Reimagining the differentiation and integration of work for sustained product innovation

This study describes the image of organizing that underlies a complex organ ization's ability to incorporate streams of innovation with continuing oper ations. I argue that a mechanistic organization archetype prevents people f rom seeing in their minds' eyes-from imagining-how to do the work of innova tion organizationwide, but that theorists have failed to articulate an alte rnative to this archetype in its own terms. The study focuses on two elemen ts of organizing: the differentiation and the integration of work. I build grounded theory for an alternate, innovative archetype of organizing by exp loring the shared image of work differentiation and integration in twelve f irms that vary in innovative ability. I find a fundamentally different imag e in innovative organizations that is centered on hands-on practice: People understand value creation as a long-term working relationship with custome rs, in which they apply the firm's skills to anticipate and solve customer problems. This practice is differentiated into distinct problems in value c reation, each of which embodies the integral flow of work like a lateral sl ice, but which situates those problems in their own contexts. People unders tand themselves to be organized in an autonomous community of practice that takes charge of one of the problems. The communities of practice are integ rated by standards for action: vivid, simple representations of value that frame work and that are reenacted in practice. The analysis details this different image of organizing by describing four autonomous communities of practice and contrasting them with the image of o rganizing found in noninnovative firms. The paper illustrates how this new image straightforwardly organizes and controls innovative work, and how the noninnovative image of differentiation and integration makes this work uni maginable. I conclude that innovation can be incorporated with continuing o perations, provided that managers and theorists reimagine the differentiati on and integration of work. I offer preliminary ideas for doing so, and sug gest some next steps in this research stream.