scholarly journals Stimuli of Collaboration in Product Development: A Case Study in a Project Manufacturing Company

2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 13-26
Author(s):  
Aki Jääskeläinen ◽  
Jussi Heikkilä ◽  
Anna Hiidensalo ◽  
Otto Thitz

AbstractThere is already a wide acceptance on the importance of involving supplier and customer companies in product development. Decent understanding prevails on the relationship-oriented approach to product development including various collaboration forms. However, there is less research on the factors explaining the decision of attending to joint product development. In addition, less studies have examined the integrated role of both suppliers and customers in product development initiatives. This study searches answers to the following research questions: 1. What is the role of different actors in product development initiatives? 2. What factors motivate suppliers and customers to participate in product development? The research is carried out as an in-depth qualitative single case study in a large project manufacturing company. It takes the perspective of a focal company striving for product improvements. The first part of the empirical study consists of 15 semi-structured interviews. The second part includes two discursive workshops and builds upon the results of the interviews. This study contributes to the existing research by explaining the challenges and conditions facilitating joint product development with supplier and purchaser companies. The results highlight the role of customers in improving the effectiveness of product development. As a practical contribution, the paper reports the application of workshop method as a facilitator of collaboration between supplier, purchaser (focal company) and customer companies.

Author(s):  
Viviana Durão ◽  
António Carrizo Moreira

This chapter, based on a single case study, has as its main objective to analyze a real example of creating an inter-organizational network and to perceive what was done for the selection and creation of the strategic partnerships and inter-organizational network and what factors or conditions can inhibit these partnerships from having long-term success and throughout its life cycle. For this, a qualitative study based on action research and semi-structured interviews was conducted. Results show although many companies settle in inter-organizational networks to gain competitive advantage, cases of failure are still quite high. In this case, upstream partnerships have not been based on long-term trust and commitment, which has jeopardized the continuity of the network, although there is an express desire to re-establish contacts. The partnership established downstream did not show the same commitment to continue the partnership with a total termination of the relationship.


2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 413-423
Author(s):  
Arthur Antonio Silva Rosa ◽  
Etienne Cardoso Abdala ◽  
Luciana Oranges Cezarino

Goal: The present study aimed to analyze how sustainability of suppliers affect the sustainability of a wholesaler-distributor located in the city of Uberlândia, Minas Gerais, Brazil. Design / Methodology / Approach: A qualitative approach was chosen using the case study and content analysis as methodologies and the main instrument for data collection was the interview. Results: The results suggest a direct relationship between the sustainability of the focal company and that of supply chain members, so that the alignment of Triple Botton Line (TBL) practices along the chain is essential to emphasize the effects of these practices and for the company to be considered sustainable, as indicated by sustainable supply chain concepts. Limitations of the investigation: The main limitation was the use of a single case study, which does not allow the generalization of results to other companies. Practical implications: It was possible to analyze the relationship between the sustainable practices of suppliers and the focal company to confirm the need to align sustainable practices throughout the supply chain. The results suggest that companies could improve their performance in environmental, social and economic terms if they observe and evaluate the sustainability of their suppliers, reducing environmental risks and future losses. Originality / Value: In terms of literature, this is a topic that has not been explored yet in terms of the applicability of sustainability in the supply chain, especially in practical issues in the wholesale sector.


2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 8-21 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mauro Paoloni ◽  
Giorgia Mattei ◽  
Niccolo’ Paoloni ◽  
Valentina Santolamazza

The Italian banking system has changed profoundly and nowadays banks have to adapt their strategies to attain an adequate level of profitability (Mattei, 2019). Digitalization and mergers and acquisitions (M&A) are useful to obtain this result. However, at the same time, they can have a negative impact on the relationship between the bank and the territory, compromising the local economic growth (Caporale, Di Colli, Di Salvo, & Lopez, 2016). The objective of this work is to understand if any strategies could be undertaken to maintain the territorial relationship even when M&A and digitalization have become necessary. The methodology used is an ethnographic exploratory single case study (Yin, 1984). The information collected using semi-structured interviews is interpreted through qualitative inductive content analysis (Elo & Kyngäs, 2008). The interviews suggest that even when M&A and digitalization have a negative impact on the relationship between bank and territory, these two processes, if well-managed, could both improve the bank’s profitability and the contact with the local reality. Therefore, if a strategic management process is defined in advance, it is possible to maintain, or, even gain profitability


Author(s):  
Kathy L. Milhauser

Organizations of all sizes are finding it necessary to expand their operations across geographic boundaries in a phenomenon that has been referred to as the globally distributed team. While this trend is typically a response to business opportunity, it is not without challenges. One of those challenges is how to maintain organizational culture as teams become globally distributed. The goal of the research detailed in this chapter was to examine a single organization that has been utilizing distributed teams to facilitate product development. A single case study method was used. Data was gathered through a series of semi-structured interviews with employees who participated in a distributed product development team. The chapter includes a review of the organization’s approach to orienting employees to the organizational culture, maintaining focus on the culture over a period of years, and extending the culture to support globalization while maintaining the integration of distributed teams into the overall organization.


2018 ◽  
Vol 25 (10) ◽  
pp. 1322-1338 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lena Elisabeth Bygballe ◽  
Maria Endresen ◽  
Silje Fålun

Purpose Previous research shows that implementing lean construction is not a straightforward task. The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of formal and informal mechanisms in implementing lean principles in construction projects. Design/methodology/approach The paper draws on a single case study of the implementation of innovative lean principles in a public construction project in Norway. The study is based on qualitative data, including 17 semi-structured interviews with 21 individuals, document analysis, and observations in meetings and seminars, in addition to informal conversations. Findings Formal mechanisms, including contractual arrangements, have the potential to both facilitate and hamper the implementation of innovative lean principles in a construction project. They might create coherence, but at the same time they might limit the scope of the concept in such a way that others do not accept it. Informal mechanisms, including social and lateral relationships and trust aid implementation, both directly by creating commitment and by modifying the challenges that the formal mechanisms potentially incur. Formal mechanisms may, in turn, nurture the informal ones. Research limitations/implications The research is based on a single case study within the Norwegian public sector, which is dependent on specific public procurement regulations and subject to strong contractual traditions. Originality/value The research extends the existing knowledge of implementation of lean construction in the construction industry. It helps refining the understanding of the role played by formal and informal mechanisms, and the interplay between them in the implementation process. This knowledge is also relevant for process innovations in construction in general.


2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 174-190 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daragh O’Reilly ◽  
Kathy Doherty ◽  
Elizabeth Carnegie ◽  
Gretchen Larsen

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore how music consumption communities remember their past. Specifically, the paper reports on the role of heritage in constructing the cultural memory of a consumption community and on the implications for its identity and membership. Design/methodology/approach Drawing upon insights from theories of cultural memory, heritage, and collective consumption, this interpretive inquiry makes use of interview, documentary, and artefactual analysis, as well as visual and observational data, to analyse an exhibition of the community’s popular music heritage entitled One Family – One Tribe: The Art & Artefacts of New Model Army. Findings The analysis shows how the community creates a sense of its own past and reflects this in memories, imagination, and the creative work of the band. Research limitations/implications This is a single case study, but one whose exploratory character provides fruitful insights into the relationship between cultural memory, imagination, heritage, and consumption communities. Practical implications The paper shows how consumption communities can do the work of social remembering and re-imagining of their own past, thus strengthening their identity through time. Social implications The study shows clearly how a consumption community can engage, through memory and imagination, with its own past, and indeed the past in general, and can draw upon material and other resources to heritagise its own particular sense of community and help to strengthen its identity and membership. Originality/value The paper offers a theoretical framework for the process by which music consumption communities construct their own past, and shows how theories of cultural memory and heritage can help to understand this important process. It also illustrates the importance of imagination, as well as memory, in this process.


Author(s):  
Marius Pretorius ◽  
Ingrid Le Roux

Orientation: Current theories of repeat entrepreneurship provide little explanation for the effect of failure as a ‘trigger’ for creating successive ventures or learning from repeated failures. Research purpose: This study attempts to establish the role of previous failures on the ventures that follow them and to determine the process of learning from successive failures.Motivation for the study: Successive failures offer potentially valuable insights into the relationship between failures on the ventures that follow and the process of learning from failure.Research design, approach and method: The researchers investigated a single case study of one entrepreneur’s successive failures over 20 years.Main findings: Although the causes varied, all the failures had fundamental similarities. This suggested that the entrepreneur had not learnt from them. The previous failures did not trigger the subsequent ventures. Instead, they played a role in causing the failures. Learning from failure does not happen immediately but requires deliberate reflection. Deliberate reflection is a prerequisite for learning from failure as the entrepreneur repeated similar mistakes time after time until he reflected on each failure.Practical/managerial implications: It confirms that failure is a part of entrepreneurial endeavours. However, learning from it requires deliberate reflection. Failure does not ‘trigger’ the next venture and educators should note this.Contribution/value-add: Knowing the effect of failure on consecutive ventures may help us to understand the development of prototypes (mental frameworks) and expand the theory about entrepreneurial prototype categories.


2020 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Viktoria Sundquist ◽  
Lisa Melander

Purpose This paper aims to investigate how various organizational interfaces between firms, units and functions, and the interplay between them, are developed and mobilized in product development processes. Design/methodology/approach The theoretical framework is based on the industrial network approach, including interactive resource development and the concept of organizational interfaces. A single case study is conducted at a world-leading industrial tool manufacturer, illustrating how resources are combined over time, crossing boundaries of firms, units and functions in the development of a hand-held digitalized tool for quality assurance in the production of cars. Data have been collected through semi-structured interviews, with additional data in the form of project reports, internal documents and practices for external collaboration. Findings In addition to inter-organizational interfaces, the study identifies a typology of scouting, embarking and integration interfaces at unit level (geographically spread units of one multinational corporation) and interpretation and reciprocal interfaces at function level. The conclusions show that these interfaces affect the outcome of three aspects of the product development process: product characteristics and functionality features, system integration and organizational network extent. Existing interfaces serve as a platform for developing interaction further and provide the interfaces with new content, thus moving between different types of interfaces. Product development processes also involve new interfaces where there was no previous interaction between the parties. Research limitations/implications This research has implications for the interplay between interfaces in cases involving multiple external and internal actors in resource combining efforts. Practical implications External interactions between firms influence and impact internal activities and resources. Managers need to be aware of the complex interdependencies between external and internal interfaces and resources. Managing organizational interfaces is about both exploiting established interfaces and developing new ones. Consequently, existing interfaces may be activated differently to align with new interaction purposes, which, in turn, requires efforts to combine resources according to the new conditions. Originality/value Previous research contains a typology of organizational interfaces between customers and suppliers. The study expands on this research by identifying internal interfaces between units and functions.


2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 95-109
Author(s):  
Heba Aziz ◽  
Osman El-Said ◽  
Marike Bontenbal

The objective of this study was to measure the level of cruise tourists' satisfaction as well as the relationship between satisfaction, recommendation, return intention, and expenditure. Also, the impact of factors such as nationality, length of the visit, and age on the level of expenditure was measured. An empirical approach for data collection was followed and a total of 152 questionnaires were collected from cruise tourists visiting the capital city of Oman, Muscat, as cruise liners anchor at Sultan Qaboos Port. Results of the regression analysis supported the existence of a causal relationship between satisfaction with destination attributes, overall satisfaction, recommendation, return intention, and expenditure. It was found that the average expenditure varies according to age and length of the visit. Recommendations for policy makers were suggested on how to increase the role of cruise tourism in strengthening the economy.


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