Process knowledge: Interpreting and enacting formal processes in organizations.

摘要

In today's business environment, organizations are confronted with many forces of change (e.g. volatile market conditions, new technologies, radical new strategies, new competitors, etc.). To respond to these challenges, companies often use formal processes to define new ways of working, and to effect large-scale change across a diverse and global workforce. In many cases, however, these processes fail to achieve the desired impact. Why are the results of formal processes often so disappointing? In this study, I argue that workers need specific kinds of process-related knowledge to interpret and enact new processes. Identifying and designing for these kinds of knowledge is a crucial enabler of successful process implementation in organizations.; To understand process knowledge, I investigate the work practices of product developers in the Xerox Corporation as they grapple with a new process called Time To Market (TTM). Through this study, my research team and I helped co-design a new learning intervention called Goal-Based Event Learning (GBEL) for the Xerox product development community. GBEL was designed to support employees as they construct knowledge about processes and learn how to relate that knowledge to their work. The purpose of this study is to examine how people interpret and enact processes in the context of their work, and to identify the kinds of knowledge that are needed for process interpretation and enactment. I use these findings to discuss how organizations could do a better job of implementing formal processes.