3.4 REVISION DE LA TECNOLOGIA DE LA MAQUINA MOTRIZ.

market research theoretical concepts that scored 91 per cent compared to the total number of concepts linking decision-making and product creation practices. Hence this is a clear indication that across all product creation processes WYM mostly applies feedback mechanisms incorporated in the theoretical concept of real-time research in order to enhance or generate new knowledge.

Across all product strategy processes at WYM the strongest relationship occurs between decision-making processes and speed to market that scored 50 per cent compared to the total number of concepts linking decision-making and product strategy. Of the four decision-making concepts, organizational learning is the one most commonly linked to speed to market.

Across all central strategy processes at WYM the role of learning is evidenced in two relationships: the relationship between organizational learning and fixed asset

164 Indeed these two relationships share the same weight with 50 per cent of common references in each one.

These findings further support and extend a body of empirical evidence which argues that organizational learning is a hugely important element (Cyert & March, 1992, pp. 161-176) in making and shaping organizational decisions. Learning from feedback is of significant value when new products are being developed since it assesses the

performance of products and forecasts future demand portrayed through customers’ satisfaction rates. Learning is also generated through technology improvements or new technology acquisitions as these create new knowledge.

I contend that my findings support the need for greater balance between a conventional marketing orientation and learning orientation. Being market-driven (Slater & Narver, 1995) enables firms to anticipate the developing needs of customers, bringing

innovative products or services to them either ‘just-in-time’ or ‘just-ahead’ of changes in market preferences. At WYM, real-time market research was constantly used to learn more about market preferences and to improve market knowledge (Sanchez, 1996, p. 130). My observations of WYM’s real-time market research revealed a tension between ad-hoc experimentation and a documented ‘stage-gate’ process (see section 3.3.4). Hence I witnessed a cumulative process of trial and error, experimentation and search. This was interspersed with attempts to impose routines and learn from history. In essence this might be conceptualised as ‘learning by doing’ which is essentially a process of performing limited changes to a product or a process, observing the

consequences and refining the product or process in light of those consequences (Levitt & March, 1988, p. 321). However what became apparent was that the process was dependant on the manner in which customer feedback was gathered, and crucially, the attitude of the management team to that process (Caemmerer & Wilson, 2010) as revealed in the conflict between two of them the general manager and the director of R&D who was a co-owner.

This conflict may in fact be symptomatic of the evolution of different kinds of knowledge at WYM through a process of learning by doing (Sanchez, 1996, p. 136). However he argues (1996, p. 135) that different firms develop different kinds of knowledge that reflect different levels of understanding about their product creation processes; know-how, know-why and know-what. Each one of these three kinds of

165 knowledge, provide a different strategic value to the company. For example the know- how is all about the ability of the firm to produce and refine its existing product designs. There is certainly plenty of know-how at WYM surrounding the speciality yarn

knowledge. Know-why is the ‘theoretical understanding’ of how the system works. In WYM this ‘theoretical understanding’ of the processes is reflected to the ‘machine guardian’ concept that the general manager was so keen to establish. Know-why

knowledge enables the firm to adapt or develop a new product design. Finally know- what is the ‘strategic understanding’ of when know-why or know-how knowledge can be applied and allows managers to make conjectures about what new kinds of products a firm might develop.

The danger in all this of course is that organizations learn from an overly narrow small product sample, compounded by wider uncertainty. The attraction of ‘sticking to the knitting’ is understandable in firms where resources are limited. However this ‘core rigidity’ or ‘competency-trap’ has its dangers (Michael & Palandjian, 2004, p. 270). The immediately preceding three paragraphs create the illusion that WYM (and similar firms) are focused on ‘market pull’ for innovation. It is important to stretch that this is not always the case in innovative companies, and particularly I found evidence of ‘technology push’ at WYM. However as I indicated earlier the question is one of balance, which often produces conflict. ‘Pushing technology’ as is often the case at WYM can and does lead to successful new products. However the ‘push’ has to be guided by the ‘pull’ of market and customer needs. It seems the conflict results in the matching process between technological attributes and customer needs (Adams, Day, & Dougherty, 1998).

Moreover ‘matching’ is essentially a bargaining process in which conflict is resolved within WYM’s management team and between WYM and its suppliers and customers (Cyert & March, 1963; Gavetti et al., 2007, p. 528).

My observations and findings also further reinforce the role that organizational contexts play in managerial decision-making, especially in terms of the amount of information that is available or attended to by managers (Gavetti et al., 2007, p. 532). WYM’s situational context (Gore et al., 2006) influences new product development and production and more specific WYMs real-time market research heavily influences the

166 manner in which they adopt new technologies and adapt in response to its context (Gavetti et al., 2007, pp. 532-533).

At least in the broad context of organizational learning as the dominant decision-making process, what I found was, despite the best endeavours of the general manager, the development of routines in new product development incurred strong resistance from the director of R&D (and co-owner). Whilst I found evidence of standardised practice in company documentation, the performance of product development seemed very

different from what has been previously adopted in the literature (Gavetti et al., 2007, pp. 526-527).

Thus far the discussion has dealt largely with organizational learning in a very broad sense. However in the course of my analysis I derived a number of more detailed

empirical concepts. Most of these are intimately linked with the predominant theoretical concept of organizational learning. However they also offer empirical evidence of links between other elements of my theoretical framework. This discussion now deals with each of these empirically derived concepts and their relationship to existing theory and empirical evidence. The research questions appearing in brackets are the ones that provide the most evidence for the specific concept.