Knowledge Chain in the Clockspeed-Based Organization

Adding to the increasing complexity and ambiguity in products and customer values, the sudden rise in the clockspeed of business operations is forcing existing companies towards a new organizational model, which autonomously integrates knowledge across technologies, functions, and clockspeeds to find optimal solutions. This thesis first analyzes clockspeed characteristics in terms of four dimensions (customer value, product, process, and organization) and clarifies them by means of presentations. Based on this analysis, it develops a conceptual framework and an organizational model for the mixed clockspeed organization: that is, a company whose products individually involve components or elements with different clockspeeds, and where the four dimensions of clockspeed are not necessarily highly correlated. Finally, the thesis proposes an original model for organizing such a mixed clockspeed organization, focused on building an intermediate layer of organization to mediate between the formal business unit structures and the informal human networks that have long been recognized as crucially important for technical organizations. Thesis Supervisor: D. Eleanor Westney Sloan Fellows Professor of Management