According to W. Edwards Deming, American companies require nothing less than a transformation of management style and of governmental relations with industry. In Out of the Crisis, originally published in 1982, Deming offers a theory of management based on his famous 14 Points for Management. Management's failure to plan for the future, he claims, brings about loss of market, which brings about loss of jobs. Management must be judged not only by the quarterly dividend, but by innovative plans to stay in business, protect investment, ensure future dividends, and provide more jobs through improved product and service. In simple, direct language, he explains the principles of management transformation and how to apply them.

Out of the Crisis

What makes organizations so similar? We contend that the engine of rationalization and bureaucratization has moved from the competitive marketplace to the state and the professions. Once a set of organizations emerges as a field, a paradox arises: rational actors make their organizations increasingly similar as they try to change them. We describe three isomorphic processes-coercive, mimetic, and normative—leading to this outcome. We then specify hypotheses about the impact of resource centralization and dependency, goal ambiguity and technical uncertainty, and professionalization and structuration on isomorphic change. Finally, we suggest implications for theories of organizations and social change.

The iron cage revisited: Institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields (Chinese Translation)

This book concerns the process of designing IT systems for large, complex purposes. It is structured as a textbook-style introduction to the processes required for use in university teaching and for self-study purposes by people working in the field of IT system development. The content of the book is the fruit of a decade of research by the authors in their pursuit of a method to plan and design IT projects that will provide sustainable, useful solutions to the needs of the companies for which they are commissioned.

Participatory IT Design: Designing for Business and Workplace Realities

In this article we focus attention on ethnography's place in CSCW by reflecting on how ethnography in the context of CSCW has contributed to our understanding of the sociality and materiality of work and by exploring how the notion of the `field site' as a construct in ethnography provides new ways of conceptualizing `work' that extends beyond the workplace. We argue that the well known challenges of drawing design implications from ethnographic research have led to useful strategies for tightly coupling ethnography and design. We also offer some thoughts on recent controversies over what constitutes useful and proper ethnographic research in the context of CSCW. Finally, we argue that as the temporal and spatial horizons of inquiry have expanded, along with new domains of collaborative activity, ethnography continues to provide invaluable perspectives.

Reflections on 25 Years of Ethnography in CSCW

Based on a literature review, this paper investigates the potential of translation theory to energize the study of knowledge transfer between source and recipient organizational units. The central assumption is that translation theory is not only useful for analyzing knowledge-transfer processes, but also has the potential to guide deliberate interventions in such processes. Based on this premise, and drawing on insights from the neighboring academic discipline of translation studies, the author outlines the elements of an instrumental translation theory, with the aim of developing knowledge about how to conduct translations of practices and ideas to achieve various organizational ends in knowledge transfers. The instrumental theory is founded on two main arguments. The first is that knowledge transfers between organizations are rule-based translation processes. The second is that the way in which translators use various translation rules and perform translations may be decisive for outcomes of knowledge-transfer processes. This study develops a typology of three translation modes (the reproducing, the modifying and the radical mode) and four appurtenant translation rules (copying, addition, omission and alteration), and discusses which translation rules fit which conditions. The author identifies three critical conditional variables in knowledge transfers – the translatability of the source practice, the transformability of the transferred knowledge, and the similarity between source and recipient units – and discusses the appropriateness of each translation rule in relation to these variables.

Knowledge Transfer as Translation: Review and Elements of an Instrumental Theory

1. Perspectives on Design Research, by Barenholdt, Buscher, Scheuer and Simonsen 2. Iterative Participatory Design, by Simonsen and Hertzum 3. Designing as Middle Ground, by Nickelsen and Binder 4. Designing Pathways, by Scheuer 5. Design and Management, by Pries Heje and Baskerville 6. Knowing Through Design, by Olsen and Heaton 7. Makeshift Users, by Shove, Southern, Olsen and McHardy 8. Deep Translations, by Lindstrom 9. Sustainable Transition, by Holm, Sondergard and Hansen 10. Designing an Exhibition, by Ingemann 11. Joyful Collective Processes, by Christrup 12. The Becoming of Urban Space, by Samson 13. Tourist Experience Design, by Haldrup and Barenholdt 14. Synergies, by Simonsen, Barenholdt, Scheuer and Buscher.

Design Research : Synergies from Interdisciplinary Perspectives

Perspectives on design research

Table of Contents:Notes on ContributorsPrefaceChapter 1Introduction: Change Anatomies and Processes, John Damm ScheuerSECTION I: Changing OrganizationsChapter 2Interpreting the Means and the Goals: Innovation in Danish Public Libraries, Lars FuglsangChapter 3Organizational Change and Values-Driven Management: A Perspective from Institutional Theory, Jacob Dahl RendtorffChapter 4Changing Success Criteria for Public Sector Institutions: Squaring the Circle?, John Storm PedersenChapter 5Convergent and Divergent Processes of Change in Organizations: Exploring Change as Translation in the Encounter of Idea and Practice, John Damm ScheuerChapter 6Intervention, Implementation, and Translation as Metaphors of Change in Healthcare and Public Sector Organizations, John Damm ScheuerChapter 7The Institutionalization of a Routine: Identity, Interaction, and Materiality, NIels Christian NickelsenSECTION II: Changing SocietiesChapter 8Ideas in EU Decision making: Towards a Typology of Ideas and Ideational Change, Kennet LynggaardChapter 9The Process of Legitimation, Eva BoxenbaumChapter 10Institutions and Governance: The Dynamics of Change in the Institutional Arrangements of the Danish Labor Markets, Steen ScheuerSECTION III: ConclusionsChapter 11Conclusion: Theoretical Perspectives, Steen Scheuer

The anatomy of change : a neo-institutionalist perspective

Specificities of public sector service innovation

This chapter contributes to a deeper understanding of public sector service innovation, exploring how it evolves in interaction between actors in hierarchies, markets and networks. A typology of innovations in public sector services is developed and a model of public sector service production is presented. Then, drawing on an in-depth review of the public innovation, public policy and public administration literature, service innovation in three sorts of circuits and relationships between actors is identified. A number of characteristics of public sector service innovation are derived from the analysis, and it is concluded that public sector service innovations may be diverse and varied. They may be initiated top-down or bottom-up, formalised or policy based, organisation or employee led, and initiated by professionals or by users. It is suggested that the public service innovation process may be described as “co-evolution”, emphasising the view that change may occur in all interacting populations of public sector service organisations. Innovation is seen as happening in the encounter between people situated in hierarchies, networks and market-led organisations; and as evolving as iterative, interactive and heterogeneous processes where goals are often relatively unclear, resulting in innovations that must often be understood retrospectively rather than as intended outcomes of the execution of detailed plans.

John Damm Scheuer

Papers

Design Research : Synergies from Interdisciplinary Perspectives

Perspectives on design research

The anatomy of change : a neo-institutionalist perspective

Specificities of public sector service innovation

Towards a Deeper Understanding of Public Sector Innovation