Comparative Study of Emerging New Forms of Flexible, Global Organizations in Japan and the U.S

PI建议发展新的商业组织形式的中期理论。他将对日本和美国的组织重新设计事件进行民族志案例研究。这项研究的主要目标将是信息技术对设计新的组织形式的促进作用以及对美国和日本跨国公司的比较研究。美国国家科学基金会的部分资金将支持包括德国、日本和美国公司在内的一部分研究。研究计划分为两个阶段。在第一阶段，PI将对三种文化中公司管理者面临的组织设计挑战进行比较调查。在第二阶段，项目负责人将研究为实现关键能力而发明和实施的组织启发式方法。

The PI proposes to develop mid-range theories of new forms of business organization. He will perform ethnographic case studies of organizational re-design episodes in Japan and the United States. Primary targets of the study will be the enabling effects of information technology on the design of new organizational forms and a comparative study of American and Japanese transnational corporations. The NSF portion of the funding will support a subset of the research which includes German, Japanese, and American corporations. The research program has two phases. During Phase I, the PI will perform comparative surveys of the organizational design challenges facing managers in companies in the three cultures. In Phase II the PI will study organizational heuristics invented and implemented in order to achieve critical capabilities.