KNOWLEDGE BASED

TECHNOLOGY-
CHARLES PERROWS
CONTRIBUTIONS
Presented by
Sakshi Kukreja (12DM141)
Sameer Mirani (12DM143)
WHAT IS TECHNOLOGY ?
Information
Equipment
Techniques
Processes
In simple words, how inputs are converted into outputs

CHARLES PERROW
Ph.D. from the University of
California, Berkeley, 1960.

Author of 6 books and over 50
articles including Radical Attack on
Business(1972),award winning
Normal Accidents: Living with high
risk technologies (1984), award
winning THE AIDS DISASTER (1990)
and others.

Interests included development of
Bureaucracy in the 19
th
century,
radical movements of the 1960s ,
accidents in high risk zones like
nuclear plants, DNA research and
chemical plants and protecting
nations infrastructure etc.
LIMITATION OF WOODWARDS
PERSPECTIVE ON TECHNOLOGY

His theory was limited only to the manufacturing firms, which
represented less than half of the population of Organizations

Charles Perrow identified that technology needed to be
operationalized for all organizations.

CHARLES PERROWS DEFINITION
OF TECHNOLOGY



The action that an individual performs upon an object, with
or without the aid of tools or mechanical devices, in order to
make some change in that object.
DIMENSIONS OF KNOWLEDGE
TECHNOLOGY
Task Variability: No. of exceptions encountered in ones work.

Problem Analysability: The type of search procedures followed
to find successful methods for responding adequately to task
exceptions. In other words, well defined versus ill defined.
PERROWS TECHNOLOGY
CLASSIFICATION
Systematic
problems:
Cell 1 and 2
Intuitive
problems:
Cell 3 and 4
Familiar problems
Unfamiliar problems
RELATIONSHIP OF
DEPARTMENTAL TECHNOLOGY
WITH STRUCTURAL AND
MANAGEMENT
CHARACTERISTICS
PERROWS CONCLUSIONS
Control & coordination methods should vary with
technology type
More routine the technology, more highly structured the
organization
Non-routine Technology requires greater structural
flexibility
Craft technology requires problem solving with greatest
knowledge & experience.
Engineering technology requires centralized decisions but
maintain flexibility because exceptions are many.