Volume 31, Issue 3

Open Space Technology (OST) is a more and more often used large-group interaction method in the planning and implementation of major change effects. However, our knowledge about the theoretical foundations of OST is quite unsatisfactory. It is the intention of this article to illuminate the theoretical foundations of OST from a sociological point of view. We put forward three hypotheses: (1) Relying on Hayek we state that OST is a method which introduces the social coordination mechanism of the market into an organization in the center of which is the generation of knowledge. We derive the preconditions and limitations of the use of OST from Williamson’s transaction cost economics: (2) OST is to be recommended if otherwise hierarchical failure due to uncertainty and market power or market power and long decision processes would result. (3) OST is no longer the most efficient method if certainty or market power prevail or if opportunism is a problem.

For several years the enterprises of the New Economy were regarded as models for organization in the twenty- first century. Especially Internet firms (“dot.coms”) seemed to be able to solve the typical organizational problems of the Old Economy, like prolonged decision-making processes, insufficient cooperation between departments and poor motivation of employees. The reason why these organizational problems, widespread in the Old Economy, did not occur in the Internet firms was - so the article claims - that the latter were, at least in their early years, group-like “face-to-face organizations”. However, being confronted with demands by venture capitalists for rapid growth, firms were forced to create more pronounced and more differentiated organizational structures. Because many firms tried to maintain their group-like structures for as long as possible, new organizational problems arose such as the centralization of decisions at the top, poor compliance with rules, and Taylorization implemented by computer-supported workflow concepts. These organizational problems specific to New Economy firms remained latent as long as a continuous supply of capital was available. However, after the collapse of the high-tech stock markets and the withdrawal of venture capital the organizational problems of New Economy firms could no longer be ignored.

When implementing semi-autonomous group work on the shop floor, blue collar workers have to carry out new tasks to enhance the performance of the whole group. Since traditional pay systems focus on individual performance at single work places, their contributions to the group’s performance are not rewarded. This paper asks how workers evaluate this shift within the pay performance relation in terms of fairness. Using data from a standardized employeesurvey in twenty-one firms of the German metal-industry it can be shown that a pay system is perceived as unfair if work groups have been implemented while no adjustment of the pay system has taken place. Concurrently the perceived injustice of the pay system increases when workers report lower commitment to the firm and negative evaluation of the factory workers council. Moreover, higher perceptions of injustice are observed in those work units which are less productive and which have a higher absenteeism rate. Based on these results it is argued that not the greater workload or the degree of autonomy at the work place is the main obstacle to teamwork on the shop floor as many industrial sociologists assume. On the contrary, the main challenge for employers and factory workers councils alike is to find a pay system which is regarded as fair.

According to an early sociological position, inventions are, as a rule, new combinations from the “prior state of the art”. With respect to scientific innovations, a similar idea is to argue that in favorable cases scientific innovations occur by transferring established knowledge from a well-mastered field of research to a more problematic and less familiar domain of interest. According to this concept, the basic principle of the entire transaction is the assumption of an identity of structure between the two domains which allows reuse of suitably modified knowledge from the first domain as a theoretical innovation within the second one. This paper proposes an explanation of technological innovations that refers to this notion. It is argued that in the case of technological concept transfer the assumption of a similarity of problems between the field of interest and an older, better-understood domain of research is as constitutive as the identityof- structure assumption in the case of scientific concept transfer. Here, the underlying expectation is that the well-established solutions of the older field may turn out to be useful for tackling unsolved technological problems within the domain of interest because the respective problems are believed to be similar in many respects. It will be shown that, on the contrary, the identity-of-structure assumption is unsuitable for concept transfer in the case of technological innovation. Nevertheless, exactly this is what seems to happen under certain circumstances - an apparent contradiction the paper seeks to resolve. An empirical study of concept transfer in the field of multiagent research exemplifies the conceptual considerations of the paper.