Demography and design in an R&D organization
Name
48934388-MIT.pdf
Description
Full printable version
Size
5.29 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
05d445bdd20dbbaa80be92c343f5d730
Author(s)
Soh, Myung-Jin, 1958-
Advisor(s)
M. Diane Burton.
Alternative Title
Demography and design in a research and development organization
Date Issued
2001
Publisher
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Abstract
In the research and development (R&D) organization of a firm in a high technology industry, because of the needs for innovative and complex tasks in the rapidly changing environment of technology and market, the design of efficient organization would be one of the most important things. Many researchers have concentrated on the questions: How should teams or unit organizations be organized in terms of demographic diversity? What are the key variables associated with better performance? More technically, should a functional team be formed by the people who have similar experience and tenure, or, alternatively, should it be composed of people with a wide range of demographic characteristics? In this perspective, using the data collected from the 31 project teams and 191 individuals at four corporate-level research and development laboratories at a global electronics company in Korea, this study investigates the impact of demography diversity on project team performance. Particularly, this study moves beyond previous research by broadening the demographic variables to the education characteristics such as major, school, and educational level as a group. The results of the study suggest that, like the other demographic variables, the educational background also is strongly related to the team level performance. While each demographic variable has a certain operating direction, in this unique organization, the more homogeneous team in terms of diversity of school is likely to have better performance through the group process.
Description
Thesis (S.M.M.O.T.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management, Management of Technology Program, 2001.
Includes bibliographical references (leaves 66-70).
Subjects
Management of Technology Program.
MIT Department
Management of Technology Program.
Sloan School of Management
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