‘Organizational Linkages: Understanding tho Productivity Paradox (1984)
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policy across levels are made clear. Where possible, they are resolved
and a new, more congruent policy is developed. If agreement is not
possible, at least people know where the disagreements are and why
they exist. This seems to make it easier to cope with the conflict.
‘The process of developing the system also helps resolve conflicts
Detween units that must coordinate with each other. When the system
is developed, it becomes clear where objectives are not consistent. Ia
the design and manufacturing units in the example above, it would be
clear from an examination of each unit's products and indicators that
the two units are evaluating themselves differently. It then becomes
the responsibility of higher management to work with the two units to
bring products and indicators more in line with the objectives of the
broader organization. One way this can be done is for each unit to have
its own products, indicators, and contingencies as usual, but to have
additional indicators that are a function of the joint efforts of the coor-
dinating units. In the example, the common measures could be time to
complete the final prototype, number of changes in the original design,
and number of prototypes needed. These measures can only be highly
favorable when the two units work closely together in developing the
new product. ‘These common measures would be added to the mea-
surement system of each unit. If the two units want to look good on
their measures, they must work together effectively.
ProMES and Aggregation ‘The point has been made that one way of
avoiding the productivity paradox is to aggregate only measures that
are influenced by the same set of causal factors. The ProMES method-
ology offers a way to do this through the percentage-of-maximum mea-
sure, This is the index that is the unit’s actual overall effectiveness
divided by the maximum possible effectiveness for that unit. It is a
metric that is common across all types of units, no matter what work
they are doing
One could calculate the percentage of maximum for a variety of
different units. The mean percentage of maximum across the units
would be the overall index of how well personnel are performing the
organization's work.
TOWARD A COMPOSITION THEORY OF LINKAGES.
‘While it is important to decompose the productivity parades and
suggest solutions for dealing with it, the larger objective must be kept
in sight: Jearning about productivity linkages. ‘The paradox is only an
example of the importance of studying and understanding linkages be-
tween organizational subsystems. What is really needed is greater