Management of technology, corporate culture and educational paradigms: Lessons from a case study

Abstract

AbstractThis article discusses the relationship between the behavior of Research and Development management, and corporate culture and general socialization processes. It shows that, on the one hand, managerial attitudes are the product of corporate culture and socialization processes and, on the other, that management significantly contributes to their legitimation. This aspect of management behavior raises some questions. The analysis of these attitudes reveals that at least to a degree they have an economically debilitating effect. It is argued in this article that Research and Development management attitudes are a block on the road to solve a well‐known management problem, namely of finding an equilibrium between stimulating individual creativity and organizing effective cooperation. In support of this proposition the results of a case study are presented in which the decision‐making process about production technology at the Center for Manufacturing Technology is analyzed. The CMT is a Research and Development department of Philips Electronics Corporation in The Netherlands. First, the article elaborates the major elements of the Philips corporate culture, and the characteristics of the ruling educational paradigm at Dutch Technical Universities. With regard to the Philips culture the following factors are dealt with: the historical background of the Research and Development department and the related ambiguity of its position, the autonomy of the researcher, the industrial background of the R&D manager, the impact of personal commitment for successful research, skepticism about the quality of the intermediate goods supplied by the company, and disciplinary chauvinism. In addition attention is given to the “frame of existing solutions” (Sinclair), the close relationship between university and industry and the emphasis on “personal achievement” which are characteristic of the mainstream educational paradigm at Dutch technical universities. Second, the management behavior of the Philips Center for Manufacturing Technology department is described from the point of view of corporate culture to illustrate how the attitudes of CMT management contribute to the corporate culture in the enterprise and to the dominating technological paradigm, and how these attitudes detract from successful Research and Development activities.