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Introduction
In today’s competitive computer market environment, the success of a company is increasingly hinging on its efficiency of innovation management. D’Aveni (1994) pointed that the crucial factor of success is to constantly produce new products providing the users with increased performance and functionality. There are increased needs for the companies to move technology innovation up on the company agenda (Clarke 1991), and make it a strategic issue (Betz 1989, Bhalla 1987, Drejer 1996, Jones and Smith 1997). The technological life cycles are decreasing (Dussage et al. 1992, Foster 1986) and this increase the pressure for the company to innovate constantly (Kiernan 1995).
Apple Inc. is one of the largest multinational enterprises in Silicon Valley, and it mainly designs and produces electronic products among which its personal computer is a representative innovation.Apple Inc. began to produce and sell personal computer in 1976, and it released its first important personal computer Apple II in 1977. TheApple’s sales volume had amounted to more than $750 million by 1982. However, because of its failures releases of Apple IIIand the Lisa in the market, the Apple had passed through a difficult period in the early 1980s (Martin andNonaka1991, p.75).
Lowe (1995) defined innovation as that it should be managed at markets, products, administrative competencies and production competencies. The innovation of the Apple personal computer has experienced both successes and failures. The earlier success of Apple II brought the company a constantcashflowingstream to support the innovation.Meanwhile, the founding team was still in charge of the management largely, so there was almost no bureaucratic orfinancialdiscipline.However, because there were a lot of R&D projects operatedat the same time, the confusion existed in theApple. Therefore,in 1979 the Apple formed the Macintosh group to check the feasibility to develop a completely low-cost personal computer for the consumers, and there were only three people in the Mac projects at that time. Steven Jobs was one of the founders of the Apple, and he was estranged from the Lisa project in late 1979, and then Jobs became interest in the small Macintosh group. Jobs became the leader of the project in the early 1981, and he started to set the project team.
1.Innovation as a Process of Information Creation
1.1The Choice of the Environment for Innovation
Jobs planned to try his best to release the product to the public. He was going to battle with the company for the resources needed to build a great computer. The Mac was not a new inventioncompletely, because it applied the technology of Xerox Parc implemented in two earlier but more expensive machines, the Apple LisaandXerox Star. Mac adopted a lot of the characters of these machines in a faster, smaller and cheaper computer. For this project, a lot of members were recruited to the Mac team from the Apple Lisaand Xerox Parcteams, and these members could be very helpful because of their knowledge of the earlier projects.
The Innovation process is the cross-functional activities to create innovation through all the departments of the company. There is no one department which is in charge of the innovation of the whole company (Drejer 2002, p.6). There had been 25 members in the Mac team by the early 1982, but the team was still closely knit. The average age of the team members was 28, and many of them experienced this kind of major project for the first time. Because the teams were small, every member was in charge of a very large part of the whole design, and they were free to discuss with members of other team when theyconsideringalternatives. The Mac team contained trained engineers as well as an industrial artistand the “hackers”that were self-taught. The Mac could optimize both software and hardware, becausethe team’s small size allowedintense communication between the two parts, furthermore, the team formed the environment of constant and intense interaction because of the building they occupied completely separating from the company’s rest part. However, this separation led to conflict with the company’s rest part, and the company lacked coordination and technology transfer between the Mac team and other parts. Therefore, the Mac team’s important innovations could not reverberate in the whole company.
1.2The Intense Interaction Management
The Mac group’s constant and intense interaction between its members created the emergence of new ideas and features. A lot of meetings of informal design were held covering the computer’s minute details and heated discussions were often held. Roger (1962) pointed that the socio-cultural evolutionary processes of variation, selection and retention characterizetechnological change. At one discussion, the nontechnical members made a proposal that it would be much fun if the Macintosh was able to sound four different voices simultaneously and the consumers need such an equipment to listen to music. Therefore the software programmerandthe hardware engineer spent time to research a four voices’ sound generator. Marketing members as well as secretaries and finance specialist took part in these impromptu meetings. This created “group mania”, and this tried toexpand the imaginationlimits possible. Actually, the groupproduced new problems and this makes other membersof the teamfind solutions, so that process is to create information (Guterl 1985, p. 41).
The organized group retreats from the office further intensified the interaction. Up to 25 members of the team discussed the project for two days. The work accomplished was presented and their goals were outlined by every group of the project. This prompted the team to reflect the work accomplished and set new goals. The team spirit was also increased and the engineers were motivated to continue working for long periods by the retreats.
Technology development should be integrated with product development at the strategic level (Drejer 2001).The managersof manufacturingwere an importantpart ofthe Mac group, and they also took part inmaking the decisions of the design. This was very helpful for Apple to build a factory which was highlyautomated and could produce the Mac with low costs, and Apple had already set a lowtarget price.
2. The Advantages and Disadvantages of the Management of Jobs
2.1Disadvantages of the Management of Jobs
Steven Jobsmanagedthe Mac projectcompletely differently from other PC project, and the final decision was always made by him. However this autocratic system which was due to his preconceptions ignored a lot of good ideas. For instance, when deciding to use the 3.5 inch or 5.25 inch floppydisk, though the engineers suggested that the 3.5 inchwas better, Steven Jobs still askedto use the5.25 inch onewhich was slower and lower-capacity.
Steven Jobs critically worked as a product champion, but he made mistakes too during the management of the development process. Some members thought personalidiosyncrasies were reflected in the whole Mac project rather than free design, and false started, and diversions, experiments,competition and,rebellionformed the members of the machine(Michael 1984, p.129).
Jobs made decisions according to personal bias showing the negative aspect. For instance, Jobs insisted notsetting expansion slots on the Mac to avoid third-party vendors to make add-on equipment. Actually all other successful personal computerscontained the add-on capability, andthe third-party vendors could produce value-added to the personal computer adding new designs andfunctions.And the new add-on design could provide more values for the computer.
2.2The Advantages of the Management of Jobs
At first, the Mac team even had no idea of the presentation of the computer. Actually, they even didn’t have a development schedule. A very important engineer in the project stated that Jobsallowed them to crystallize the solution and the problem at the same time (Guterl1985, p. 35). Jobs and the other earlier leader had only built basic principles and all the team’s members should concretize these, and the Mac team was actually self-organizing.
Iansiti (1997) pointed out that technological integration means integrating product-markets and technologies of the company. Jobs made some newdifficult ideas for the project group that needed completelyrethinking the featuresof personal computers. For instance, when Jobs investigated the role of personal computers in the daily lives in society, he thought them played the transformative role like telephones. He began to spend time to research telephones inofficesandhouses and found that the telephoneswere often on the telephone books. Therefore Jobs was sure that the dimensionsof the new computer should be the same as a telephone book. Because it made itnecessary to use the computer notin ahorizontal mannerbut in a vertical manner, itbrought much more challenges. Thismade the Macmore compact and gave it a distinctive design too (Young1988, pp. 226-228).
By 1988 the featuresintroduced by the Mac to personal computing had already been necessary for all the personal computers. Because Jobs was really a product visionary, he acted not only as the leader, but also as the final arbiter when making decisions showing thepositive aspect.
Conclusion
The Mac made new information for the Apple andit was a key leap forward in the field personal computers,but it did not help Apple to develop in a steady and rapid way.And this was mainly becausea lot of the main leaders of the Mac team left the corporationbecause ofburnout, divergent opinionsabout the management, or other new economic opportunities, and the Apple lost the Mac group’s veterans which were the newly created information’s embodiment (Sculley1988, Walton 1985).The Mac group succeeded to create an environment for the innovation. The leader of a company should act to help the members to accelerate their vision’s realization.The main factor for innovation is to create anenvironment in which new information can emerge from chaos (Quinn, 1985;Baumol and Benhabib, 1989). #p#分页标题#e#
References
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