Innovation and Learning in High-Reliability Organizations: A Case Study of United States and Russian Nuclear Attack Submarines, 1970–2000

Given their complexity and tight coupling, one of the most serious challenges high-reliability organizations (HROs) face is how to innovate, learn, and adapt without upsetting the internal processes that lead to their reliability. This paper describes the success of the United States Navy in using a “platform strategy” to facilitate modular innovation in its attack submarine program while maintaining high reliability. We compare the United States’ submarine development program against that of the Soviets, who innovated by building a number of different types of nuclear attack submarines to test their new design concepts and thereby aggressively push both manufacturing and performance limits. We illustrate that, by adopting a platform strategy, the U.S. development program was able to sustain reliability by controlling factors that derived from four classes of concern: 1) operational; 2) manufacturing and design; 3) resource limitations, and 4) cultural constraints. The use of a platform strategy assists in maximizing system-wide organizational learning, which helps enrich a culture of reliability. However, at the same time, a platform strategy can hinder revolutionary and architectural innovation and reduce operational flexibility. Finally, we consider whether an HRO´s innovation strategy is partially shaped by its decision-making process.