How do corporations achieve change? In the first analytic book
about Hewlett-Packard, Deone Zell also offers an ethnography of
corporate redesign, documenting Hewlett-Packard's radical
reorganization of both a manufacturing and a research division.
Because she writes from within the process as it unfolds, Zell is
able to demonstrate how the inclusion of employees in every step of
redesign can inspire the knowledge and commitment to transform an
organization.
Hewlett-Packard is among a growing number of companies in the
United States exploring what is called sociotechnical systems (STS)
redesign. As competitive pressures have grown, interest in STS has
increased because it has the potential to catalyze comprehensive
organizational change and avoid the pitfalls of a piecemeal or
small-scale approach. STS works from the ground up, involving
front-line employees in analysis and redesign of the entire
organization and in explicit examination of an organization's
culture.
In Hewlett-Packard's California Personal Computer Division,
production operators worked alongside managers to redesign their
printed circuit assembly line into self-managing teams of
employees. In the Santa Clara Division, a very different workforce
of engineers, initially unwilling to standardize their creativity,
had to develop commercial applications and become more responsive
to customers in order to survive.
On the basis of Hewlett-Packard's success, Zell concludes that,
with top-level support and a high investment of resources at the
outset, redesign can inspire relatively rapid change, especially
suitable for organizations in fast-paced environments. As one H-P
manager commented, "Empowerment is no longer a nice thing to do. It
is now a business imperative."
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