Replicating Organizational Knowledge: Principles or Templates?

Two approaches to the replication of practices between units within an organization or a family of organizations are discussed; one approach involves the use of causal principles and the other relies on an extant working example (a template).

Abstract

We discuss in some detail two approaches to the replication of practices between units within an organization or a family of organizations. One approach involves the use of causal principles and the other relies on an extant working example (a template). Definitions are provided for the key concepts of templates, principles, and background knowledge. We address the challenges of providing operational measures for successful replication, and for comparing the efficacy of principles and templates. The analysis identifies important contingencies affecting the relative performance of the two methods; the nature and implication of these are discussed.