Empirical study on competitive context DIGITAL EQUIPMENT CORPORATION created

Abstract

This paper analyzes and explains how employee of Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) created an organizational context by the interrelationship with others or organizational institution. Analyzing three ethnographies by the Grounded Theory Approach (Glaser and Strauss, 1967), the paper proposes theories to explain the specific situation in DEC. Competitive context was created by the engagement which based on the interrelation of people, and emotion against organizational institution. This paper uses some concepts to grasp people’s relationship. One of them is person to person relationship, other one is co-fsoperational relationship. DEC people believe a norm that superior technology is always justice. Such belief changed the nature of competition. When DEC founded, engineers competed their own technical capabilities as individual. Each engineer’s winning or losing was not clear, and it was not necessary to divide the victory and defeat. But DEC growing, employee’s interest moved to competition of in-house-resource acquisition. That means a change in co-operational-relationship. When DEC founded, co-operational-relationship is formed spontaneously on the basis of technical capabilities of individual. Such context was transformed into co-operational-relationship based on the coordination of official organization. Belief of superior technology is justice required employee to be a winner both in-house and market. Mechanism to alternate employee for the win has been produced in the DEC. But the winner of competition was burned out due to in-house competition. This story led the future that Ken Olsen, founder of DEC, also burned himself out because of defeat, and DEC disappeared from the computer industry. The role of DEC was alternated by Compaq.