Organisational culture and decision making: A case of consensus management

This paper explores how a state-of-the-art concept, organizational culture, shapes decision making and consensus generating strategies used in the successful management of product development activities in high technology companies. Engineering development groups interact with many individuals and groups on a wide variety of very complex engineering, manufacturing, marketing and business issues. Much uncertainty exists around these issues because information that would allow for a decision to be made is often unknown or unknowable. Trade-offs are made continually resulting in a high degree of interdependence among development groups and others with whom they interact. Achieving a balance between controlling development activities on the one hand, and encouraging creativity and initiative on the other, is a complicated process. This paper illustrates the role of organizational culture in product development using case material from a very successful US high technology company. ‘Consensus management,’ a major cultural theme at ‘DW Enterprises,’ is a decision making style that involves everyone in the decision making process who might have relevant input. A cultural analysis reveals that the engineers developed specific techniques for generating consensus, and that these related as much to control over participation in product development as to decision making.