Loading...
Please wait, while we are loading the content...
Similar Documents
ICL: Taming the R&D Beast
| Content Provider | Semantic Scholar |
|---|---|
| Author | Campbell-Kelly, Martin |
| Copyright Year | 1993 |
| Abstract | In this paper, it is argued that a successful mainframe-computer company of the 1960s needed a portfolio of five organizational capabilities: prudent management, R&D, manufacturing, marketing, and applications knowhow. In the post-World War II decade, a fragmented computer industry developed in the United Kingdom, with no single player having the full range of capabilities. Responding to the competition from IBM and other U.S. computer companies in the 1960s, a government-inspired series of mergers led in 1968 to the formation of a single nationai-champion computer company, ICL, with the organizational capabilities and scale to meet the American challenge. Pre-eminent among the objectives for the creation of ICL was the desire to maintain an indigenous R&D capability. This overshadowed all the other objectives-especially high-quality management--and resulted in recurrent financial crises and subsequent .government rescues. In the face of escalating R&D costs in the late 1970s, ICL made a high-risk dash for growth that led to the firm's near bankruptcy in 1981. Only when the R&D costs had been contained was the company brought back to a profitable, if unglamorous, position. |
| File Format | PDF HTM / HTML |
| Alternate Webpage(s) | http://coursesa.matrix.msu.edu/~business/bhcweb/publications/BEHprint/v022n1/p0169-p0180.pdf |
| Alternate Webpage(s) | http://www.h-net.org/~business/bhcweb/publications/BEHprint/v022n1/p0169-p0180.pdf |
| Alternate Webpage(s) | http://www.thebhc.org/sites/default/files/beh/BEHprint/v022n1/p0169-p0180.pdf |
| Language | English |
| Access Restriction | Open |
| Content Type | Text |
| Resource Type | Article |
