Skip to Main Content
HBS Home
  • About
  • Academic Programs
  • Alumni
  • Faculty & Research
  • Baker Library
  • Giving
  • Harvard Business Review
  • Initiatives
  • News
  • Recruit
  • Map / Directions
Working Knowledge
Business Research for Business Leaders
  • Browse All Articles
  • Popular Articles
  • Cold Call Podcast
  • Managing the Future of Work Podcast
  • About Us
  • Book
  • Leadership
  • Marketing
  • Finance
  • Management
  • Entrepreneurship
  • All Topics...
  • Topics
    • COVID-19
    • Entrepreneurship
    • Finance
    • Gender
    • Globalization
    • Leadership
    • Management
    • Negotiation
    • Social Enterprise
    • Strategy
  • Sections
    • Book
    • Podcasts
    • HBS Case
    • In Practice
    • Lessons from the Classroom
    • Op-Ed
    • Research & Ideas
    • Research Event
    • Sharpening Your Skills
    • What Do You Think?
    • Working Paper Summaries
  • Browse All
    Wellsprings of Creation: Perturbation and the Paradox of the Highly Disciplined Organization
    04 Sep 2008Working Paper Summaries

    Wellsprings of Creation: Perturbation and the Paradox of the Highly Disciplined Organization

    by David James Brunner, Bradley R. Staats, Michael L. Tushman and David M. Upton
    Many organizations struggle to balance the conflicting demands of efficiency and innovation. Organizations can become more efficient in the short run by replacing costly, unpredictable problem solving activity with consistent, streamlined routines. However, this efficiency often comes at the cost of long-run adaptability. The more organizational activity is dominated by stable routines, the less the organization learns, and the more rigid and inflexible it becomes. To escape this fate, the authors of this working paper theorize that highly disciplined organizations must actively engage in strategic and selective perturbation of established routines. A perturbation interrupts an established routine and creates an opportunity to innovate and learn. Using illustrations from Toyota, the authors investigate the conditions under which perturbations can sustain exploration in highly disciplined organizations. Key concepts include:
    • To sustain adaptability in the long term, perturbations must occur throughout the organization.
    • In highly disciplined organizations, adaptability depends on the active participation of organization members in inducing and interpreting perturbations.
    • Management must trust employees to perturb processes, teach them to detect and interpret perturbations, and motivate them to do so.
    • In the long term, business success depends as much on the commitment and knowledge of frontline employees as on strategic decision-making by senior management.
    LinkedIn
    Email

    Author Abstract

    Organizations face simultaneous imperatives to exploit and explore. Paradoxically, exploitation tends to drive out exploration, rendering organizations rigid and vulnerable to environmental change. Drawing on the Carnegie School, we propose a model where perturbation moderates the relationship between exploitation and exploration. We posit that highly disciplined organizations can sustain virtuous cycles of exploitation and exploration by deliberately perturbing their own processes. We provide illustrations from Toyota and formulate testable hypotheses about the mechanisms of perturbation.

    Paper Information

    • Full Working Paper Text
    • Working Paper Publication Date: July 2008, revised June 2009
    • HBS Working Paper Number: 09-011
    • Faculty Unit(s): Organizational Behavior; Technology and Operations Management
      Trending
        • 23 Jun 2022
        • Research & Ideas

        All Those Zoom Meetings May Boost Connection and Curb Loneliness

        • 25 Jan 2022
        • Research & Ideas

        More Proof That Money Can Buy Happiness (or a Life with Less Stress)

        • 21 Jun 2022
        • HBS Case

        Free Isn’t Always Better: How Slack Holds Its Own Against Microsoft Teams

        • 22 Jun 2022
        • Book

        Four Elements for Finding the Right Career Path

        • 18 Apr 2022
        • HBS Case

        Dick’s Sporting Goods Followed Its Conscience on Guns—and It Paid Off

    Michael L. Tushman
    Michael L. Tushman
    Baker Foundation Professor
    Paul R. Lawrence MBA Class of 1942 Professor of Business Administration, Emeritus
    Charles B. (Tex) Thornton Co-Chair of the Advanced Management Program
    Contact
    Send an email
    → More Articles
    Find Related Articles
    • Organizational Design

    Sign up for our weekly newsletter

    Interested in improving your business? Learn about fresh research and ideas from Harvard Business School faculty.
    ǁ
    Campus Map
    Harvard Business School Working Knowledge
    Baker Library | Bloomberg Center
    Soldiers Field
    Boston, MA 02163
    Email: Editor-in-Chief
    →Map & Directions
    →More Contact Information
    • Make a Gift
    • Site Map
    • Jobs
    • Harvard University
    • Trademarks
    • Policies
    • Accessibility
    • Digital Accessibility
    Copyright © President & Fellows of Harvard College