Jörgen sandberg. Stockholm School of Economics. A classic managerial problem, страница 11

Although the attribute of understanding and developing monitoring systems is also essential for these optimizers, its meaning differs from that given by those who expressed the first and second conceptions. The third group wants to allow for all the situations in which customers drive a car by adjusting suitable parameters and by developing new operations within the monitoring system that are better suited to meeting a particular customer requirement. Also, the attributes of interest in engines and self-teaching and cooperating and having relevant contacts appear to be as central for these optimizers as they are for those expressing the second conception. However, in contrast to the second group, whose self-teaching involves increasing their knowledge about relationships among engine qualities, the optimizers in the third group build up knowledge about the relation between customers' wishes and approved engines. Therefore, collaboration with the department for complete vehicle testing, which tests the cars from the customers' viewpoint, is of particular importance for these optimizers. Here, the relation to the attribute a practical sense of the engine becomes clear. The most important transformation is the knowledge about the relation between the character of the engine and the customers' requirements.

A Hierarchy of Competence in Engine Optimization

As was described in the previous section, the optimizers' conceptions of work constitute their competence at work. More specifically, the different ways of conceiving optimization work constitute three distinctive forms of competence in engine optimization. However, the conceptions do not only constitute and give rise to variation in competence, but also to a hierarchy of competence. More specifically, a hierarchy of competence in engine optimization is established in terms of an increasing comprehensiveness of conceptions. In the first conception, optimizing separate qualities, the work is delimited as several separate steps, with the relation between single parameters and single engine qualities the focus. In the second conception, optimizing interacting qualities, the work is expanded so that it includes not only separate steps, but also the relations among the qualities of an engine. In the third conception, optimizing from the customers' perspective, the work is expanded still further so that it not only consists of separate steps and the interaction among qualities, but also of the relation between the optimized engine and customers' requirements.

The hierarchy of competence in terms of an increasing comprehensiveness of conceptions is still more evident through the attributes within each conception of engine optimization. For instance, the attribute knowledge of the engine was expressed by all the optimizers as essential to engine optimization. However, the meaning of the above attribute varies depending on the conception it appears in. In the first conception, optimizing separate qualities, knowledge of the engine means understanding how the qualities of an engine react to changes in monitoring parameters. The second conception, optimizing interacting qualities, also includes an understanding of how the various qualities react to different influences from the parameters. However, this knowledge of the engine is inadequate for the second conception. In order to optimize interacting qualities, it is also necessary to see links between engine qualities. And in the third conception, optimizing from the customers' perspective, understanding how the qualities of an engine interact is important but insufficient. Of greater importance is a practical sense of the engine, as the focus for these optimizers is the relation between engine qualities and customer requirements. Hence, the hierarchy of competence has the following character: the first conception is the least comprehensive, the second is more comprehensive than the first, and the third conception is the most comprehensive.