such stimuli is to present a completely different problem perspective. In fact, Nagasundaram and Bostrom (1993)


135

claim that this type of problem solving technique encourages paradigm stretching or paradigm breaking. This is because paradigm stretching and paradigm breaking techniques may involve the following: . . . .

the presence of unrelated stimuli; the forced association of stimuli; the use of multiple stimuli; the use of a collective memory (i.e. more than one person working on the problem); . not using any idea-filtering rules; . disallowing evaluation; . the presence of an unusual mode of expression e.g. dancing, singing and drawing. According to Nagasundaram and Bostrom (1993), the above issues together will produce more paradigm stretching or paradigm breaking ideas. This is primarily due to the presence of unrelated stimuli, which encourages participants to change their perspective of the problem. For example, in Guided Fantasy, participants are asked to describe a scenario including their feelings, sounds, colours and smells. New ideas are developed from these scenarios and they are then linked back to the problem (see Figure 2). In this fashion, more novel and innovative solutions should be created.

The creativity continuum The above sections show that creativity techniques can be placed into a creativity continuum ranging from paradigm preserving tendencies to paradigm breaking tendencies (see Figure 3). Paradigm preserving techniques, which would include Brainstorming and Brainwriting, would be seen to be ``safe'', that is, they will not embarrass anybody or make them feel uncomfortable. No imagination is required although it would be a bonus if it were used. Therefore, it is not necessarily expressive or revealing. Free association or piggybacking is used to spark off other ideas and thus produce new solutions. Paradigm preserving techniques therefore do not require experienced groups to use them and individuals will be quite happy to participate. In addition, paradigm preserving techniques are much easier to learn, both as a participant and as a facilitator. Training in creative problem solving is always beneficial and using paradigm preserving techniques as a foundation to the course can prove to be invaluable. Paradigm breaking tools, on the other hand, sit at the opposite end of the spectrum (see Figure 3). Only an experienced group should use these techniques or a group that

Association and creative problem solving

Volume 7 Number 3

September 1998

136


Figure 2. Guided fantasy has a great deal of trust in the facilitator. An inexperienced group may feel uncomfortable and unsafe in this environment. Imagination and expression is actively encouraged by the use of fantasies or other unrelated stimuli. Wishful Thinking and Guided Fantasy are examples of techniques that may encourage paradigm breaking. In the middle of the creativity continuum are the techniques that encourage participants to stretch their prevailing paradigm. These are safer and more comfortable to use than the paradigm breakers and may therefore beutilised by more inexperienced groups. Paradigm stretching techniques require less imagination and are certainly less expressive although they still use unrelated stimuli to spark off new ideas. Examples of techniques that may stretch the paradigm include Object Stimulation and Metaphors.

Importance of preparation

Discussion Problem solving and opportunity finding can be undertaken effectively by using certain creative problem solving techniques such as those discussed above. The framework described in the previous section shows a continuum of creative techniques and outputs.

Volume 7

Number 3

September 1998

This has a number of implications for both practitioners and theorists. For example, it is very important that the problem owner chooses an appropriate facilitator to support the problem solving process. The facilitator must be able to pre-plan the session(s) effectively in order to produce an appropriate agenda (McFadzean and Nelson, 1998). In addition, he or she must be skilled at choosing the relevant creative problem solving technique. For instance, different techniques can be used for problem formulation or idea generation. Likewise, certain types of people and/or groups may feel more comfortable using paradigm preserving techniques. The facilitator, therefore, must have a good working knowledge of a variety of creative methods. In addition, he or she must use them appropriately and must be receptive to the group if the participants are feeling uncomfortable using the technique. The facilitator must also be aware of the group's cohesiveness and their experience of using different CPS techniques. A group that is in conflict or lacks cohesion may be more effective utilising paradigm preserving techniques. Moreover, a dysfunctional or aggressive group may benefit from using techniques that allow a certain degree of anonymity such as Brainwriting. The participants are more



137

Figure 3. The creativity continuum likely to air their views and opinions under anonymous circumstances (Connolly, Jessup and Valacich, 1990; Jessup, Connolly and Galegher, 1990). In addition, a group that lacks cohesion or contains members who are in conflict with one another are less likely to use techniques that require them to communicate their dreams or personal feelings that may be required whilst utilising paradigm breaking techniques. An experienced group, on the other hand, contains members who have worked together in the past. A cohesive group, with members who trust each other and the facilitator, may feel more comfortable using techniques that are more expressive such as drawing pictures or dreaming of a better future. Thus, these paradigm breaking techniques, which allow participants to look at the situation from a number of different perspectives, encourage more creative and novel ideas. It must be emphasised, however, that no type of technique will be effective if a meeting is poorly prepared or if an inadequate facilitator supports the session (McFadzean and Nelson, 1998). Further research needs to be undertaken by management theorists on the creativity continuum. For instance, Moger (1997) and Garfield et al. (1997) have undertaken studies on CPS techniques and preferred creativity


style (as defined by Kirton, 1976). Moger (1997) found that innovators and adaptors do have a preference on which techniques they use. In addition, Couger (1995) suggests that technical people prefer to use the analyticallyoriented techniques whereas behaviourallyoriented people tend to prefer the intuitive techniques. McFadzean (1996), however, suggests that members of a group who trust each other and are experienced at using CPS techniques will be comfortable utilising paradigm breaking techniques because it may give them a better opportunity to generate more novel ideas. Research, therefore, needs to be undertaken on how and by whom these techniques are best utilised. Nagasundaram (1995), for example, found that newly formed MBA groups did not use the technique of Guided Fantasy appropriately. Consequently, the ideas that were generated remained paradigm preserving. By implication, therefore, if paradigm stretching and paradigm breaking techniques are misunderstood or misused, for whatever reason, the ideas produced by the group are more likely to be paradigm preserving. According to VanGundy (1988, p. 127), ``Wishful Thinking [a paradigm breaking technique] is frequently overlooked by pragmatic-minded individuals. Such persons often assume that alternative problem per-

Volume 7 Number 3

September 1998

138


spectives must be based upon logical or rational modes of analysis. Although this type of analysis is especially useful for wellstructured problems, it will not work as well with most ill-structured problems.'' Different creative problem solving techniques are therefore useful for different types of problem solving situations. Paradigm stretching or paradigm breaking techniques may be more useful for ill-structured problems whereas paradigm preserving techniques can be used to solve more structured problems. If a problem is open-ended and ill-structured, it may be useful to generate a fantasy or a metaphor in order to find and explore a desired state for the situation. A more structured problem, however, may benefit from a less imaginative method. Research needs to be undertaken on the different types of creative problem solving techniques in order to ascertain the types of problems they would help to solve effectively.

Summary This paper has discussed the importance of being able to encourage both individuals and groups to view problems and opportunities from different perspectives. There are a number of different methods that can help this process. Some of these techniques can be used by inexperienced groups and require little imagination. The ideas developed, however, tend to be paradigm preserving. More experienced groups whose members trust one another (as well as the facilitator) may use other techniques. A well trained group can use paradigm stretching and paradigm breaking techniques effectively without feeling uncomfortable. The ideas produced will tend to be more novel and imaginative. Creativity techniques can therefore be placed in a continuum ranging from paradigm preserving to paradigm breaking. Facilitators must be careful to choose the appropriate technique for a given situation and group. Further research needs to be undertaken on how groups use these techniques and which method is most appropriate under specific circumstances.

References Brightman, H. J. (1988) Group Problem Solving: An Improved Managerial Approach, Business Publishing Division, Georgia State University, Atlanta. Carr, C. (1994) The Competitive Power of Constant Creativity, AMACOM, New York. Connolly, T., Jessup, L.M. and Valacich, J.S. (1990) Effects of Anonymity and Evaluative Tone on

Volume 7

Number 3

September 1998

Idea Generation in Computer-Mediated Groups, Management Science, 36, 689±703. Couger, J.D. (1995) Creative Problem Solving and Opportunity Finding, Boyd & Fraser Publishing Co., Danvers, Massachusetts. De Bono, E. (1992) Serious Creativity: Using the Power of Lateral Thinking to Create New Ideas, Harper Collins, London. Dennis, A.R. and Valacich, J.S. (1993) Computer Brainstorms: More Heads are Better than One, Journal of Applied Psychology, 78, 531±537. Edwards, B. (1993) Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain: How to Unlock Your Hidden Artistic Talent, New Revised Edition, Harper Collins, London. Evans, J.R. (1993) Creativity in MS/OR: Overcoming Barriers to Creativity, Interfaces, 23, 101±106. Gallupe, R.B., Dennis, A.R., Cooper, W.H., Valacich, J.S., Bastianutti, L.M. and Nunamaker, J.F. (1992) Electronic Brainstorming and Group Size, Academy of Management Journal, 35, 350±369. Garfield, M., Satzinger, J., Taylor, N. and Dennis, A. (1997) ``The Creative Road: The Impact of the Person, Process and Feedback on Idea Generation'', Proceedings of the Third Annual Conference of the AIS, Indianapolis, Indiana. Glassman, E. (1989) Creative Problem Solving, Supervisory Management, 34, 21±26. Gryskiewicz, S.S. (1988) ``Trial by Fire in an Industrial Setting: A Practical Evaluation of Three Creative Problem Solving Techniques'', in Gronhaug, K. and Kaufmann, G., Innovation: A Cross-Disciplinary Perspective, Norwegian university Press, Oslo, 205±232. Hall, A.R. and Smith, H.A.F. (1987) `Ìnvention'', The Encyclopaedia Americana, Grolier, Inc., Danbury, CT. Jarvenpaa, S.L., Rao, V.S. and Huber, G.P. (1988) Computer Support for Meetings of Groups Working on Unstructured Problems: A Field Experiment, MIS Quarterly, 12, 645±666. Jessup, L.M., Connolly, T. and Galegher, J. (1990) The Effects of Anonymity on GDSS Group Process With an Idea Generating Task, MIS Quarterly, 14, 313±321. Johnson, V. (1991) Creative Problem Solving, Successful Meetings, 40, 60±66. Keeney, R.L. (1993) Creativity in MS/OR: ValueFocused Thinking ± Creativity Directed Toward Decision Making, Interfaces, 23, 62±67. Kennedy, C. (1991) ``Xerox Charts a New Strategic Direction'', in Henry, J. and Walker, D. (eds), Managing Innovation, Sage Publications Ltd., London. Kirton, M. (1976) Adaptors and Innovators: A Description and Measure, Journal of Applied Psychology, 61, 622±629. Majaro, S. (1988) The Creative Gap: Managing Ideas for Profit, Longman, London. McFadzean, E.S. (1996) ``New Ways Of Thinking: An Evaluation Of K-Groupware and Creative Problem Solving'' Doctoral Dissertation, Henley Management College/Brunel University, Henley-on-Thames, Oxon. McFadzean, E.S. and Nelson, T. (1998) Facilitating Problem Solving Groups: A Conceptual Model,



Leadership and Organization Development Journal, 19, 6±13. Moger, S. (1997) ``Structured Techniques for Supporting R&D and Design Activities: A Study Extending the Preference ± Practice ± Performance Model of Basadur, Graen and Green'', Proceedings of The R&D Management Conference, Manchester, UK. Nadler, G. and Hibino, S. (1994) Breakthrough Thinking: The Seven Principles of Creative Problem Solving, Second Edition, Prima Publishing, Rocklin, California. Nagasundaram, M. (1995) ``The Structuring of Creative Processes with Group Support Systems'', Doctoral Dissertation, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia. Nagasundaram, M. and Bostrom, R.P. (1993) ``The Structuring of Creative Processes Using GSS: A Framework for Research'', Working Paper, No. 81, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia. Nayak, P.R. and Ketteringham, J.M. (1991) ``3M's Little Yellow Note Pads: Never Mind. I'll Do It Myself'', in Henry, J. and Walker, D. (eds), Managing Innovation, Sage Publications Ltd., London. Osborn, A.F. (1957) Applied Imagination, Revised Edition, Scribner, New York.


139

Rhodes, J. (1991) Conceptual Toolmaking: Expert Systems of the Mind, Basil Blackwell Ltd., Oxford. Rhodes, J. and Thame, S. (1988) Modelling Work Through a New Thinking Profile, Industrial and Commercial Training, 20, 15±18. Robinson, A. and Stern, S. (1997) Corporate Creativity: How Innovation and Improvement Actually Happen, Berrett-Koehler Publishers, San Francisco. Simon, H.A. (1977) The New Science of Management Decision, Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey. Solomon, C.M. (1990) What an Idea: Creativity Training, Personnel Journal, 69, 64±71. VanGundy, A.B. (1988) Techniques of Structured Problem Solving, Second Edition, Van Nostrand Reinhold, New York. VanGundy, A.B. (1992) Idea Power: Techniques and Resources to Unleash the Creativity in Your Organisation, AMACOM, New York.

Elspeth McFadzean is a Faculty member at Henley Management College, Henley-onThames, UK.

Volume 7 Number 3

September 1998

140


Special Feature The Second Great Industrial Revolution Tudor Rickards and Susan Moger In this issue we are pleased to celebrate the building of the world's first computer ± a machine that could hold a user program in electronic storage and process it at electronic speeds. The first program worked at 11.00am on 21 June 1948. The development took place at the University of Manchester, and has been celebrated by the reconstruction of that first machine and a re-running of the original program, in the city on the same date, fifty years later. In this feature we look at the events that led to this momentous discovery, and at the careers of the developers, Tom Kilburn and Freddie Williams. Chris Burton, who led the reconstruction project, gives a fascinating account of the work required to bring `The Baby' back to life. The material produced for this feature was written at the University of Manchester, as part of the 50th anniversary celebrations. We would like to thank the editorial team of `This Week, Next Week' the newsletter of the University, for access to the material which appears here, with slight modifications.

`The Baby' and beyond

G

The hurly-burly of computing

Volume 7

Number 3

iving birth to the computer was a race against time ± and scientists at The University of Manchester, undoubtedly spurred on by the awareness that Transatlantic competition might beat them to it, won. Tom Kilburn, a young man only in his midtwenties, solved the central problem of storing digits ìn action', as they changed from 0 to 1 and 1 to 0 in what he calls `the hurlyburly of computing'. Had he not done so, he and Professor Freddie Williams would have lost the race. `That is why the machine was built and why a baby was sufficient,' he says now. Their historic partnership started by chance during the war years, when Tom, à freshfaced mathematician from Cambridge' (his own words), was arbitrarily assigned to Williams's small team at the government's Telecommunications Research Establishment (TRE) at Malvern. There, in the cricket pavilion, they worked on electronic solutions for problems brought to them by others concerned with defence systems. It was September, 1942, and even they were not to know that less than six years later they

September 1998

would spark off what has been called `the second great industrial revolution', the computer age. The post-war move from Malvern to Manchester in December 1946 was a return journey for Williams ± he was a graduate of the University and had held a junior academic appointment until 1939. His arrival as Professor of Electrotechnics and the secondment of Tom Kilburn by TRE to continue to work with him, was crucial. Williams was regarded as one of the world's best electronics circuit engineers, and Kilburn, ten years his junior, had learned much in the hands-on problem-solving years at Malvern. Their project was to work on the digital storage of information on a Cathode Ray Tube (CRT). Às far as we were concerned, it was just another project,' says Tom, with characteristic modesty. But an effective electronic storage mechanism was known to be essential to the progress of electronic digital computers. Williams thought he could solve the problem using CRTs. In late 1946 he had succeeded in storing one bit on a CRT. Tom spent the first few weeks of 1947 transferring the equipment for the experiment to Manchester. Arthur Marsh, who thought there was no future in it and soon left, and # Blackwell Publishers Ltd 1998. 108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF and 350 Main St, Malden, MA 02148, USA.

SPECIAL FEATURE

then by Geoff Tootill, assisted him first. Within a matter of months, they had worked their way to being able to store 2048 bits on a CRT ± and what became known as the Williams Tube was ready for a small computer to be built round it. What a breakthrough that was. Tom Kilburn's report to the TRE management to justify a second year's secondment was widely circulated ± and several American and Russian organisations adopted the system. A seminal progress report was issued on the 1 December 1947 entitled À Storage System for use with Binary Digital Computing Machines'. Kilburn stayed on to lead the work on designing and building a Small Scale Experimental Machine, `The Baby'. This tested the ability of the Williams Tube to read and reset at speed random bits of information, whilst preserving a bit's value indefinitely between re-settings ± `the hurly-burly of computing'. So, for the first time in the world, a computer was built that could hold a user program in electronic storage ± and process it at electronic speeds. Tom wrote the first program, which first worked at 11 am on 21 June 1948. `That was the most exciting time, without question,' he says. `Nothing could ever compare with that.' The late Professor Sir Freddie Williams later described the dramatic experiments: À program was inserted and the start switch pressed. Immediately the spots on the display tube entered a mad dance. In early trials it was a dance of death leading to no useful result, and what was even worse, without yielding any clue as to what was wrong. But one day it stopped, and there, shining brightly in the expected place, was the expected answer. It was a moment to remember. Nothing was ever the same again.' At the time, their matter-of-fact announcement of this momentous Èureka' experience almost defies belief. In a letter to Nature, dated 3 August 1948, they wrote: À small electronic digital computing machine has been operating successfully for some weeks in the Royal Society Computing Machine Laboratory, which is at present housed in the Electrical Engineering Department of The University of Manchester.' There was no media interest, no public interest, and no hype. But the scientific and governmental interest was immense. The letter was published in September. In October, Sir Ben Lockspeiser, Chief Scientist of the Ministry of Supply, wrote his famously cryptic letter to Ferranti Limited: ` to construct an electronic calculating machine to the instructions of Professor F.C. Williams'. But what was Professor Williams going to construct?


141

The success of the Baby was so clear that he quickly made plans to extend it into a full sized computer. By October Tom Kilburn was taken onto the departmental staff and extra staff added to the team. By the end of 1949 the computer was complete, the Manchester Mark 1, including a fast magnetic backing store (the ancestor of today's disc). The machine was available for general use from April 1949, but without its full peripheral equipment. Work began in 1949 to transfer the detailed design to Ferranti, and by February 1951 the first production Ferranti Mark 1, with further enhancements, was delivered to the Department. Manchester might have produced the first stored-program computer by a different route. In the Department of Mathematics, Professor Max Newman, who had managed the Colossus project for code breaking at Bletchley Park, acquired a Royal Society grant in 1946 to build a computer. He had planned to use an American CRT store being developed by RCA, but RCA could not get it to work. Meanwhile Williams and Kilburn arrived and made such rapid progress (using TRE staff and supplies) that Newman abandoned his plans and awaited their results. In September 1948 he brought Alan Turing to the Maths department, and Turing helped with the early software production and wrote the first Mark 1 programming manual. The grant was used from September 1948 to help the Mark 1 project. These were exciting times, but still ònly' the beginning. A formal computing service was set up for the University and Ferranti. Freddie Williams turned his inventive energies fully back to Electrical Engineering, leaving Tom Kilburn to lead the computer group. Work went on on two different machines: a version of the Mark 1 with floating point arithmetic added (known as MEG) and the transistor computer. MEG, increasing the speed of computing by a factor of 30, first ran in 1954 ± and is regarded as probably the world's first floating point computer. Similarly, a small computer using transistors first ran in November 1953 ± the world's first transistorised computer (expanded in April 1955). Ferranti turned MEG into `Mercury', with a ferrite core store for RAM instead of MEG's Williams Tubes. Metropolitan Vickers translated the transistor computer into MV950. In parallel with all this, Kilburn was also pioneering a computing service ± for other departments, other universities, research associations, government establishments and industrial firms. The `cascade' effect of the invention was immense.

Volume 7 Number 3

September 1998

142


An explosion of ideas

Changing the world

Volume 7

Number 3

The next ten years were dynamic, dominated by the development of Atlas. It started in 1956 with Kilburn and his team aiming to develop a machine with a speed of one million instructions a second. The machine, called MUSE, using transistors and magnetic core store, would be far larger and faster than anything before. `To achieve this required an explosion of ideas and then turning them into a realistic specification,' writes one commentator. Às ever, under Tom Kilburn the ability to deliver powerful leading-edge technology before most, if not all, of the rest of the world meant that a lot of these ideas were world firsts.' But there was a problem of resources ± and in 1959 Ferranti agreed to back the project, providing extra manpower and help in building it. MUSE was rechristened Atlas. It was one of the most famous machines ever built and one against which subsequent computers were measured. It first ran in December 1962, the most powerful and sophisticated computer in the world. Only three full versions of Atlas were built ± and installed at Manchester, London University and Harwell. On the back of Atlas, so to speak, came a major academic development ± the establishment of the first Department of Computer Science in the country in 1964. Tom Kilburn, who had been made a Professor of Computer Engineering in 1960, aged 38, masterminded that, too. His close colleague, Dai Edwards, was in charge of hardware and Tony Brooker in charge of software. The first intake of 30 students arrived in 1965. Again, a bigger and better machine dominated the next decade: MU5. Work started in 1966. It attracted government funding and on the commercial side the association of Ferranti with Atlas transferred to ICT and later ICL, who provided manpower and production facilities. MU5 first ran in 1972, but it was 1974 before it could run as a complete system. There was considerable collaboration between the University department and ICL. Although there was no arrangement for ICL to manufacture and market MU5, the larger machines of the later ICL 2900 series had an architecture and order code very close to it. MU5, the last mainframe computer designed at the University in the Baby lineage, rounded off more than 25 years of continuous dynamic development. Freddie Williams died in 1977. Tom Kilburn retired in 1981. Their successors have continued their tradition ± of breaking new ground, of continuous effort to develop the computer as we now know it and of producing machine designs which play a significant role in that development.

September 1998

Ìt was just another project,' says Tom. `We just went to work on it, trying to solve the problems. We did our best. You can't do more than that.' Well, no. You can't do more than change the history of the world.

Kilburn's Contentment We know about the machine, but what about the man? Tom Kilburn was the man who, in a dynamic partnership with the late Professor Sir Freddie Williams, built the world's first stored-program computer. He is not a man for publicity, hype or fuss. Even in the midst of the celebrations rightfully marking the 50th anniversary of the momentous breakthrough on that June morning in 1948, he is the still centre. Can it be 50 years? Ì was as young then as I feel inside now,' he says. And he was young then ± 26 to be precise. Now, he lives a quiet life befitting his modesty. He lives alone, in the same house he has lived in for 40 years. He likes it there ± the house is full of happy memories (his dear wife Reenie died in 1980, the year he retired) and it's handy for the University, and Old Trafford, home of Manchester United's football team. He doesn't at all envy Bill Gates ± Ì should think that building a $100 million house would give you all sorts of problems.' `The name of Tom Kilburn is on every computer in the world today' is how one historian put it. So you might think that the man who built the first stored-program computer and ran the first program would spend his retirement surfing the Internet for amusement. But you won't find a computer in his home. Ì have no need for one,' he says quite happily. Ì'm disconnected.' Like most people's lives, Tom's is conditioned by ìfs'. If he hadn't been born when he was, he would never have been directed to join Freddie Williams's small wartime research team. If he hadn't had such a forceful headmaster at school, he would have chosen to read Chemistry rather than Maths at university. If his eyesight had been better, he would have become a fighter or bomber pilot in the RAF rather than a scientist. But, no, the die was cast ± and he was to play a leading role in, well, changing the world when that stored-program machine at last ran successfully for the first time. Tom's contentment today lies in knowing that he has carried through the key principle instilled in him as a boy growing up in Yorkshire in the '20s. His parents had a sound, simple code for him: `Do your best'. No pressure. No push. No fuss. And that's what he's always done.


SPECIAL FEATURE

He was born on 11 August 1921 at Earlsheaton, a suburb of Dewsbury in the West Riding of Yorkshire. His father was an office worker, who rose to become Secretary of a large woollen mill, employing 2,000 people. `We weren't well off, but we didn't suffer like so many other people around us did in the depression,' he says. He went to the local council school ± and came under the influence of a `red hot' teacher called Percy Rouse. Ì suppose you could say I was an early developer,' he says. At any rate, Mr Rouse drew young Tom and a few other bright kids into a `scholarship' group. `He was very good at teaching arithmetic ± and I had a maths mind,' he says. Mr Rouse prepared his group early for the eleven-plus. Tom was ten years old when he took it ± and passed. He proceeded to Dewsbury Wheelwright's Grammar School, where he came across another `red hot' maths teacher, Leslie Sadler, who was also a `tyrant' of a headmaster. When he was only 15, Tom got his Maths A-level equivalent. He duly matriculated, early, and set course for university. He told Mr Sadler that he would like to do Chemistry. `You're doing Maths,' said Mr Sadler. Àfter that I did nothing else,' says Tom. Mr Sadler obviously had the reputation of the school to think of ± it had a special link with Sidney Sussex College at Cambridge. It also liked to compete with Manchester Grammar School. Tom `did his best' ± he won an Open Scholarship. The war had started. `My thoughts were that I could either go to Cambridge or join up,' he says. `The temptation was that if you chose to join up, you could choose which service you went into.' In the event, he went to Cambridge. It was 1940 and the deal was that if you got a First at the end of your first year, you could stay on for a second year ± but then you had to go, to serve your country. Well, he got a First, naturally, and stayed on, doing his bit meanwhile in the Home Guard and then the Air Training Corps. He elected to train for the RAF, but his eyesight ruled out his ambitions to be a pilot ± and, as he puts it, Ì didn't fancy being a passenger'. Significantly, along with a lot of other undergraduates, he was invited to attend a lecture by CP Snow, of `two cultures' fame, who had been sent by the government to arouse the interest of some bright students in a `special', though unspecified, project. Tom recalls CP Snow saying, in essence, `There's something incredibly useful you can do for the war effort, but I can't tell you what it is'. He was in a responsive mood. So, in a sense, it was CP Snow who recruited Tom


143

Kilburn to the government scientific service. As a result, alongside the maths, a special course was laid on ± elementary electricity and magnetism. In June 1942, a mere six years before the great event at Manchester, he was called up ± and sent to London to do a six-week City and Guilds crash course in electricity, magnetism and electronics. Ì was then sent home to await further instructions,' he says. The instructions, when they came, were for him to report to Malvern Boys' College. Ì'd no idea what for,' he says, Ìt turned out to be radar. I'd no idea what radar was, but as a fresh-faced mathematician, with some basic electronics, I was given a week's induction.' Malvern, of course, was the place chosen for the government's Telecommunications Research Establishment (TRE). And it contained a number of groups. Naturally, Tom said he would like to join the maths group. `Sorry, it's full,' came the answer. `Go and report to Freddie Williams in the cricket pavilion.' What significant words those turned out to be. It was September 1942 ± and the 21year-old Tom Kilburn was about to meet Freddie Williams, who was ten years older (and a graduate of, and former Assistant Lecturer at, Manchester University). Freddie was friendly enough, but not impressed. `He really wanted an electronics circuit engineer as a fourth member of his team,' says Tom. Their first meeting went something like this: Freddie: `Hello, Tom. What have you got?' Tom: À Maths degree from Cambridge.' Freddie: Òh, dear.' (pause) `Never mind, you'll soon learn.' Freddie Williams was by that time regarded as the world's leading electronics circuit engineer, having taken over that position from Blumlein, who had been killed in an air accident. The role of his group, which worked in the cricket pavilion (in a space no bigger than Tom's front room at home today), was to provide a service function to other groups who needed any tricky circuit problems solving quickly. `The job was exactly suited to Freddie's temperament,' says Tom. `He was an inventor, a man with a short attention span, who wanted to find solutions instantly. And nothing could have been better for me, because I liked the hands-on approach.' Thus their seminal partnership began, one man complementing the other. `We all worked

A seminal partnership began

Volume 7 Number 3

September 1998

144


together concentratedly, in that small space in the cricket pavilion and, within six months or so, I felt myself to be a very competent circuit engineer,' says Tom. Their four years at Malvern cemented the relationship ± and they worked on many projects. `The cathode ray tube (CRT) project, exploring the possibility of data storage, was just another project, as far as we were concerned,' he says. Of course, it turned out to be the key project ± and the rest, as they say, is history, currently being retold and recreated in recognition of the golden jubilee. When Freddie Williams returned in 1946 to the Chair of Electro-technics, he got permission for Tom, still a government scientific officer, to be seconded for two years from TRE to work with him. So, in December 1946 he arrived in Manchester ± and set about perfecting the CRT storage tube system. Àfter six to eight months, we had it working, but in a limited way,' he says. There were four groups in the UK and four in the US working on the problem. `We were all aware of the deficiency ± the lack of a store into which you could feed your program,' he explains. `What we did was to invent such a store.' And, of course, he wrote the first program. They had won the great race ± and beat their Transatlantic rivals, `with practically no resources'. So, the famous universal machine, `The Baby' was born, the first in a long family line. `There was no public interest and no media interest,' says Tom, in his matter-of-fact way. That suited him ± the inherent excitement and success was sufficient. But there was welcome and positive government interest. `The government were really on the ball,' says Tom. `Their interest, through their scientific advisers, was immediate and powerful.' Sir Henry Tizzard, the top political scientist, and Sir Ben Lockspeiser, Chief Scientist at the Ministry of Supply, came to see the machine ± and backed it financially. When it came to building a commercial version, the Manchester team was able to choose the firm to build it. `We chose Ferranti, because we had had dealings with them during the war and we liked working with them,' says Tom. It was Lockspeiser who signed the famous cryptic letter to Ferranti, dated 26 October 1948: `Construct an electronic calculating machine to the instructions of Professor FC Williams.' The commercial version was built by February 1951. After that, Freddie Williams moved on, dedicating his inventiveness to electro-technics rather than computer engin-

Volume 7

Number 3

September 1998

eering. Tom Kilburn, of course, stayed with the computer, founding the University's Department of Computer Science in 1964 and becoming its first Professor. It is interesting ± and ironic ± to recall now, as Tom does, that he did have a problem when he was registering for his PhD at the University of Manchester. The late Norman Burkhardt, a redoubtable Dean of Science, could not at first accept the manner in which Tom, after the war, had been awarded his first degree, having completed only two years as an undergraduate at Cambridge. `He was eventually persuaded, but it wasn't easy,' says Tom. He got his Lectureship and his PhD in 1948. In three decades he saw the computer born and its power multiply extraordinarily ± by a factor of 50,000 over that period. The `Baby' increased power 1,000 times over the previous computers, who were people, mainly women, working at machines in a room; Mercury was 30 times faster than that; Atlas 80 times faster again . . . and so on. Èach machine far more than doubled the computer capacity of the whole country,' he says. Since what he calls his `disconnection' in 1981, when he retired early to be with his wife, who was ill, the computer explosion has, as we all know, been tremendous. Has it all been too much? Did he know what he and Freddie and the others were starting? Well, he is not given much to philosophising, but the answers, essentially, are `no' and `no'. `We just got on with our work, day by day, and enjoyed what we were doing,' he says. `The University gave us the freedom to get on with it.' And, on the wider issue, he feels that the world is altogether a better place for the advances made (he has no sympathy with `those intellectuals' who preach doom and gloom). Mind you, he is keen to point out that he regards himself as `no pundit' and that his opinion is `no better than anyone else's'. Similarly, he has no concerns about financial rewards. `We never did anything with money in mind,' he says. So, he hasn't made a fortune ± and he hasn't exactly been showered with public honours. A knighthood? A Nobel Prize even? Neither concerns him. It's not his style. But he does appreciate peer recognition. Ìt was very pleasing to be elected a Fellow of the Royal Society,' he says. That was in 1965. But his real contentment lies in his inner achievement. He knows he's done his best. And we know that his best was quite exceptional.


SPECIAL FEATURE

`The Baby' Reborn When the world first stored-program computer ran at The University of Manchester on 21 June 1948, a 15-year-old schoolboy in far-off Southern Rhodesia was making little robot tortoises for fun. Fifty years on, he recaptured that moment of history ± by running the replica he has built of that first machine on the exact anniversary of the birth of `the Baby', as it is known. For Chris Burton it was a dream come true, the realisation of his idea. And it has brought him into close contact with his hero, Tom Kilburn, the man who with the late Professor Sir Freddie Williams created the invention that changed the world. Tom has shared the joy of the recreation. Ìt is like a dream to see the machine created in an identical way to how we did it 50 years ago,' he says. Ìt only falls short in one way ± it's nothing like as dirty as ours.' `The Baby', in all its glory, now stands in what will be its permanent home in the Futures Gallery of Manchester's Museum of Science and Industry. It is the result of more than three years' hard work by Chris Burton and his team, involved more than 10,000 man hours of effort and £150,000 ± worth of investment by ICL by way of materials and facilities. For Chris Burton, who always did have a `burning desire' to work on computers, it has been a labour of love. As a boy growing up in his native Birmingham in wartime, he was aware of his uncle doing something rather secret and exciting ± he was working on RADAR. Tom Kilburn, of course, was learning his trade not far away at Malvern. He was only ten years older. Chris emigrated with his family to Southern Rhodesia after the war, but returned to do Electrical Engineering at Birmingham University. He remembers sailing back in 1950 on a Union Castle liner and meeting another young man on the ship who drew his attention to a newspaper article about the possibility of building a giant electronic brain. `That inspired me,' he says. He graduated in 1955 and went to do his National Service ± as luck would have it working on RADAR. In 1957 he joined the Computer Division of Ferranti. Naturally, he was aware of the close relationship between the company and the University pioneers. Although not directly involved with them in his particular work on the commercial, rather than the scientific, side of the business, he never lost his awareness and admiration of those men, who he calls `the unsung heroes'.


145

Indeed, one of the stated objectives in his proposal to rebuild `the Baby' reads: `This is to be a tangible tribute to the pioneers in Manchester and elsewhere who brought about the second industrial revolution, the computer age.' `The pioneers in the late 1940s started a revolution which now touches everyone in the world, yet they are largely unknown,' says Chris. Certainly, their names are not as familiar as those of James Watt and Thomas Edison, for example. It is also important, he believes, to remind the world of a British innovation. His idea to rebuild `the Baby' was first mooted as long ago as 1989. A foundermember of the Computer Conservation Society (CCS), he talked with the Secretary, Tony Sale, about recreating historic machines. The first project was to rebuild Colossus, the machine designed by the team of brilliant code-breaking mathematicians at Bletchley Park. That also has a strong Manchester connection, of course, since the team was managed by Max Newman, Fielden Professor of Pure Mathematics at Manchester after the war, and included Alan Turing, who also came to work with Newman on computer development here. Tony Sale got on with Colossus and Chris Burton had a hand in that great project. But in 1994 he came back to the idea of `the Baby'. `We'd better get on with it if we are going to be ready in time for the 50th anniversary,' he said. The CCS accepted his proposal ± and the enthusiastic support of the University and ICL was immediate. The Department of Computer Science agreed to provide space and facilities, incidentally only 100 yards from where the original was built. Peter Hall, Chairman of the CCS and a former director of Ferranti and ICL, persuaded the latter to sponsor the project. Tom Hinchliffe, MD of ICL High Performance Systems, agreed to support the substantial cost involved. And Chris Burton was able to start the research. The challenge was not as easy as one might think. The design was known in general terms, but there never were any engineering drawings. Few photographs had survived, and the original circuit drawings had long since disappeared. Fortunately, copies of those drawings were made by two of the pioneers in their notebooks. `During 1995, our task was to find and study the small amount of surviving information, circuit diagrams and photographs, to talk to the pioneers and come up with a plausibly accurate picture of the detailed design,'says Chris.

The unsung heroes

Volume 7 Number 3

September 1998

146


Emphasis on circuit `designability'

The deductions were turned into engineering drawings for ICL's workshops to use. Next came the hunt for parts. Ìnteresting though deducing the details was, we couldn't build a replica unless we found authentic parts,' says Chris. Àmazingly, since the technology has moved forward at such a fast pace in 50 years, we discovered that there are dealers who still have stocks of thermionic valves and cathode ray tubes at reasonable prices.' Some valves are new and in the original boxes, as packed by RCA in the US in 1943 and shipped across the Atlantic as part of the war effort. The Spitfire switches used were available from a dealer in vintage aircraft parts, although Chris found one in his own junk box! Other items, such as the seven-foot high steel racks on which the parts were mounted, were unexpectedly difficult to find. Fortunately, two of these were found in a Shrewsbury garden, preventing it from slipping into the River Severn. By Christmas 1996, Chris and his team of volunteers, mostly former colleagues who had a lot of experience, had reassembled most of the components of the machine at the University. Helped by advice from pioneers like Tom Kilburn and Dai Edwards, they spent 1997 getting it all to work. Ìt was a time to learn a lot ± where our detailed design was not quite right, why things had been done in certain ways, how to operate the machine and so on,' says Chris. `The most difficult part, the cathode ray tube stores, took many months of patient work ± but what a relief when we did get them working, just as those pioneers had half a century before.' By the end of 1997, the machine was complete, apart from cosmetic details, and they were able to run programs, including the world's first program, written by Tom Kilburn. A worldwide programming competition was launched on the web (www.computer50.org) to see who could write the most interesting program for `the Baby'. Entries have come from all over the world. In February 1998, the machine was dismantled and reassembled in the Museum ready for that great anniversary re-run on 21 June. On the appointed day the new `Baby' was brought to life.

A Profile of Freddie Calland Williams (1911 ± 1977) Professor Sir F.C. Williams FRS was always known to his friends and collaborators as

Volume 7

Number 3

September 1998

Freddie Williams, or more often just `F.C.' He was born at Romiley, close to Stockport and just south of the city of Manchester that he would help to make famous in the computer revolution. Educated at Stockport Grammar School, he went on to The University of Manchester, where he gained BSc(1932) and MSc (1933) degrees in Engineering. He then joined a two-year `College Apprentice'course with Metropolitan-Vickers, but left after a year when he was awarded the Ferranti Scholarship by the Institute of Electrical Engineering to do two years research at Oxford University. At Oxford he was awarded a DPhil (1936) for work on circuit and valve noise. Freddie then took up the post of Assistant Lecturer in his old department at Manchester. During the next few years he made many outstanding contributions to research in electronics, publishing some 20 papers. In 1939 he left the University ± after being distinguished with the award of a Doctor of Science (DSc) degree ± to join the Telecommunications Research Establishment (TRE), which moved to Malvern in 1942. During the war years Freddie made vital contributions to the electronics of radar and other military equipment, producing, amongst other things, the first òperational amplifier'. He made a major contribution to the development of IFF systems (Identification Friend or Foe), which enabled radar operators to distinguish between friendly and enemy aircraft, and to AI, an acronym that in those days referred to Airborne Interception systems which provided onboard equipment allowing aircraft to track and automatically intercept other aircraft. At Malvern, Freddie was renowned for his emphasis on circuit `designability', the development of circuits whose operation can be predicted accurately before they are built. He saw this as a major weapon in attacking the problems of precision, reliability and producibility ± obviously crucial in the war years, especially for circuitry on board aircraft. In a room in Malvern College's cricket pavilion, Freddie ran a small group, whose main purpose was to design electronic circuitry to solve problems great and small met by other groups both within and beyond TRE. He also had a reputation as a prolific generator of ideas, not all of which came to fruition! In 1945, and again in 1946, Freddie visited the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the USA and the Moore School of Engineering, home to the ENIAC, where research on cathode ray tubes was also under way. ENIAC was the first general-purpose


SPECIAL FEATURE

electronic computer, but it did not have an effective electronic storage. This meant that changing its `program' involved a painful process of reconfiguring the hardware, which could take days. The general belief was that long-term storage (on a CRT) was difficult if not impossible. On returning to England, Freddie made this the main subject of his research. He started active investigation into the storage of both analog and digital information on a CRT. Storage of digital information could solve the problem holding up the development of computers world wide, namely. the lack of an effective storage mechanism that would work at electronic speeds. In December 1946, Freddie was appointed to the Chair of Electrotechnics at the University of Manchester, and so returned to Manchester. TRE were still interested in the digital CRT storage and continued to fund and support his research. They seconded Tom Kilburn, who had worked in his group since 1942. The Electro-technics department on Williams' arrival (soon to be called the Electrical Engineering department) was strongly biased towards heavy engineering, so the contribution of electrical components by TRE over the next couple of years was crucial. The research into CRT storage continued throughout 1947, with Tom Kilburn, who was able to work full time on it, now making a major contribution. They tried a number of different storage mechanisms over the year, and by the autumn were able to store 2048 bits over a period of a few hours. This general method of CRT storage of binary information became known as the `Williams Tube'. The next step was to build a computer around one or more Williams Tubes, both so that the speed and reliability of the Tube could be tested, and so that (if it proved


147

satisfactory) the aim of the world's computer researchers for a computer with an effective electronic storage for both program and data could be realised. So with Kilburn as the main driving force behind the computer design, the Small-Scale Experimental Machine, the `Baby' was designed and built between 1947 and 1948, proving the effectiveness of both the Williams Tube design and the storedprogram computer. It ran its first program in June 1948. Having developed the CRT storage with Tom Kilburn, and having managed the Mark 1 operation (while still making significant contributions), Freddie was happy to leave Tom Kilburn to lead the drive to progress the development of computers beyond the Mark 1, as head of the Computing Machine Laboratory within his Electrical Engineering department. By the early fifties, although his focus had returned fully to general electrical engineering problems, he was always happy to give assistance to solve circuit and motor problems for the laboratory. A lot of his effort in the next 25 years was devoted to electric motors, especially variable-speed induction motors and linear induction motors. He also developed an automatic transmission for motor vehicles, an experimental version of which he installed in his own car! Freddie Williams was awarded a knighthood in 1976. He remained head of his department until in 1977. During his time in charge the department had grown from 5 staff, with a graduate output of 17 students a year, to 23 staff, with 50 students a year graduating. He was always a stout defender of Engineering as a worthy profession, asking `Why is it laudable and proper to show that a thing can be done, but quite improper to do it?'

Volume 7 Number 3

September 1998

148


Creating a Competitive Advantage through Quality Cees Meulenbroeks It is becoming more and more important for companies to have an optimal alignment between business strategy and information strategy. The approach developed in HewlettPackard is one way to achieve this. Proper alignment and embeddedness within the IT environment is needed to realise business objectives to achieve competitive advantage. Effectiveness and flexibility are the key-words to ensure competitive advantage by delivering a maximum service level to the customers, by reacting adequately on market changes and to optimise the business processes. Harvesting the creativity of users is an important aspect of the process. Òur fundamental goal is to build positive, long-term relationships with our customers, relationships characterised by mutual respect, by courtesy and integrity, by a helpful, effective response to customer needs and concerns, and by a strong commitment to providing products and services of the highest quality.' (extracted from Hewlett-Packard's Corporate Objectives for Customers)

A total quality approach

One of the objectives of Hewlett-Packard is to create a competitive advantage both for the customers and the company by selling and delivering quality business solutions. This objective and the globalisation of our services ask for a business solution delivery approach based on standard products and in conformity with internationally accepted standards. The quality of the business solution delivery process is managed through the project delivery process. The customer's business solution delivery appreciation is an implicit result of the quality of each individual project. This quality is based on international standards and generic company methodologies. These standards and methodologies combined with the quality of the people are the drivers for the embedding of quality within the entire organisation. The resulting total quality approach triggers a continuous quality improvement process in order to guarantee a win-win situation for both the customer and Hewlett-Packard. For the delivery of quality business solutions there must be a homogeneous set of quality objectives, performance goals, quality system implementation guidelines and a strategy for continuous quality improvement. Within Hewlett-Packard, the Project Management Services department is responsible for the project delivery process with which the quality of the business solution delivery is managed. This paper describes how this is done.

Delivery of Quality Business Solutions

M

any of Hewlett-Packard's business solutions concern the delivery of standard products. These business solutions are implemented on a basis of fixed time and costs using a conventional delivery process (sometimes known as a cascade down or waterfall method). From a customer point of view the delivery of these solutions is IT

Volume 7

Number 3

September 1998

driven and is associated with costs. These are the reasons why the results of these projects are not always satisfactory. In particular, the conventional delivery method and the vendor-customer relation are the subjects of risks. In most situations the business requirements are not uniquely and completely defined at the start of the project. This requires user involvement. However, in this stage users are not familiar with the possibilities of the products. The requirements will # Blackwell Publishers Ltd 1998. 108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF and 350 Main St, Malden, MA 02148, USA.

CREATING A COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE THROUGH QUALITY

be defined on the basis of the current knowledge of users and the current available functional requirements concerning the target business solution. The specification phase will be closed with fixed baseline documents, acceptance criteria, user requirement specification and functional specification, which are based on the requirements of users who are not familiar with the possibilities of the products and who have only rough ideas about the target business process. During subsequent project stages users are not involved in the development process. During these stages ideas concerning the target functionality change and the impact on working methods and business procedures becomes clear. Requirements have to be added, changed or become obsolete. These changes have a major impact on time and costs. Using this approach it is questionable whether the objective of a suitable genuine business solution can be met. Using the waterfall method as a methodology for business solution delivery conflicts with the nature of delivering standard products. Solution delivery projects can be characterised as the implementation, the integration and the customisation of standard products. The realisation of a suitable and genuine solution requires user involvement during the entire project life cycle to guarantee a continuous adjustment process in order to increase user familiarity with the standard product possibilities and facilitate the changing ideas of users concerning the target business functionality. This cannot be gained when at the start of the project all requirements and specifications are fixed.

149

In order to guarantee project success the relation between the customer and HewlettPackard must be based on partnership and a WIN-WIN approach. Using the customer business objectives as a starting point, the solution delivery process has to be set up in such a way that: . The solution aligns to the business objec-

tives. This alignment will be done during the project life cycle by defining Service Level Agreement and related acceptance criteria using an iterative process of implementation, integration and customisation of the solution. . The solution addresses change management issues. . There are no surprises concerning the costs and the time to realise the solution. This asks for alignment of business solution delivery and project delivery to guarantee minimal deviation during development, regular interaction with the user, quick results and acceptance, instant feedback, continuous optimisation and time-boxing to fulfil the objective to deliver a quality solution faster and more suitable to the business demands. Hewlett-Packard's Rapid Solution Delivery (RSD) methodology defines the techniques and tactics to manage these aspects and to minimise risks. Major management aspects of RSD are: partnership, IT alignment to the business requirements, user involvement, iterative delivery, time boxing and implicit acceptance. Implementing business solutions in an organisation also means changing the way of working and changing a part of the structure of the organisation. This effect

Figure 1. Solution delivery standard approach


Volume 7 Number 3

September 1998

150


Figure 2. Solution delivery iterative approach is much broader than just building new technology. Helping the customer to make the right decisions and making use of the creativity of the users will be a good selling point for the delivery of a genuine suitable solution, guarantees customer acceptance and reduces risks. Using an iterative approach in combination with a time-boxing mechanism, activities can be agreed, defined and adjusted just in time. From management perspective this is a continuous process of managing productivity, changes, time, costs and risks. This continuous process consists of PCDA (Plan, Do, Check, Act) iterations. Implementation involves not only the configuration of new products but realisation of an environment that will change the way customer is working. A lot of new procedures have to be implemented; the organisational structure may have to change and the way

people communicate will be different. Before starting a business solution delivery project it is not realistic to expect that: . The customer knows exactly what to

expect from the standard products.

. Hewlett-Packard knows the situation at the

customer's site and completely understands the customer's business. . The customer and Hewlett-Packard know what changes to expect when implementing the business solution. RSD is positioned as a methodology to deliver quality business solutions and to minimise risks for the customer and for Hewlett-Packard. In fact RSD is an application of the TQM improvement cycle: PLAN, DO. CHECK, ACT. This method is perfectly suitable to improve quality, effectiveness and productivity of Hewlett-Packard's business solution delivery process.

Figure 3. Rapid solution delivery, an application of TQM

Volume 7

Number 3

September 1998



An average RSD cycle takes 9 weeks. Compared with the traditional delivery approach this means really quick results. Adjustments can be done in time and costs can be managed adequately. Using RSD in a development and maintenance environment the customer is able to react adequately on market changes and to optimise the business processes by the ability of continuous quality improvement. The features and benefits of the RSD approach are outlined in table 1.

Alignment of Business Solution Delivery and Project Delivery The business solution delivery process is the primary process of the Hewlett-Packard Sales Organisation. The project delivery process assures the quality of the business solution

151

delivery process and is executed by the Project Management Service department. The alignment of the business solution delivery process and the major activities of the project delivery process which are used to manage the quality are given in table 2.

Project Management Services Quality System At a corporate level Hewlett-Packard has developed a quality framework to guide and support organisations' efforts to establish their individual quality systems. It is composed of the following: . Quality policy and guiding principles . Quality strategy . Management's quality responsibilities

Table 1. Features and benefits of the rapid solution delivery methodology RSD Features

RSD Benefits

Strong emphasis on joint gathering of requirements and prioritisation Development takes place closer to and in co-operation with the customer Prototyping

A suitable genuine business solution

Clearly agreed and defined activities Time boxing

Easier customer acceptance Users are able to learn the IT capabilities and have influence Higher productivity Fixed time and costs per cycle

Figure 4. Alignment of business solution delivery and project delivery # Blackwell Publishers Ltd 1998

Volume 7 Number 3

September 1998

152


Table 2. Alignment business solution delivery process and project delivery process Business Solution Delivery Process (the primary process of Hewlett-Packard)

pre-sales suspect phase

prospect phase

Project Delivery Process (the process that assures the quality of the business solution delivery process) pre-sales

. introduce the HP company . introduce the HP solutions

(including technical, organisational and services aspects) . establish a ``relationship'' . get on the distribution list for RFI/RFP's for projects . receive RFI . receive RFP

investigation phase

. investigate explicit and implicit customer . . . . .

requirements, investigate match of the requirements with HP and partner solutions define project objective and scope define project assumptions and pre-conditions perform risk assessment plan the bid effort

go/no-go decision to prepare the proposal .

respond to RFI

.

respond to RFP

solution planning phase

solution proposal phase

. further analyse customer requirements . design solution, select partners . develop (preliminary) project control

document including: ± project organisation ± project activities and schedule ± project resources, both HP and partners ± test- and acceptance criteria . support the creation of the proposal from a project management / risk management point of view: ± review partner proposals ± create partner contracts ± formulate terms and conditions for the main contract ± deliver the PSO-services part of the proposal ± price PSO-services . perform risk assessment . investigate activities to mitigate the main risks and associated costs

go/no-go decision to deliver the proposal .

.

.

present the specific HP solution(s) . get on the short list for this project .

present the specific HP solution(s) get chosen as supplier for this project execute the contract negotiations for this project

selection phase

. present the HP solution from a project

management / quality management point of view

. support the contract negotiation from a project

management / risk management point of view: ± review terms and conditions ± investigate activities to mitigate the main risks and associated costs ± revise the PCD ± revise the ``PSO-services'' pricing

go/no-go decision to sign the contract .

post-sales project delivery phase

Volume 7

Number 3

.

close the contract

deliver the project as contracted

September 1998

post-sales execution phase

. . . . . .

allocate resources assign tasks, responsibilities and authority detail the PCD (design detailed plans) perform project kick-off manage development of components manage in-house testing



implementation phase

. . . . . . . .

.

153

execute activities as planned manage status, progress and risks report in conformity with PCD integrate and co-ordinate all activities of partners manage change manage the test- and acceptance process transfer to the customer's organisation support the support contract negotiations from a project / customer requirements point of view transfer to the support organisation

project acceptance .

account management phase

. .

execute ``support'' of the project

warranty and support phase

Hewlett-Packard's quality framework is intentionally broad to provide the flexibility necessary to support Hewlett-Packard's diverse businesses and to deliver products of the highest quality to our customers in many markets. Hewlett-Packard's quality policies, guiding principles, and quality strategy provide a common direction and approach for quality systems per department. The company-wide quality infrastructure, processes, and programs support a shared implementation of quality methods and technologies.

Project Delivery Quality Framework The Project Management Services (PMS) department is responsible for managing the quality of the business solution delivery process. The PMS quality framework is based on the corporate quality framework and forms the basis for the project delivery process.

Project Delivery Process Quality System Within the PMS individual quality system the project delivery process assures the quality of the business solution process by a structurised continuous improvement approach:


delivery based on lessons learned

. check the first deliveries of support according

to the contract

maintain and expand the ``relationship'' create and explore new opportunities for projects

. Quality system elements . Quality management and review . Company-wide quality support

. project evaluation . perform actions to improve business solution

Plan The definition of the strategic PMS quality focus, the alignment of the Project Quality System with the quality of people and the quality techniques on organisation level, and the planning of the quality improvements are a responsibility of PMS Management. The definition of project quality plans and project quality controls are a responsibility of the Risk & Quality Office.

A broad framework

Do The assurance of the project quality plans and project quality controls are a responsibility of Project Management.

Check The monitoring of the quality and control levels is a responsibility of the business assurance co-ordinator and the technical assurance co-ordinator of the Risk & Quality Office.

Act The measuring of the business and technical integrity and the definition of actions for quality improvement of the business solution delivery process and the project delivery process are the responsibilities of Risk & Quality Management. The measuring of the quality of project management and the definitions of the actions for quality improvement of the people are a responsibility of PMS management.

Volume 7 Number 3

September 1998

154


e

Figure 5. Project management services quality framework

Figure 6. Project management services quality system

Volume 7

Number 3

September 1998



Quality People The Roles, Responsibilities and Results of the Project Manager are described in the 3Rs in terms of key result areas, business fundamental measures, job processes, principal activities and specific skills required. For the different project manager levels the differentiators are defined concerning role, education, knowledge, planning, organisation, management, communication, job impact, decision making and job complexity.

Quality Techniques A single point of reference for all disciplines involved is the Project Quality System. The purpose of the quality system is to ensure that the project maintains its business integrity (management objects like time and costs) and that the project maintains its technical integrity (management objects like acceptance criteria and deliverables. Quality assurance is done using procedures and guidelines for project organisation, controls, reports, plans, solution delivery, tests, standards, contractual and legal aspects. The Project Quality System conforms to the project management methodology of HewlettPackard's project delivery process. The basis components of this process are HewlettPackard's project management methodology

155

Custom Project Life Cycle (CPLC), the ISO9001 procedures and Total Quality Management (TQM). The Delivery Stage of CPLC makes use of PRINCE (PRojects IN Controlled Environment) and Rapid Solution Delivery (RSD).

Continuous Quality Improvement Continuous quality improvement is an essential part of the Project Quality System and is the basis for quality assurance, quality measuring and quality improvement concerning the strategic quality plans, the project quality system in general and the quality of the people involved. The PMS quality system assures a structurised continuous improvement approach at process, people and technique levels:

Plan Project Manager 3Rs (quality people) and TQM, ISO-9001, CPLC, PRINCE, RSD (quality techniques) The Project Quality System contains the strategic quality focus of the PMS department and is based on the standards on organisation level: Project Manager 3Rs, TQM, ISO-9001, CPLC, PRINCE and RSD.

Figure 7: The generic project quality system # Blackwell Publishers Ltd 1998

Volume 7 Number 3

September 1998

156


Figure 8. Methodologies

Figure 9: Continuous quality improvement

Volume 7

Number 3

September 1998



157

Project Definition

Act

During the Planning stage of CPLC the Project Control Document (PCD) is produced. The purpose of the PCD is to provide a single point of reference concerning the management of the project. The PCD contains information in respect of the project quality system, project contents, project anatomy, project organisation, and the project plans.

Curriculum Vitae and Continuous Development Program

Do Controls The project manager assures the business integrity and the technical integrity using the control structure of the PCD: management controls, product controls, risk controls, configuration controls, change controls and user controls.

Using the Project Report and the Evaluation Report the project manager updates his/her personal Curriculum Vitae. Together with PMS Management his/her continuous development program will be updated. Performance Evaluation of Project Manager The curriculum vitae and the continuous development program are used during the performance evaluation of the project manager. PMI Certification The curriculum vitae and the continuous development program are used for PMI certification or certification re-assessment. Actions for Improvement

Project Report The project manager maintains a project report comprising the project background, customer situation, project purpose, project objectives, project conditions, roles, responsibilities, project team, management of the project, conformance to standards, distinct aspects, outcome of the project, analysis of the project, lessons learned and hindsight.

Using the Project Report and the Evaluation Report the actions for improvement concerning the quality techniques will be defined by Risk & Quality Management. PMS Management issues actions for improvement concerning the roles, responsibilities and results of the project manager's job profile. The management council of the Professional Services Organisation decides which improvements will be implemented.

Check Audits

Conclusion

ISO-9001 audits are done by Risk & Quality Management.

Alignment of IT and business requirements are a pre-requisite of corporate success. The system described here, involving specification, negotiation and constant consultation, is an approach, which can assist in achieving such an alignment. Use of a method such as the Project Quality System provides a basis for all involved in the implementation of complex projects to take part in constant dialogue. As experienced project managers know, constant communication helps the ultimate success of the project.

Monitoring The business assurance co-ordinator and the technical assurance co-ordinator of the Risk & Quality Office do the monitoring of the quality and control levels. Project Post Evaluation The Project Report is updated with the results of the project post evaluation (internal HP). Customer Engagement Evaluation Meeting Together with the customer the quality manager of the Professional Services Organisation evaluates the quality of the project. The results of this evaluation are described in the Evaluation Report.


List of abbreviations used in this article CPLC ISO IT PCD

Custom Project Life Cycle International Standardisation Organisation Information Technology Project Control Document

Volume 7 Number 3

September 1998

158


PCDA PMI PMS PRINCE PSO RFI RFP RSD TQM

Volume 7

Number 3

Plan Do Check, Act Project Management Initiative Project Management Services Projects IN Controlled Environment Professional Services Organisation Request for Information Request for proposal Rapid Solution Development Total Quality Management

September 1998

This article was written before the organisational change, by July 1, 1998, from HewlettPackard's Professional Services Organisation (PSO) to HP Consulting. Cees Meulenbroeks is Practice Manager, Project Services, Hewlett Packard Nederland B.V.


CAPITALIZING ON CAREABOUTS TO FACILITATE CREATIVITY

159

Capitalizing on Careabouts to Facilitate Creativity Sue P. Stafford Low-level knowledge work is work that requires some, but not a great deal, of knowledge to perform. This work sustains the operations of all of our major businesses. As we transform to a knowledge society, it will become increasingly important that this work be performed creatively. Amabile's well-researched framework for understanding creative action suggests that reward strategies will be successful if knowledge workers are intrinsically motivated, but low-level knowledge work more often than not attracts those who lack intrinsic motivation. As a result, the likelihood of creative action for this group of workers is low. How can ``garden variety'' creative action be facilitated when knowledge workers lack intrinsic motivation? I introduce the notion of ``careabouts,'' and suggest ways of linking personal careabouts to incorporate objectives. This linkage provides the hook that can hoist these lowlevel knowledge workers into creative knowledge work in the knowledge society.

I

nnovate or perish This is the message delivered increasingly by business leaders. Innovation is critical for competitive advantage and creativity is essential to successful innovation. But why? Why is innovation, and the human creativity that underlies it, becoming so important? The answer lies in the transformation that is taking place throughout our society. In the words of Peter Drucker, we are transforming to a knowledge society, a society in which knowledge will be the primary personal and economic resource, and the creative application of knowledge will be the only way to complete effectively.1 We have implemented total quality management, re-engineered our operations, and down-sized with a vengeance. We have used technology to automate functions wherever possible. We are lean and mean, poised to compete in the new, global knowledge economy. In the new economy, what is truly valuable is the ability to use knowledge effectively and creatively. Those who do this have been called knowledge workers; their knowledge adds value to most products and services in the form of product design, marketing presentation, customer knowledge, individual creativity, and the ability to identify, solve and broker problems. To compete in the knowledge society, managers must encourage the pursuit of creative options in all areas, # Blackwell Publishers Ltd 1998. 108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF and 350 Main St, Malden, MA 02148, USA.

from the most majestic and visible to the most mundane and invisible. Natural resources, labor, and capital, long considered to be the only meaningful resources, are becoming secondary; ``they can be obtained, and obtained easily, only if there is knowledge.'' 2 But what is it, exactly, that we're after when we heed the call to identify, develop and direct creative talent? Most discussions of creativity and innovation focus on dramatic ``break-through'' ideas and accomplishments ± the ingenious conception of Amazon.com. and the inventive development of Post-its. Just as important, however, are what Teresa Amabile has called ``garden variety'' creative actions.3 Garden variety creative actions are performed daily by millions of knowledge workers. Consider the following example. Jennifer Pardie is an underwriter for group disability insurance at a major U.S. insurance company, Coverco.4 Her job is to underwrite renewal policies for corporations which may have multiple divisions, multiple occupations, and multiple classes of insured individuals. The corporations Jennifer underwrites are relatively large, and each of the covered lives differs in terms of the risk they pose to Coverco. To assess that risk, Jennifer must compare the characteristics of the current group with the characteristics of the group in past years. Have the demographics changed, and if so, how? Are there other

Knowledge is paramount

Volume 7 Number 3

September 1998

160


Garden variety creativity

Volume 7

Number 3

significant changes in the operations of the company or the industry? Will last year's premium cover the current risk? Jennifer was faced with a customer, a mid-sized software developer, whose employee population had changed in significant ways. To stay within Coverco's corporate guidelines, a radical increase in premium would be required. Jennifer realized that if she raised the premium substantially, the customer would go elsewhere for insurance. She also knew that she was under increasing pressure from Coverco to retain customers as well as to control risk. A less motivated employee might have simply raised the premium, justified the action by referring to corporate guidelines, and lost the customer. Jennifer, however, used her knowledge creatively. Through careful and clever changes to the benefit plan, she was able to devise a new benefit plan, one that provided fewer benefits but required only slightly higher premium than the customer had been paying. She then contacted the customer and explained the plan changes and the reasons for them. After several timeconsuming go-arounds, she was able to convince the customer of the value of the new plan. She retained the customer without exposing Coverco to increased risk. If you were to ask Jennifer about her work, she would tell you that she ``gets a kick'' out of figuring out how to juggle benefits and premium in a way that meets the needs of both the customer and Coverco. `Ìt takes a lot of work, and you really have to stick with the whole thing and work it through ± but in the end it's really satisfying!'' This is garden variety creativity in action. Creative knowledge work of this sort is rarely singled out for praise, but without it, most of our business enterprises would slowly degenerate and ultimately grind to a financial halt. It makes sense, then, to consider how we might design strategies for appraising, rewarding and facilitating this sort of creative action. The remarks that follow will rely heavily on Amabile's well-researched theoretical framework for understanding creativity. Amabile contends that intrinsic motivation is essential for creative action.5 With this as a foundation, I will consider three increasingly difficult scenarios: one where intrinsic motivation is high, one where intrinsic motivation is low, and one where intrinsic motivation is lacking altogether. Amabile's research indicates that creative action, whether of the break-through or garden variety, can be enhanced by extrinsic motivators such as monetary reward, if the intrinsic motivation of the worker is high. There is a motivational

September 1998

synergy between the intrinsic motivation and the extrinsic reward. When intrinsic motivation is low, however, extrinsic motivators such as monetary reward can actually decrease creativity.6 What can be done, then, to facilitate creativity in these knowledge workers? More difficult still, what can be done to facilitate creative action when intrinsic motivation is lacking altogether? In Section 1 I will look in more detail at Jennifer Pardie's garden variety creative action, pointing out significant features as I do so. Then in Section 2 I will briefly review Amabile's research, which suggests how creative actions can be stimulated through reward strategies. Again, my interest will be in garden variety creative actions. Section 3 focuses on one all-too-common occurrence ± the lack of intrinsic motivation. When knowledge workers lack intrinsic motivation, the likelihood of even garden variety creative action is severely diminished, if not eliminated. As a result, reward strategies become ineffective as well. In Section 4 I introduce the notion of ``personal careabouts,'' and will suggest ways of linking personal careabouts, domain-relevant knowledge and skills, and creativity-relevant processes so that reward strategies can be efficacious when intrinsic motivation is lacking.

Section 1: Garden Variety Creative Action Jennifer Pardie's crafting of a new benefits plan is an example of the sort of garden variety creative action I have in mind. Jennifer's action exhibits all of the major features that researchers have identified as necessary for creativity: . Crafting a new benefits plan is both novel and

useful in the domain of insurance underwriting.

Jennifer's action is (or would be) judged as novel and useful by those knowledgeable in disability insurance underwriting. Creative products and actions must be distinguished from the merely different. Merely different products or actions might be considered unwise, evil, or simply irrelevant to our purposes, but by calling a product or an action creative we place a positive value on it. But who are ``we''? Which products or actions are considered creative depends upon who is judging them. As Howard Gardner puts it, ``No person, act or product is creative or noncreative in itself. Judgments of creativity are inherently communal, relying heavily on individuals expert within a domain.'' 7 This is an important point



because it makes the ascription of creativity ultimately subjective, a matter of consensus, and domain specific.8 What counts as creativity depends on who is judging, and how the judgment is being made. . Crafting a new benefits plan is a task that is

open-ended.

In most workplaces, considerable effort has gone into developing procedures which apply as widely as possible. Tasks for which there are explicit procedures can be considered algorithmic; there is a clear, predetermined path to a predetermined result. However, when the task is open-ended and has no set procedure or path to a solution, creativity is required. Amabile calls these tasks heuristic;9 the task of crafting a new benefits plan is a heuristic task. So, for example, in some circumstances an underwriter might adjust the premium on a group disability policy according to strict company procedures or policy. More often, however, there are no strict procedures for assigning premium; at most there are guidelines. In this situation, an action such as Jennifer Pardie's crafting of a new benefits plan can be considered creative because she has developed her own ``path to a solution.'' Note that whether a task is considered algorithmic or open-ended depends upon the knowledge of the individual performing the action. Even if there are strict procedures for assigning premium, if Jennifer doesn't know them she will have no choice but to creatively apply whatever knowledge she has. . Crafting a new benefits plan requires specific

domain-relevant knowledge and skills.

This includes factual knowledge and technical skills.10 Jennifer must have knowledge of her company's plans and policies, knowledge of the population of individuals covered by the plan, and general medical knowledge. She also must have knowledge of procedures for reviewing the history of claims, calculating premium executing the actual renewal, and communicating with the customer. . Crafting a new benefits plan requires mastery

of creativity-related processes.

According to Amabile, these processes include `à facility in understanding complexities and an ability to break set during problem solving.'' 11 Also included are knowledge of heuristics for generating novel ideas. For Jennifer, these heuristics might include knowing how to synthesize a diverse set of information into a meaningful whole and an ability to ``paint a picture'' of the group whose plan she is renewing.


161

. Crafting a new benefits plan requires intrinsic

motivation.

Intrinsic motivation is ``motivation that arises from the individual's positive reaction to qualities of the task itself; this reaction can be experienced as interest, involvement, curiosity, satisfaction, or positive challenge.'' 12 Intrinsic motivation is contrasted to extrinsic motivation, which arises from sources outside of the task itself, such as contracted-for reward. The fact that Jennifer is intrinsically motivated is demonstrated by the fact that she invests a significant amount of time, pursues the renewal through several go-arounds with the customer, and enjoys a feeling of satisfaction at having crafted a renewal plan that meets both Coverco's requirements and the customer's needs. A less motivated and less creative underwriter would simply have followed the corporate guidelines and raised the premium; the likely outcome of that action would be the loss of the customer. According to Amabile, intrinsic motivation is essential to creativity;13 other researchers echo this thought.14 . Crafting a new benefits plan lies along a

continuum of creativity.

Products and actions can be more or less creative; it isn't a matter of `èither creative or noncreative.'' So, for example, we might agree that the invention of Post-its is more creative than the crafting of a new disability benefits plan, yet both are the sort of actions we want to facilitate. Creativity encompasses both garden-variety products and actions and the more significant break-throughs.15 Jennifer's creative action may be garden variety, but it, and a multitude of actions like it, propel our corporations forward in the knowledge society. Garden variety creative actions can be found at the foundation of each and every business enterprise. Successful corporations rely on the millions of knowledge workers who perform these actions every day to perform them well, and that means performing them creatively. The question for us is, how do we insure that the job is done well?

Section 2: Rewarding Garden Variety Creative Action As we transform to a knowledge society, it is becoming increasingly important for knowledge work at all levels to be consistently creative. We have seen that domain-relevant knowledge and skills and creativity-relevant processes are essential for garden variety

Volume 7 Number 3

September 1998

162


Motivational synergy

Volume 7

Number 3

creativity. Most major corporations have already begun to develop knowledge management functions geared at cultivating knowledge in employees, and have begun gathering and storing knowledge in corporate knowledge bases so that it can be widely shared. Both Skandia Assurance and Finance Services (AFS), headquartered in Stockholm, and the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC) have developed ways of measuring their intellectual capital.16 There are also efforts underway to understand and make explicit the tacit creativity-relevant processes that are required to understand and make explicit the tacit creativity-relevant processes that are required for specific knowledge work. Nonaka and Takeuchi have described many of these endeavors in their book, The Knowledge Creating Company. So far, so good. But what about intrinsic motivation, which is claimed to be essential to creativity? Amabile's research suggests that intrinsic motivation can be thought of as a general, pervasive orientation toward one's work or activities; it also is subject to influence from the immediate social environment.17 Thus a knowledge worker who enjoys the challenge of difficult problems will be intrinsically motivated to solve them. It has been established that rewards can lead to improvements on algorithmic tasks,18 but can creative action be encouraged and enhanced by providing rewards? Rewards, such as money or promise of promotion act as extrinsic motivators. As such, they lie outside of the task itself. Interestingly, research suggests that the effect of reward on creativity depends upon both the nature of the reward and the salience of intrinsic motivation. The effect of reward will be negative when the reward itself is the most salient feature of the situation and when it is perceived as controlling or constraining.19 Suppose that Jennifer Pardie's intrinsic motivation to underwrite creatively is relatively weak, and her employer has established a competition among the underwriters in Jennifer's department. Underwriters will be given monetary rewards based on the creativity they exhibit in their underwriting. The number of rewards is limited, and creativity will be judged by a panel of underwriting supervisors. In this situation, Jennifer's creativity will be negatively affected. As Amabile puts it, many extrinsic factors appear to undermine creativity, among them ``win-lose competition within an organization, expected negative evaluation of one's ideas, a concern with rewards, and constraint on how the work is done.'' 20 The mechanism at work appears to be the influence of extrinsic factors on

September 1998

intrinsic motivation. The effect of the extrinsic factor, the reward, is to reduce the strength of Jennifer's already weak intrinsic motivation, thereby reducing her creativity. However, the effect of reward will be positive if the reward is seen as informational or enabling, and if intrinsic motivation is high. That is, a reward that confirms competence without connoting control, or that enables the individual to do exciting work can have a positive effect on creativity. The mechanism at work is what Amabile has called ``the motivational synergy,'' or `èxtrinsics in the service of intrinsics.'' 21 Suppose that Jennifer's intrinsic motivation is high, and that her employer has instituted a system of creativity evaluation and reward. Periodically, Jennifer's underwriting performance will be evaluated for creativity, and her supervisor will discuss the results of the evaluation in detail with her. together they will devise a plan to effect continuous improvement in Jennifer's creativity; the plan might include specific training to develop mechanisms for considering new ideas and approaches. Jennifer will be given monetary rewards and promotions as she improves. Because the reward in this situation supports Jennifer's sense of competence, and enables her to do more interesting and exciting work, Jennifer's creativity will increase. Thus it appears that reward strategies designed with care can have a positive impact on the creative performance of knowledge work, even when the creativity sought is of the less impressive garden variety. Amabile sums this up in the Intrinsic Motivation Principle of Creativity: Intrinsic motivation is conducive to creativity; controlling extrinsic motivation is detrimental to creativity, but informational or enabling extrinsic motivation can be conducive, particularly if initial levels of intrinsic motivation are high.22

Section 3: When Intrinsic Motivation is Lacking The research results on the synergy between intrinsic motivation and extrinsic factors is encouraging, at least in cases where intrinsic motivation is strong. However, I would like to draw attention to a situation which is prevalent in what might be called ``low-level'' knowledge work. By low-level knowledge work I mean work that requires some degree (but not a large degree) of domain knowledge and creativity-relevant processes, and where only garden variety creativity is called for. In



the insurance industry, easy cases of underwriting, claims adjudication, and bond analysis typify this level of knowledge work, and there are analogues in all sectors of business. because low-level knowledge work is relatively undemanding, it is also relatively less interesting than more complex knowledge work. Thus it is not surprising that those who are hired to perform this work tend to lack intrinsic interest in the work itself. As one underwriter confided to me, ``no one goes to college aspiring to be an underwriter!'' Consider the following situation. At a major insurance company (again, we'll call it Coverco), bond analysts underwrite bonds. These knowledge workers are college educated and have attended a company-sponsored ``Bond School.'' They are supported by Customer Service Representatives (CSRs), who are high school graduates with perhaps a little college education. CSRs have not been to Bond School. The majority of CSR time is spent on what they call ``processing'' ± paperwork involving typing, mailing, renewing, and billing, and responding to phone calls regarding the status of bond submissions. The work of CSR's is primarily algorithmic, although there are some opportunities for garden variety creativity in responding to phone calls and recognizing problems in billing. Coverco was facing productivity problems, and wanted the CSRs to become low-level knowledge workers, taking on some responsibility for underwriting. This would free the analysts to become more involved in sales and marketing. A knowledge analysis of the Bond unit was performed to facilitate an understanding of the knowledge required for underwriting, as well as the knowledge gap between the CSRs and the analysts. How much knowledge is required for underwriting? What would it take for CSRs to acquire that knowledge?23 Could the current CSRs become knowledge workers? Was the envisioned transition realistic? Coverco initiated an extensive series of interviews to determine the answers to these questions. CSRs were given training in basic underwriting procedures, were paired with analyst mentors, promoted to a higher status, and given moderate raises. The results were disappointing. An increase in errors and a decrease in new business resulted. What had happened? A series of interviews revealed the following. (1) CSRs lacked intrinsic motivation. In fact, across the board they showed a lack of interest in the challenge presented by underwriting, as well as a general lack of interest in problem-solving of any sort.24 As one CSR


163

put it, `Ì don't care if I do processing for the rest of my life . . . I like it . . . but I still want to be a higher title.'' While this CSR was interested in the patina of advancement, she was content to follow the algorithms for processing, and took the same approach to the underwriting assigned to her. (2) There were two fairly distinct groups of CSRs ± those who cared about progressing along a career path and those who cared little for advancement. I shall coin the term ``careabout'' to refer to the personal motivations of these workers. This will allow us to keep a clear distinction between intrinsic motivation specifically linked to underwriting tasks and the more personal motivations that each of us brings to the workplace. As we look at the Board Unit in some detail, we will see the power of personal careabouts, just as we saw the power of intrinsic motivation. As Ulrich puts it, ``People working hard must be rewarded personally.'' 25 Careabouts can give an indication of what counts as personal reward. Among the group that cared about career advancement, one CSR commented that ``You have to have the desire to want to learn more and if you have that, really you can do it.'' Another was taking a writing course at night ``so I will know how to speak; and I can do fine over the phone with an agent explaining things but not so well in writing.'' A third remarked that `Ìnformation does not filter to CSRs consistently . . . I keep my ears open so I know what's going on.'' Contrast this group with the other group of CSRs who expressed a quite different set of careabouts. One CSR confided that `Ì'm just here for the money; you know, just a little extra so I can buy things for myself.'' Another disclosed being content to work in ignorance of the meaning of the work being done. `Ì mean, when I was processing, I would sit and type a 20 page submission for these guys, and I loved it . . . I'd just keep going and going . . . but I didn't understand a word of it.'' This group of CSRs is content performing algorithmic work which requires a minimum of knowledge. Although clearly capable of taking on underwriting responsibilities, one CSR remarks that `ìf we did . . . a lot of the underwriting, then we wouldn't be able to process, and then that would, so, . . . you know, I enjoy processing a lot more to be honest.'' Another added, `ìt's really the companionship in our little group that brings me in here.'' This situation is repeated in low-level knowledge work throughout our corporations. Low-level knowledge workers lack

Performing a knowledge analysis

Volume 7 Number 3

September 1998

164


intrinsic motivation, one of the necessary conditions for creativity. The tasks they have been hired to perform are relatively simple, yet their successful performance requires that knowledge be creatively applied (garden variety). Because these workers lack intrinsic motivation, reward strategies that have been demonstrated to have a positive impact on creativity in the performance of knowledge work will likely not be effective with them. Thus we must devise alternative strategies if we are to successfully promote garden variety creative action in these workers.

Linking careabout and knowledge

Section 4: Aligning Personal Careabouts and Corporate Objectives

Figure 1 Figure 1 illustrates the situation. Group A and B knowledge workers are intrinsically motivated, so we can expect that reward strategies which are seen as informational or enabling will be effective with them. Group C and D, however, lack intrinsic motivation. Perhaps we can design reward strategies that tap into their personal careabouts, and promote creativity indirectly. How might this work? Group C coincides with our first group of CSRs. These workers lack intrinsic motivation, but care about advancement. Indeed, as far as work is concerned, advancement is their primary careabout. I suggest that this careabout may be used as a link to the domain-relevant knowledge and skills and the creativity-relevant processes required for proficient underwriting, and that the process will eventually generate intrinsic motivation. Here is how it could work. We know that Coverco cares about promoting the creative application of knowledge, and that Group C cares about advancement. Suppose that Coverco provides (1) high-level encourage-

Volume 7

Number 3

September 1998

ment of garden variety creativity in underwriting, as well as (2) recognition and reward for creative performance. The reward in this case will be career advancement of some sort (perhaps just a title change will be enough). In addition, in order to assist CSRs in attaining the reward, suppose that (3) Coverco introduces a series of training initiatives and mentor relationships designed to give CSRs the domain-relevant knowledge and skills and the creativity-relevant processes required for proficient underwriting. Indeed, this is what we would expect of a well-conceived knowledge management function.26 What might we expect to happen as a result of these three initiatives? Once a link has been established between the primary careabout (advancement) and the domain-relevant knowledge and skills and the creativity-relevant processes required for proficient underwriting, we can anticipate an `àlgorithmic'' application of the knowledge, skills and processes. This in itself may be an improvement, but it doesn't yet qualify as even garden variety creativity because intrinsic motivation is missing. Indeed, if we take Amabile's research results at face value, it may appear that no further improvement can be expected from Group C. I think, however, that there is reason to be more optimistic. Consider the following three points. First, as CSRs algorithmically apply their newly-acquired knowledge and creativity-relevant skills, they will be performing a task directly matched to their primary careabout ± career advancement. As Hamel might put it, they will be emotionally invested and can expect a return on that investment that is valuable to them. `Ìndividuals will not invest emotionally in a firm and its success unless they believe they will get a return on that investment.'' 27 I would add that the return must be one that they personally care about. Second, they will have been made aware of the urgency and importance of their work to Coverco, and are at least performing at a preliminary level of creativity (what I have called algorithmic creativity). Thus their work is also matched to Coverco's primary objective ± creative action. Personal careabouts and corporate objectives are now aligned. Third, the circumstances just described exhibit positive influences which can be expected to have a direct impact on intrinsic motivation. Following Amabile, I divide these influences into two categories: general influences which operate on creative action generally, and organizational influences which operate primarily on individuals who work in organizational settings.28



General Positive Influences Task matched to interests Importance/urgency of the work

Organizational Positive Influences Mechanisms for considering new ideas High level encouragement Immediate supervisor encouragement

One might argue that because intrinsic motivation is missing in Group C, there is nothing for these positive influences to operate on. Perhaps, but I would like to paint a different picture and suggest three contrary possibilities. (1) Research suggests that those who engage in prior creative tasks show enhanced intrinsic motivation for subsequent tasks.29 The CSRs in Group C are engaged in what we might call `àlgorithmic creative tasks'' when they apply their newly acquired domainrelevant knowledge and skills and creativity-relevant processes to their underwriting tasks. It is possible that those who engage in prior `àlgorithmic creative tasks'' will generate an intrinsic motivation for performing the task. (2) Research also suggests that extrinsic factors that support one's sense of competence or enable one's deeper involvement in the task itself, without undermining one's sense of self-determination, will positively add to intrinsic motivation.30 The positive influences noted above are such synergistic extrinsic motivators. Such factors might generate intrinsic motivation. Indeed, Amabile suggests the possibility that work environments can change one's motivational ``traits.'' 31 (3) And finally, perhaps it is fair to assume that Group C would find low-level knowledge work at least marginally interesting, and thus would have at least a minimal trace of intrinsic motivation to build on. Or, perhaps we can agree with Amabile when she allows that `àll people with normal capacities can be creative.'' 32 The suggestion, then, is to design reward strategies for Group C around their primary personal careabout ± career advancement. Using this careabout as a hook, and linking it to the corporate objective of creative action, an alignment of careabouts and corporate objectives is achieved. The positive influences of well-designed knowledge management approaches will accomplish the rest. This scenario rests on what might be called the Careabout Principle of Intrinsic Motivation Generation:


165

When activities are undertaken to fulfill personal careabouts, intrinsic motivation to engage in those activities will be generated. But what about Group D? Here, the challenge is more difficult. Lacking intrinsic motivation, this group also explicitly prefers performing algorithmic tasks. In addition, their personal careabouts revolve around companionship and protecting themselves from high-level demands. What would reward strategies designed around these careabouts look like? Monetary reward isn't likely to be effective, but what about rewards such as flexible break times during the day, or a place to meet informally over lunch? Suppose these rewards were substituted for career advancement in the Group C reward strategy. I admit to being more skeptical concerning Group D than Group C. It may be that training initiatives will be ineffective with this group; there seems to be a direct conflict between the careabouts of Group D and the performance of knowledge work of any sort. Perhaps the fate of Group D is to be part of the inevitable ``downsizing'' that will occur as we transform to a knowledge society. Algorithmic jobs will increasingly be performed by intelligent machines and successful knowledge work will increasing require creativity. Those who cannot perform will be let go. We shouldn't accept this ``solution'' too quickly, however. If Group D walks out the door of Coverco as a result of downsizing, they take with them a lot of knowledge ± at the very least, knowledge of how to get the processing done. It may be relatively low-level knowledge, but it is knowledge nonetheless, and a valuable asset in our knowledge economy. How much will it cost Coverco to rebuild that knowledge? Amabile relates the results of a downsizing at a high-tech electronics company. While both creativity and productivity declined during the downsizing, only productivity had rebounded significantly by four months after the downsizing.33 The reason may very well be that the workers who left took essential knowledge with them. Not only is it expensive to rebuild that foundational knowledge base ± it may be impossible. Low-level knowledge is most often tacit, gained over years of experience, and little recognized or valued. It is only when the knowledge is removed that this becomes apparent.

Assets in a knowledge economy

Conclusion Low-level knowledge work sustains the operations of all of our major businesses. As

Volume 7 Number 3

September 1998

166


we transform to a knowledge society, it will become increasingly important that this work be performed creatively. There is good evidence that reward strategies will be successful if knowledge workers are intrinsically motivated, but low-level knowledge work more often than not attracts those who lack intrinsic motivation. As a result, the likelihood of creative action for this group of workers is low and we must work hard to design reward strategies that will be effective. Low-level knowledge workers may not be intrinsically motivated to perform their work, but they do care about something. If their personal careabouts are identified and aligned with corporate objectives, this may provide the hook that will hoist these workers into creative knowledge work in the knowledge society.

Notes 1. Drucker, P.F. (1994) `The Age of Social Transformation', The Atlantic Monthly, November, pp. 53±78. 2. Drucker, P.F. (1993) Post-Capitalist Society, HarperCollins, New York, USA, p. 42. 3. Amabile, T.M. (1996) Creativity in Context, Westview Press, Boulder, USA, p. 38. 4. This example, and others in the paper, are drawn from knowledge engineering and knowledge management work in which I have been involved as a consultant. Because the projects were of a strategic nature, the identity of the institutions and individuals is confidential. I have woven real knowledge workers and knowledge work environments together into realistic, representative characterizations which will serve as reference points for the discussion which follows. 5. Amabile, T.M. (1996) Creativity in Context, Westview Press, Boulder, USA, p. 202. 6. Amabile, T.M. (1996) Creativity in Context, Westview Press, Boulder, USA, p. 118. 7. Gardner, H. (1994) `The Creator's Patterns.' In M.A. Boden (ed.) Dimensions of Creativity, The MIT Press, Cambridge, USA, p. 145. 8. Amabile, T.M. (1983) `The Social Psychology of Creativity: A Componential Conceptualization', Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol. 45(2), p. 359. 9. Amabile, T.M. (1996) Creativity in Context, Westview Press, Boulder, USA, pp. 35±37. 10. Amabile, T.M. (1996) Creativity in Context, Westview Press, Boulder, USA, p. 83. 11. Amabile, T.M. (1996) Creativity in Context, Westview Press, Boulder, USA, p. 88. 12. Amabile, T.M. (1996) Creativity in Context, Westview Press, Boulder, USA, p. 115. 13. Amabile, T.M. (1996) Creativity in Context, Westview Press, Boulder, USA, p. 202. 14. Sternberg, R.J. and Lubart, T.I. (1991) Àn Investment Theory of Creativity and Its Development', Human Development, Vol. 34, p. 15.

Volume 7

Number 3

September 1998

15. Amabile, T.M. (1996) Creativity in Context, Westview Press, Boulder, USA, p. 39. 16. Edvisson, L. and Malone, M.S. (1997) Intellectual Capital, Harper Business, New York, USA; Stewart, T.A. (1994) `Your Company's Most Valuable Asset: Intellectual Capital', Fortune, October, pp. 68±74. 17. Amabile, T.M. (1996) Creativity in Context, Westview Press, Boulder, USA, p. 116. 18. Amabile, T.M. (1996) Creativity in Context, Westview Press, Boulder, USA, p. 172. 19. Amabile, T.M. (1996) Creativity in Context, Westview Press, Boulder, USA, p. 175. 20. Amabile, T.M. (1996) Creativity in Context, Westview Press, Boulder, USA, p. 117. 21. Amabile, T.M. (1996) Creativity in Context, Westview Press, Boulder, USA, p. 118. 22. Amabile, T.M. (1996) Creativity in Context, Westview Press, Boulder, USA, p. 119. 23. While Coverco has automated knowledge functions in some areas, automated bond underwriting was not an option. 24. Perhaps it should be added that the tasks included in their job description were not particularly interesting, requiring as they did a very low level of domain knowledge and creativity-relevant processes. 25. Ulrich, D. (1998) Ìntellectual Capital = Competence X Commitment', Sloan Management Review, Winter, p. 23. 26. Davenport, T.H., DeLong, D.W., and Beers, M.C. (1998) `Knowledge Management Projects', Sloan Management Review, Winter, pp. 43±57. 27. Hamel, G. (1998) `Strategy Innovation and the Quest for Value', Sloan Management Review, Winter, p. 13. 28. Amabile, T.M. (1996) Creativity in Context, Westview Press, Boulder, USA, p. 120. 29. Amabile, T.M. (1996) Creativity in Context, Westview Press, Boulder, USA, p. 238. 30. Amabile, T.M. (1996) Creativity in Context, Westview Press, Boulder, USA, p. 259. 31. Amabile, T.M. (1993) `Motivational Synergy: Toward New Conceptualizations of Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation in the Workplace,' Human Resource Management Review, Vol. 3(3), p. 191. 32. Wetlaufer, S. (1997) `What's Stifling the Creativity at Coolburst?' Harvard Business Review, September±October, p. 46. 33. Amabile, T.M. (1996) Creativity in Context, Westview Press, Boulder, USA, p. 235.

References Amabile, T.M. (1983) `The Social Psychology of Creativity: A Componential Conceptualization', Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol. 45(2), pp. 357±376/ Amabile, T.M. (1993) `Motivational Synergy: Toward New Conceptualizaitons of Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation in the Workplace,' Human Resource Management Review, Vol. 3(3), pp. 185±201.



Amabile, T.M. (1996) Creativity in Context, Westview Press, Boulder. Davenport, T.H., DeLong, D.W., and Beers, M.C. (1998) `Knowledge Management Projects', Sloan Management Review, Winter, pp. 43±57. Drucker, P.F. (1993) Post-Capitalist Society, HarperCollins, New York, USA. Drucker, P.F. (1994) `The Age of Social Transformation', The Atlantic Monthly, November, pp. 53±78. Edvisson, L. and Malone, M.S. (1997) Intellectual Capital. Harper Business, New York, USA. Gardner, H. (1994) `The Creator's Patterns.' In M.A. Boden (ed.) Dimensions of Creativity, The MIT Press, Cambridge, USA. Hamel, G. (1998) `Strategic Innovation and the Quest for Value', Sloan Management Review, Winter, pp. 7±14. Sternberg, R.J. and Lubart, T.I. (1991) Àn investment Theory of Creativity and Its Development', Human Development, Vol. 34, pp. 1±31.


167

Stewart, T.A. (1994) `Your Company's Most Valuable Asset: Intellectual Capital', Fortune, October, pp. 68±74. Ulrich, D. (1998) Ìntellectual Capital = Competence X Commitment', Sloan Management Review, Winter, pp. 15±26. Wetlaufer, S. (1997) `What's Stifling the Creativity at Coolburst?' Harvard Business Review, September±October, pp. 36±51.

Sue Stafford is Associate Professor at the Department of Philosophy, Simmons College, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

Volume 7 Number 3

September 1998

168


Book of the Quarter Reviewed by Tudor Rickards Lewis M. Branscomb and James Keller, eds, (1998) Investing in innovation: Creating a research and innovation policy that works, MIT Press, Cambridge Mass., London, UK, ISBN 0 262 02446-2, 516pp, general index, £29.50 cloth.

T

Basic dilemmas remain

Volume 7

Number 3

he book emerges from the deliberations of a high profile group of American academics. Commissioned by the Clinton administration, the group entered the politically hot debate on free market economics and government intervention to support economic growth. The report was issued in 1997, and the book is an extended version of the report. The US Government invests some seventy five billion dollars each year in research and development (R&D), a sum, which indicates the level of the stakes being played for. The Clinton administration chose to put technology policy òn the front burner', with a range of new and repackaged programmes of which the Advanced Technology Program was perhaps the most controversial, as it funded firms without regard to targeted technologies of high political and/or military interest. When the Republicans gained a majority in the 104th Congress in 1994 a wave of opposition built up. The programmes were seen as attempts to divert military spending to wasteful social programmes, thereby reducing opportunities for tax reductions and budget balancing. At the time of publication of the book, there remains a need for a broad consensual view on technology policy. The book is made up of a series of individual contributions from academic authors writing for a wider audience of economists, policy makers and theorists. We learn of the various initiatives, each analysed in terms of scope, achievements and limitations. Additionally there are contributions addressing the policy issues, and a wealth of historical information of policy efforts to stimulate growth through innovation. There seems to have been some light editing for coherence, although most of the contributions are stand-alone. Readers interested in innovation policy will find much that instructs and sometimes entertains. We

September 1998

are spared the simplistic claims, as the contributors address the long-standing issues surrounding the study of innovation. Infrastructure and technology may have changed, but basic dilemmas remain. In an overview chapter, Branscomb and Florida suggest that the United States in common with countries such as France and Britain followed a policy of supporting `pure' or basic research together with missionoriented research through research agencies. The approach is based on two long-running assumptions behind in innovation policy since World War 2. The first assumption is that social returns arise from scientific discoveries that are sequentially converted into products (they call this the pipeline model; innovation writers have referred to it as the linear and technology push model). The second assumption is that of spin-off: Governmental mission-oriented work has cost-free added values through secondary processes. This is the notion that has ironically been described as sponsoring space exploration in order to get non-stick frying pans as the bestknown spin-off. Both the assumptions have fallen into some disrepute, and other national policies follow different premises. Germany and Sweden, for example, tend to apply a more diffusionoriented policy through which selected technologies are given every opportunity to diffuse widely through industry sectors. The authors point to the great pragmatic advantage of the pipeline policy. It avoids the kind of hostility from important stakeholders that might lead to its abandonment. It appeases the industrial and political forces suspicious of industrial interventions, and the scientific community's distaste for centrally directed research. For scientists, the notions of scientific research and exploratory discovery are strongly conflated. Most scientists feel that # Blackwell Publishers Ltd 1998. 108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF and 350 Main St, Malden, MA 02148, USA.

BOOK OF THE QUARTER

strong pre-set goals and procedural contracts are likely to inhibit such activities. The Clinton-Gore administration proposed a shift in policy away from the spin-off model. Even if it had credibility in earlier times, the new patterns of innovation add to the calls for a rethinking of change processes. These changes are well known. Globalization, international alliances, increasingly distributed technologies all are playing their part. R&D budgets, far from expanding, are coming increasingly under scrutiny. R&D was one of the last bastions to resist efforts at `lean production' and efficiency savings through modern management methods from manufacturing plants. Even R&D, however, has begun a disturbing decline, and focus on problem-solving rather than longer- exploratory work.1 It may well be that term a view is emerging of science and aspects of technology that can not be captured by sponsors. In other words research has become àn international public good' Borrus and Stowsky address this issue with some trenchancy. They see America preaches the rhetoric of free enterprise, while engaging in a policy of intervention to support technological innovation particularly in the aeronautics, electronics, and biotechnology sectors. Fortunately, they cheerfully conclude, the practice as opposed to the rhetoric has brought great technological and economic benefits: Èssentially all economists agree that economic growth is the key to doing better over the long term, but they can neither explain why productivity growth has slowed in the United States, nor what to do to make it grow faster. Most would agree that the answer lies in some combination [of investment in capital, people, and technical progress]. Of these variables, better technology is usually deemed the most significant' (p. 41). They cite evidence that technology rather than capital and labour inputs may account for between 25% to as much as 50% of US growth over half a century. There is additional evidence that the firms investing in R&D do make substantial excess contributions to private and public wealth. Yet, to confuse the story even further, politicians are not well informed on the fine-detail of jobs generated versus jobs displaced through technological change, particularly when time lags are taken into account. These authors have some sympathy for policy makers confused over the arguments for and against àn aggressive technology policy'. They point to the long-term successes of the country's publicly funded agricultural research that has revolutionised farming over a century of


169

sustained innovation. Long before NASA, public support in the 1920s from its predecessor, NACA (National Advisory Council on Aeronautics led to the modern commercial airliner. Their analysis of these success stories, and the well-known failures such as the development of a supersonic transport plane,2 suggests the vital importance of keeping sensitivity to the likely market diffusion of the innovation. Other chapters cover an impressive range of initiatives and themes. I was particularly interested in a chapter on social capital by Jane Fountain. This provides a theoretical rationale for the increasingly popular approaches involving networks and joint ventures. The author suggests that all forms of collaboration produce economic benefits though a process of creation of social capital. This involves the development of behavioural characteristics that make conventional economics uneasy, including trust, and creative climates of co-operation. I have my reservations about economic metaphors for behavioural phenomena. However the approach was encouraged by as great an advocate as Joseph Schumpeter himself, and may be one whose importance will grow as network theory develops.3 Those of us interested in ± yet not quite convinced by ± Transaction Cost Economics will find the ideas particularly welcome. This is where the battle of social capital seems to me most likely to be fought. Are the social capital gains easily balanced against transaction costs? Fountain writes persuasively that fiercely competing firms can develop trust though working in networks. She cites the learning networks that have emerged in the biotechnology industry, an industry she claims was itself pumpprimed by injections of government cash into University research. Silicon Valley is another well-known example of collaboration within high competitive environments. Writing about the controversial Advanced Technology Programme her words are worth quoting:

Creating social capital

ÀTP awardees responded overwhelmingly that the chief benefit of collaboration has been the stimulation of creative thinking by pooling expertise. The two other benefits relate to timesavings . . . Learning to collaborate equates to learning to trust (p. 103)'. So we have here confirmation of what advocates of creative networks have intuitively believed for a long time. While it is dangerous to seize on scraps of evidence to support a case, there seems to be accumulating evidence in favour of a reappraisal of the limitations

Volume 7 Number 3

September 1998

170


of conventional economics in dealing with innovation and the management of change processes. The book also describes a government initiative that did not have such a high profile as the ATP. The Technology Reinvestment Project (TRP) met with a lack of enthusiasm. The project attempted to achieve industrial gains from military discoveries. Stakeholders, particularly those firms benefiting from the existing procurement arrangements, saw few incentives and great likelihood of disadvantages. The programme was cancelled for lack of support. Clearly there are highly political dimensions to the story. However, the case may still be one that reinforces the maxim that collaboration can not easily be bought. It has to be worked at, or mistrust and suspicion will win out over willingness to try new modes of collaborative ventures. In the last chapter, the editors attempt a summary of the principles emerging that presumably were the basis of the report to the President's policy advisors. Here I have to acknowledge the skills and erudition of the authors, while noting that the task facing editors of collected works is increasingly demanding, as the studies become more complex and diverse. Here the studies are indeed complex and diverse. Perhaps inevitably, the conclusions risk sounding rather palliative. It seems likely that they were written carefully to increase the chances of gaining some credibility with an audience of policy-makers. For example, they suggest as a principle that government effectiveness in policy development should be improved. Quite so. They also suggest that private innovation should be encouraged, and basic technology research facilitated. Quite so, again. Nor can one object to the principle that is repeated several times throughout the book, that there can be no single research and innovation policy recipe for all circumstances. Specifically they indicate that a principle should be to ùse all policy tools, not just R&D'.

Volume 7

Number 3

September 1998

From three thousand miles away these principles seem almost truisms. The controversy begins with the means to be followed in order to achieve these principles in practice. For some people, encouragement is a weasel word for State interference. Facilitation may be equated with that old abusive epithet porkbarrel politics. Here we have the problematics of seeking innovative change within the consensual framework of American politics. Yet the picture is not entirely bleak. The system retains a capacity to achieve great technological advances, even if they seem to arise in a less-that-simple fashion from policy.4 Overall this is a must-see book for anyone interested in the processes of stimulating innovation, and certainly should attract readers beyond those concerned with US policy making. Its contents contain materials of interest to those concerned with innovation in networks and supply chains, joint venturing, government-industry partnerships, collaboration, and a range of related topics. In all, a useful reference document.

Notes 1. The authors point out the dangerous simplicity of combining Research and Development as a single kind of activity. Unfortunately it is much harder to get figures for Research spend, although the likelihood is that private investment in R is declining relative to investment in D, and perhaps declining in most industries from historical levels, inflation adjusted. 2. A failure shared by the other governmentbacked SSTs, Concorde and the Russian `Concordski' 3. See the edited book of Schumpeter's essays, Ten great economists: From Marx to Keynes, (George Allen & Unwin, 1952, or the excellent revised edition by Routledge, 1997). 4. The Internet and Space technology are good examples of unintended outcomes of political pressures and policy decisions


BOOK REVIEWS

171

Book Reviews Bruce, M. and Jevnaker, B.H., eds, (1998) Management of Design Alliances; Sustaining Competitive Advantage, John Wiley & Sons, ISBN 0-471-97476-5, hardback, indexed, 296 pp, £34.95

T

his book focuses on design alliances and how these can be most effectively managed to achieve commercial success. In the editors' terms, a design alliance is à collaboration and interactive business relationship between a company and its design resource'. p. 1 Trends indicate that design input is increasingly obtained from outside a company. The editors argue that the management of the relationship between client design firm is critical for successful product development and continued organizational learning. Margaret Bruce is Professor in Design Management and Marketing in the Textiles department of the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology in the UK. Birgit Jevanker is Associate Professor of Business Development at the Norwegian School of Management, Sandvika, Norway. Together they have considerable expertise in the management of design and product development and have assembled a series of articles which address many important aspects of design relationships in an informative and accessible way. The book is presented in four sections. Part one is concerned with issues concerning the interface between a design consultancy and the competencies of the firm seeking design assistance. The capacity to compete through design and development capabilities is emphasized; with consideration given to the

components of an organising capability in design and its management. Core considerations include the creation of design-based advantages, the organisation of design development and the role of design alliances in a firm's innovative capacity. In Part two six case studies are used to illustrate these issues and indicate how companies manage the organisation of design. The range of case examples is wide, varying from the case of IBM notebook computers to Marimekko Oy, a Finnish fashion firm. Part three attempts a synthesis of two worlds, business and design, that that, at times, can appear to be diametrically opposed. Following a fascinating account by Karen Freeze and Earl Powell of the American industrial designer Henry Dreyfuss and his contribution to the US awareness of the need for good design, Brigitte Borja de Mozota presents a cogent argument for including some form of design expertise in all successful businesses. In Part four the editors consider the future of design alliances This book provides a lucid and compelling account of the importance of design within business. The combination of case studies and conceptual material makes it ideal for postgraduate modules in design management, MBA programmes and for any manager or business owner wishing to manage design alliances effectively. Susan Moger

Rubinstein, A. (1998), Modelling bounded rationality, ISBN 0 262 18187-8, paperback, 208pp, reference and general indexes, £10.50 The book outlines a theoretical examination of bounded rationality. The author is a distinguished academic, and the work has been subject to scrutiny by Herbert Simon, pioneer of the concept of bounded rationality. Simon's idea is one of the most important of the twentieth century contributions to # Blackwell Publishers Ltd 1998. 108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF and 350 Main St, Malden, MA 02148, USA.

economic thought. It challenges the orthodox view of decision-makers as agents that follow a strictly rational mode. Instead, it proposes a process in which limited search is made for any alternative that is (or appears to be) `good enough. This has become known as satisficing behaviours. Satisficing gets around

Volume 7 Number 3

September 1998

172


the otherwise uncomfortable difficulties of the rational model, not least of which is the availability and cost of searching for information. This book, with its mathematical emphasis, will be of some value as a part of an advanced decision-making or economics course. However it has little to offer the more general reader. Simon, given a chance to express his own views, comments that the field has plenty of `data-free' theory. He would prefer to direct the energies of theoreticians to explanatory models of available decisionmaking data.

My hope, in obtaining the book, was that it could support research into discovery processes. That may well be the case. The author responds courageously that his intentions are more modest, and that the approach may help `sharpen the intuitions' of economic thinkers. For applied researchers, the approach does seem to offer some avenues for exploration, particularly for the construction of doctoral proposals in applied decision-making. Tudor Rickards

Harper, Richard, H.R. (1998) Inside the IMF: An Ethnography of Documents, Technology and Organisational Action, Harcourt Brace & Company Ltd, ISBN 0-12-325840-5, indexed, bibliography, 310 pp, hardback, £50 Richard Harper is a sociologist working at the Rank Xerox Research Centre in Cambridge, UK. In this book he conducts an ethnographic examination of the work of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in Washington, D.C. The IMF is probably one of the best known financial institutions in the world, proposing policies that can influence the future of countries. The work is examined by tracing the careers of documents as they progress throughout the working apparatus of the fund. Ethnography (the scientific description of the races of the earth) is concerned with investigating an institution ìn such a way that as to produce a view that allows deeper understanding of the setting in question'. (p. 2) Harper builds on the work of the sociologist Everett Hughes, who suggested that one effective way of examining society, was to study the careers of individuals as they moved through that society. The analyst inquires into different sets of concerns that are relevant at any stage within a career. By

Volume 7

Number 3

September 1998

looking at these distinct elements of each stage, the `working constitution of society could be revealed' (p. 2). Harper modifies this approach by focusing on the carriers of documents. By doing so, he seeks to reveal the way the IMF works. Harper draws attention to the myriad ways documents are generated and used. He considers the impact of Information Technology on the processes of document handling and the social relationships that follow from this. In following the work of an IMF mission (made possible by the great generosity of IMF officials) Harper makes the work of the IMF come to life. This book presents thought provoking ideas about the way documents can shape our organizational life, and the impact differing technologies can have on the way they are used. It will undoubtedly be of great interest to social anthropologists and sociologists. Non specialist readers may find it of value as part of a business sociology programme. Susan Moger


No title

No title

No title

No title

No title

No title

No title

No title

No title

No title

No title

No title

No title

No title

No title

No title

No title

No title

No title

No title

No title

No title

No title

No title

No title

No title

Recommend Documents