Technology
Joan Woodward’s (1965) survey of UK firms revealed ten types, and three major groupings:
Unit/Small batch
Mass Production
Automated Process
These are detailed below.
Download free eBooks at bookboon.com
98
Strategic Management
The Basis of Strategy: Structure
She conducted an extensive, comparative empirical study which measured a firm’s comparative
performance relative to its industry peers and compared this indicator to its structural dimensions such
as span of control, number of management levels, management style, etc.
The research team was amazed when the 100 surveys from manufacturing organisations indicated no
direct statistically significant relationship between the type of structure and the level of performance.
A relationship between structure and performance surfaced only by introducing an extra variable: the
type of technology: the way of organising production.
Woodward’s study showed there was no ‘one best way’ of organising. Her data showed that the successful
firms were the ones where there was congruence between the type of technology they were using
and their organisational structures and processes. This can be considered as ‘contingency theory’ or
‘appropriateness’ – linked to the environment.
Different technologies generated different requirements and the successful firms recognised this.
Joan Woodward described the technical complexity of a manufacturing process as the degree of its
mechanisation – unit technology as the least complex and the continuous process production as the most.
Download free eBooks at bookboon.com
99