A theory of technology and organizations

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to explain how technical knowledge can be used to create real artifacts and systems via appropriately designed organizations. A technology may be defined as a mix of practical knowledge and skill—a recipe—aimed at achieving a human goal. Technologies underlie all human cultures and all economic activities. As a whole, they are tremendously diverse and subject to both incremental and radical changes. Heterogeneity and instability in turn make it difficult to generalize about how to build organizations capable of implementing a particular technology at a given time and place. To address this gap, this article presents a general theory that links the structure of technologies to a small set of representative organization designs, which may be combined in different ways. The theory is based on analytic tools that can be used to understand any technology and any organization and their relationship. I show how these tools can be used to address the following question: given a technical recipe that works, what can we say about the structure of organizations that can implement the recipe and make it real?

Keywords

collaboration design and boundaries innovation management microfoundations organizational structure technology topics and perspectives

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