scholarly journals Strategic Responses During Frugal Innovation at the Base of the Pyramid: the Case of Philips Community Life Centres

Author(s):  
Elsie Onsongo

Abstract When multinational enterprises (MNEs) seek to serve the needs of base of the pyramid (BOP) environments, they are often confronted with several environmental factors, among them, severe resource constraints and institutional complexities. MNEs adopt two overarching strategic orientations to navigate these factors: the strategy to adapt to the new context, or the strategy to shape the context. This paper investigates how and when these strategic orientations are deployed in an MNE. It further explores the intra-organisational tensions and dilemmas that arise when these strategic orientations are implemented. This paper analyzes a case of frugal innovation in a primary care intervention developed and deployed in Kenya by Philips N. V., a Dutch multinational technology company. Several propositions are generated based on the case findings. The paper contributes to the frugal innovation literature which lacks rigorous, in-depth analytical case studies on organisational processes associated with new product development. It also offers managers a useful toolkit that could inform how they could strategically navigate the pressures of BOP environments.

2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Xinchun Wang ◽  
Xiaoyu Yu ◽  
Xiaotong Meng

Abstract New product development (NPD) performance is a key determinant of a new venture’s success. However, compared with established firms, new ventures often suffer from resource constraints when developing new products. Entrepreneurial bricolage is reported in the literature as an alternative strategic option that enables managers to overcome resource constraints when developing new products. However, because new ventures are often founded by an entrepreneurial team, the effectiveness and efficiency of using bricolage to improve NPD performance might be contingent on how the founding team plays its roles in this process. Using data from 323 new ventures in China, we find support for the critical role of entrepreneurial bricolage in improving NPD success under resource constraints. More importantly, our results reveal that the bricolage strategy is more likely to benefit a venture when the founding team is composed of members with diverse functional backgrounds and is not heavily involved in strategic decision-making.


2019 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 257-280
Author(s):  
Wassim J. Aloulou

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationships between strategic orientations as well as the role played by them to impact the performance of industrial firms.Design/methodology/approachThe paper formulates some hypotheses from the literature review. These hypotheses are tested using structural equation modeling with data collected from 292 randomly selected firms operating in several industrial sectors in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.FindingsThe findings of this study showed the importance of these strategic orientations in enhancing the performance of Saudi industrial firms and emphasized the mediating role of entrepreneurial orientation in the relationships of market orientation and technology orientation to new product development performance and firm performance.Research limitations/implicationsThe study discusses the findings and advances certain limitations and research and managerial implications for future research avenues. It proposes some recommendations to help Saudi firms to choose more than one orientation simultaneously and adopt an appropriate configuration of orientations. Future research has to consider the interplay between these strategic orientations and the impacts of environmental turbulence in terms of market and technology turbulence on strategic orientations – performance relationship.Practical implicationsThe study suggests that managers of Saudi industrial firms should utilize a mix of aspects from several strategic orientations such as market and technology through entrepreneurial capabilities and resources that enhance higher levels of performance.Originality/valueThis study contributes to the literature on entrepreneurship and strategic management by showing the reliability of scales used and the confirmatory of the factor structure. It also contributes to business practices by showing the importance for Saudi firms to combine different strategic orientations and provide more attention to the interplay of these orientations in order to perform better in such a transitional context.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 917 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhenfeng Liu ◽  
Jian Feng ◽  
Jinfeng Wang

Extensive research on resource-constrained innovation has been conducted by scholars and practitioners in recent years. An interesting research avenue is how firms explore the process of the new product development (NPD) and the ideas generation to foster resource-constrained innovation. However, despite the importance of product development and creative ideas under the resource-constraints contexts, innovation methods for applying to the resource-constrained innovation and designers have received comparatively less attention. As a remedy, this paper proposes a resource-constrained innovation method (RCIM) to generate ideas for the NPD. The RCIM is mainly divided into four sections: Developing the resource-constrained innovation approaches, developing the resource-constrained innovation dimensions, generating the creative ideas and evaluating the creative ideas. First, the resource-constrained innovation algorithms are developed based on success factors, characteristics, and attributes of resource-constrained innovation and the TRIZ (Teopия Peшeния Изoбpeтaтeльcкиx Зaдaч in Russian; Theory of Inventive Problem Solving in English) inventive principles via the systematic literature review (SLR). Second, the innovation dimensions are categorized to structure a target technology by means of the morphological analysis (MA) and the Derwent manual codes (DMCs) mapping based on collected patents. Third, the creative ideas are generated for the NPD by combining the innovation dimensions with the resource-constrained innovation approaches. Finally, the creative ideas are evaluated by the frugal criteria. The RCIM will stimulate designers’ creativity for achieving sustainability and innovation within constraint-based scenarios, MA and TRIZ.


Author(s):  
Tino Woschke ◽  
Heiko Haase ◽  
Arndt Lautenschläger

Purpose – This study deals with waste in New Product Development (NPD) processes of SMEs. The purpose of this paper is to reveal opportunities for SMEs to overcome resource constraints in their NPD process. Design/methodology/approach – The authors employed qualitative key informant interviews. This design was chosen because research in this field is still limited. The authors performed 49 interviews in engineering-oriented German SMEs to examine the dimension of waste in NPD processes. The data were collected by conducting semi-structured, face-to-face interviews. Findings – The study highlights substantial waste types such as waiting times, rework and duplication of work. In contrast to contemporary literature, waste of material is considered to be relevant in particular for NPD processes of SMEs. In addition to that, the authors found that waste drivers differ to a great extent between the study and the hitherto literature on larger companies. Research limitations/implications – The overall outcome of this study can help organisations to address waste in NPD more thoroughly. The research presented was not specifically designed to draw statistical generalisations. For this reason, the results may not be applicable to all SMEs. Practical implications – Based on waiting times as the major waste type in NPD processes of SMEs, the authors claim that firms should pay special attention to disruptions of these processes. Originality/value – The paper gives insights into current waste types in the NPD processes of SMEs. Moreover, it uncovers the NPD activities which can lead to waste.


2015 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 249-266 ◽  
Author(s):  
Olimpia C. Racela

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to identify firm groups pursuing different configurations of customer-, entrepreneurial-, and information technology (IT) orientation and to compare their new product development (NPD) capability and NPD performance. Design/methodology/approach – Hierarchical cluster analysis was used on the sample of 156 firms on the basis of their mix of customer-, entrepreneurial-, and IT- orientation. Then, analysis of variance was used to compare the groups’ NPD capability (NPDCAP), NPD process efficiency (NPDPROC), new product effectiveness (NPEFF), and new product financial performance (NPPERF). Findings – Of the seven strategy configurations posited, four emerge and two unexpected configurations are revealed. Overall, firms simultaneously pursuing multiple strategic orientations have higher NPDCAP, NPEFF, and NPPERF. Interestingly, all six strategy groups have equally low levels of NPDPROC. Practical implications – To enhance NPDCAP and NPD performance, managers should consider more complex strategy configurations that act in complementary ways, in particular, customer-orientation complemented by either entrepreneurial- and/or IT-orientation. Moreover, more attention is needed to improving NPDPROC, as achieving gains in this area would contribute positively to firm performance. Originality/value – This study presents initial evidence that, at least for firms in Thailand, resources must be configured by pursuing several strategic orientations simultaneously to enhance their dynamic capabilities in NPD, a strategic issue that has not been given much attention in previous literature.


2009 ◽  
Vol 13 (04) ◽  
pp. 537-554 ◽  
Author(s):  
RALUCA BUNDUCHI

The use of cross-functional teams increases creativity in new product development leading to shorter development time and higher product innovativeness. Research in new product development has identified a number of organisational practices associated with supporting organisational creativity in cross-functional teams including frequent and open communication, building organisational slack, attitude to risk and top management commitment. Using a single case study approach, this paper explores the challenges associated with the implementation of such organisational practices in the R&D department of a large telecommunication company. Challenges include sequential involvement of functions in the team, broken communication between different teams, management attitude to resource constraints, and short-term management focus on incremental innovation.


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