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Dissertation Information for Wendy Lynn Currie

NAME:
- Wendy Lynn Currie

DEGREE:
- Ph.D.

DISCIPLINE:
- Management

SCHOOL:
- Brunel University (UK) (1988)

ADVISORS:
- None

COMMITTEE MEMBERS:
- None

MPACT Status: Incomplete - Not_Inspected

Title: ENGINEERING MANAGEMENTS PERCEPTIONS OF THE SELECTION AND IMPLEMENTATION OF COMPUTER-AIDED DESIGN IN TWENTY SELECTED COMPANIES/UNITS

Abstract: The thesis is concerned to explore the nature of management decision making on computer-aided design (CAD) in twenty organisations throughout the UK. The study focuses on the perceptions and frames of reference adopted by engineering managers who occupy varying levels of the management hierarchy. Based on the premise that management is not an homogeneous bloc which consciously pursues a clearly defined business strategy imposed from above, the investigation explores the perceptions of engineering managers who are responsible for the selection and implementation of computer-aided design, and focuses specifically on the role of financial appraisal in decisions on new technology which are rooted in a formal organisational budgetary control system.

In selecting a qualitative approach as the preferred methodology for the enquiry, it appears that information set out in formal documents for resource acquisition for investment in CAD is primarily concerned to identify the strategic and operational benefits arising from technical change. Whilst engineering managers formally justify CAD in cost-benefit terms by emphasising those benefits which are amenable to quantification, it appears that informally their priorities are geared to maximising the qualitative advantages of the technology. Since the existing formal budgetary system acts as a control mechanism of top management, engineering managers have little alternative but to comply with this approach, although many admit that information becomes contrived for the purpose of acquiring resources.

This suggests that formal documents serve a legitimating function as deference to competing rationalities may be interpreted as non-legitimate by top management. Formal decision-making may be thus perceived as a ritualistic management activity based on a budgetary system which has its roots in traditional accounting methods developed in early capitalism.

In seeking to identify the competing frames of reference between engineering and top management in the selection and implementation of computer-aided design, the findings may have significant implications for further research into, managerial processes and technical change, and theoretical debates within the field of the sociology of management which include, micro-organisational power differentials, management control, skills and training, centralisation and delegation of decision making and rationalisation policies using new technology.

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