Organizations and Information Processing: A Field Study of Research and Development Units within the United States Air Force Systems Command

摘要

This study conceptualizes the Research and Development (R&D) organizational unit as an information processing system which, to be most effective, must respond to the changing information requirements encountered in proceeding from a research orientation (information generation and expansion) to a product or system development emphasis (information application). To contend with and reduce the level of uncertainty, a unit must process information from various sources for its problem solving or decision making activities. This approach suggests that those units matching their information processing capabilities to the information processing requirements should be effective. The intent of this research is to investigate the information processing model of organizational design within an R&D setting. Specifically, the research will examine if perceived information requirements differ between research units and development units.