Success despite the Silos: System-Wide Innovation and Collaboration

Abstract

A review of the literature on silos in organizations reveals that they are a metaphor to signal dysfunction and difficulty. To explore the range of factors that come into play when projects in an organization demand interaction and support across silos, we present examples from three organizations: an intimate apparel company, a global automotive firm, and a hospital. We find similar problems and patterns within this ethnographic exploration of silos, different innovation pathways, and different results that are useful in understanding how silos work and how they are overcome as organizations respond to changing external conditions.