联想集团“波形”轨迹下的组织演变——“试误式学习”惯例与组织可塑性的交互作用

Organizational Evolution of Lenovo in the Wave Pattern——Interaction of Trial and Error Learning Routine and Organizational Plasticity

组织演变过程的研究对于发展目前新兴的动态视角的组织理论具有重要推动作用。对联想集团成立迄今组织结构演变进程的纵贯考察与多时点归纳比较显示,组织演变未必是管理者精心设计的,也不一定呈现"间断式均衡"的轨迹;以"波形"轨迹展开的组织渐进性变化过程,具有等后效性;渐变的驱动力量可以来自面对问题实践探索和总结完善中产生的应变。在具有较强可塑性的企业中,组织体会在试误式学习惯例的驱动下产生一种内生力量,摆脱前期路径的锁定,并展现"波浪式前进"的演进路线。对应的,高层管理者的作用需要从"有形之手"转变为角色隐蔽的"变形之手"。本文在归纳分析中提出了一个用以解释组织渐变中路径创造得以发生的理论模型。

Research on organizational evolution is beneficial to the development of emergent organizing theory. Taking Lenovo Group as a typical case, the paper found that organizational evolution could be, with equalfinality, a kind of wave-patterned gradual change, rather than punctuated equilibrium through deliberate design. The drive of the gradual change could be the adaptation to practical problems. In a highly plastic enterprise, driving by trial-error learning routine, organization could break the lock-in and present a wave path to move forward, enabled by the altered role of top managers from visible hand to deformative hand. Based on the inductive analysis, a theoretical model is proposed for explaining the path-creation effect in the gradual organizational evolution.