Change in the Presence of Residual Fit: Can Competing Frames Coexist?
Organization Science
Coordinating for Flexibility in e-Business Supply Chains
Journal of Management Information Systems
Journal of Management Information Systems
The Journal of Strategic Information Systems
Innovation team networks: the centrality of innovativeness and efficiency
International Journal of Networking and Virtual Organisations
Analysing partnerships and strategic network governance
International Journal of Networking and Virtual Organisations
Designing routines: On the folly of designing artifacts, while hoping for patterns of action
Information and Organization
Microfoundations of Internal and External Absorptive Capacity Routines
Organization Science
Challenges in the management of high-performance computing centers: an organizational perspective
State of the Practice Reports
Ambidexterity in Agile Distributed Development: An Empirical Investigation
Information Systems Research
Toward a Theory of Coordinating: Creating Coordinating Mechanisms in Practice
Organization Science
International Journal of Networking and Virtual Organisations
Hi-index | 0.00 |
This article seeks to reconceptualize the relationship between flexibility and efficiency. Much organization theory argues that efficiency requires bureaucracy, that bureaucracy impedes flexibility, and that organizations therefore confront a tradeoff between efficiency and flexibility. Some researchers have challenged this line of reasoning, arguing that organizations can shift the efficiency/flexibility tradeoff to attain both superior efficiency and superior flexibility. Others have pointed out numerous obstacles to successfully shifting the tradeoff. Seeking to advance our understanding of these obstacles and how they might be overcome, we analyze an auto assembly plant that appears to be far above average industry performance in both efficiency and flexibility. NUMMI, a Toyota subsidiary located in Fremont, California, relied on a highly bureaucratic organization to achieve its high efficiency. Analyzing two recent major model changes, we find that NUMMI used four mechanisms to support its exceptional flexibility/efficiency combination. First, metaroutines (routines for changing other routines) facilitated the efficient performance of nonroutine tasks. Second, both workers and suppliers contributed to nonroutine tasks while they worked in routine production. Third, routine and nonroutine tasks were separated temporally, and workers switched sequentially between them. Finally, novel forms of organizational partitioning enabled differentiated subunits to work in parallel on routine and nonroutine tasks. NUMMI's success with these four mechanisms depended on several features of the broader organizational context, most notably training, trust, and leadership.