Organizational Change and the Management of Expertise

As firms rely more and more on information technology to maintain a competitive advantage, the process of change within organizations and relationships involved become more complex. This volume examines supply chains in the computer systems industry. Three firms are studies in detail: a disk-drive manufacturer, a multi-national computer systems corporation, and a drinks company in the throes of reorganizing its extensive computer systems. The authors look at the management of supplier-user relationships, the processes of product development, the use of total quality management techniques, and the reality of strategic partnerships. Managers are centre stage as they are shown working with the information technologies that are critical to the competitiveness of any business. Day-to-day dilemmas and crises facing managers in the 1990s are looked at and examples given of "good" and "bad" management practices. The discussion moves beyond the firm as a single unit of analysis to concentrate on the relationships between firms. Technology and organization issues are related to the process of buying and selling as it occurs in real business environments rather than in textbook examples.