Have you ever thought of how easy things are for physics
researchers? The laws of physics have stayed pretty much the same through the
entire history of the discipline of physics. The only significant change is
that researchers have gained better theory for understanding them and better
tools for testing the theory. Lucky them.
In contrast, management scholars face constant change in the
world of organizations, because what goes into organizations changes –
technology, people, and laws – and what organizations try to influence in their
environment changes as well – especially markets, but also technology, people,
laws, and so on. As a result of all these inside and outside changes,
organizations change, and the laws of organization (yes, they exist) change over
time, too. We have known this for a while but have not known how. A new paper in Administrative Science Quarterly by Zlatko Bodrožić and Paul Adler looks at
how they change.
They focus on technological revolutions, which may be the
most decisive influence because other factors (like people and laws) often
follow. Just compare the work of coal miners (whom the president sees as
important for the future of the U.S.) with computer programmers (the present
and future of India). Coal miners work in rigid hierarchies with clearly
defined processes because of the safety concerns and communication difficulties
they face, and they also face highly mechanized work that requires them mainly to
serve their tools. They are an extreme case of the factory, which has its own
set of theories that solved many problems 100 years ago but are now barely
taught, though their insights survive in mines and factories. Computer
programmers are organized in groups with clearly defined tasks but full freedom
to design the solution and the process for arriving at the solution, and they
face a knowledge-based, communication-heavy workplace in which people create
and use intergroup networks to assemble and use knowledge. They work in network
organizations, which have their own set of theories that are slightly more
recent than the explosive growth of such workplaces.
Every time a technological revolution happens, existing theories
begin to fail because they address the wrong kind of organization. The failures
are recognized by scholars, who then start building new theories for the new
reality. Often spurred by visible problems in organizations, they recognize
that the new problems are different. They try to find theoretical solutions to
these problems and test them, finding that many are wrong but some are right.
As the research accumulates, science proceeds as usual and the best models are
agreed on. Then these models are spread, first within the community of scholars
and then to the practice of management. Because it takes a while to go through
these steps, the period after any technological revolution is one in which few people
know enough, though many – both scientists and managers – think they know a lot.
The laws of organization have changed, and we need to find the new ones.
So, physics scholars really do have an easier job than
management scholars. That’s pretty obvious. What is less obvious is that when
we hear some entrepreneurs leading major web-based businesses complain about
the uselessness of business schools, they are half right and half wrong. The
right part is that researchers are catching up, so the schools clearly know
less about their business than about coal mines, or even software outsourcing
firms. The half wrong part is that they don’t know, either – it is possible to
be right about a decision without knowing why – and scholars will soon catch up
and know this technology and its organizations well.