Imitation in Large Complex Organizations: When Does Copying Become Learning? by Murray James Pyle A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Industrial and Operations Engineering) in The University of Michigan 2010 Doctoral Committee: Professor Jeffrey K. Liker, Chair Professor Laurence M. Seiford Associate Professor Young K. Ro Assistant Professor Sebastian K. Fixson i Give peace a chance. ii Murray James Pyle © 2010 Copyright i DEDICATION This work is dedicated to my mom. Julia Mary Pyle, a woman with a warm heart and bright smile who may not have understood what I did or why, but she was always interested and delighted in my accomplishments. ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I gratefully acknowledge Dr. Jeffrey K. Liker who acted as chair and advisor to this work and whose class on Theories of Administration was a catalyst for me to come to the University of Michigan to pursue my doctoral degree. Dr. Liker’s assistance in the past few months has helped make this a cogent document. I also acknowledge the service of my other dissertation committee members, Drs. Seiford, Ro and Fixson; each in their own way assisted in developing my academic thinking and helped me to persevere at this task. General Motors supported this work. For the scholarship money and the freedom to expand my thinking I am thankful. I am also grateful to the many people at GM who encouraged and tolerated my intellectual curiosity. As I worked in various groups balancing my academic efforts with my personal and work responsibilities many of you put up with my divided attention and encouraged my advancement. As well, to the many people at GM who acted as interview subjects, your candor and openness contributed greatly to this work and for this I am thankful. For the many friends who continued to encourage me as this process dragged on, I am thankful. Their contribution to my emotional well being cannot be adequately expressed, but I appreciate their encouragement to finish this degree. I am also grateful to my wife Ellen who shares my curiosity for so many of the aspects of this work. Her support during my time in Ann Arbor has been important to me. I am thankful for her patience and love. iii Table of Contents Dedication ........................................................................................................................... ii Acknowledgments.............................................................................................................. iii Table of Figures ............................................................................................................... viii List of Abbreviations ......................................................................................................... xi Chapter 1 Imitation in large complex organizations: How and why do organizations copy each other? ................................................................................................................. 1 Introduction: Imitation in an organizational context ......................................... 1 Research objective .............................................................................................. 8 Relevant literature related to the concepts of imitation and learning ............... 10 Learning from an objective point of view – What is imitated? .... 10 Learning from the perspective of an individual ............................ 15 Learning from the perspective of an organization ........................ 22 Summary of learning and next steps ................................................................. 32 Chapter 2 Conceptual Model Development and Research Methods for the Study of Imitation in Large Complex Organizations ............................................................. 34 Imitation as learning: A Contingency Framework ........................................... 34 Learning model development – It starts with the individual ............................ 39 Learning model development – The role of the collective ............................... 43 Research Methods ............................................................................................. 48 Three cases as imitations .................................................................................. 50 Chapter 3 GM imitates from within – Engineering Worldbook goes Global ................... 57 The Problem ...................................................................................................... 58 iv GM Copies North American process at engineering centers around the world ............................................................................. 58 The approach ................................................................................. 61 The Original ...................................................................................................... 62 What is Worldbook? ..................................................................... 64 Worldbook players ........................................................................ 66 Wordbook’s place in the theoretical model .................................. 68 Case Background .............................................................................................. 72 History of Engineering .................................................................. 72 GM’s Motivation and Goals ......................................................... 77 Potential Challenges of Engineering Culture and Leadership ...... 79 Case Description ............................................................................................... 81 Agreement on adopting the original ............................................. 81 Executing the copy ........................................................................ 85 Learning results achieved ............................................................. 87 Discussion: Support for the learning hypotheses ............................................. 88 Conclusions: Imitating an autonomous set of explicit rules in a complex organization......................................................................................... 90 Chapter 4 Design for Six-Sigma at GM NA Engineering: The case of an imitator creating a copy from a copy ..................................................................................... 91 Introduction ....................................................................................................... 91 The Problem ...................................................................................................... 92 GM Copying a copy of a complex sociotechnical system ............ 92 The approach ................................................................................. 94 The Original ...................................................................................................... 95 Genesis of the ASI copy ............................................................... 95 What is DFSS? (DFSS by ASI) ................................................... 97 Roles of the DFSS Players ............................................................ 98 Placing DFSS in the Theoretical Model ..................................... 101 v Case Background ............................................................................................ 106 History of Problem Solving at GM ............................................. 107 Culture of product engineering ................................................... 111 Reactive problem solving in GM’s Coercive Bureaucracy ........ 114 Case Description ............................................................................................. 119 What Really Happened with DFSS at NA Engineering? ............ 121 Discussion – Support and Contradiction of the Learning Model ................... 137 Analysis – Imitation without attempting to influence the culture ................... 141 Chapter 5 TPS/GMS The Case of Learning from a Cooperative Competitor ................ 145 Introduction ..................................................................................................... 145 The Problem – GM copying TPS through firsthand experience at NUMMI . 146 The Original: The Toyota Production System ................................................ 148 What is TPS?............................................................................... 148 The explicit tools of TPS to copy ............................................... 150 The tacit knowledge needed to make TPS work ......................... 151 Placing TPS in the theoretical model .......................................... 153 Case Background ............................................................................................ 158 The culture of a North America manufacturing facility ............. 158 History of NUMMI ..................................................................... 161 Timeline of GM’s learning from NUMMI ................................. 166 Case Description ............................................................................................. 168 How original “advisors” learned TPS at NUMMI ...................... 169 Phase 1 of GM learning: Copying the tools of TPS through Synchronous Manufacturing ............................................ 171 Phase 2 of GM Learning: Implementing a Deeper Rule Book through Competitive Manufacturing ................................ 184 Phase 3 of GM Learning: Delving Deeper into Cultural Change .........................................................................................