Exploring the Relationships Between Product Development and Environmental Turbulence: The Case of Mobile TLC Services*

Managing innovation in turbulent environments (e.g., in environments with extreme uncertainty and complexity in market needs and technological opportunities) is a major challenge. A recent stream of studies in the management literature has suggested that when facing turbulent environments, firms should deploy more flexible development processes. This paper approaches this issue by looking at the Italian mobile telecommunications (TLC) industry. Nine in‐depth case studies were conducted in five different companies. Data analysis showed some important results. First of all environmental turbulence should be considered to be project specific rather than company or industry specific. Moreover, it can come from both shift in the market needs and in the technology. Nevertheless, it seems clear that having rapid changes is not enough to have environmental turbulence. If rapid changes can be somehow foreseen, there is no turbulence at all. Hence, when approaching projects in potentially turbulent environments, managers should assess both rapidity and unpredictability of the environment. Finally, looking at the in‐depth cases, the paper points out what of the main practices to increase flexibility that are described in literature are actually adopted by companies. In case of turbulence (both in the market and/or in the technology) companies delay concept freezing point. Moreover, in the case of technological turbulence, they also leverage on rapid project iterations, whereas in case of market turbulence they more likely adopt early experiments involving customers, formal and cross‐functional project teams, and flat organizational structures.     

Competition and Regulation of Mobile Money Platforms in Africa: A Comparative Analysis of Kenya and Uganda

Review of Industrial Organization - We analyze the competition issues in mobile money in Kenya–where Safaricom is the market leader–and in Uganda: where the market is duopolistic. We...     

Networking as a Means to Strategy Change: The Case of Open Innovation in Mobile Telephony

The purpose of this article is to investigate how innovation networks can be used to deal with a changing technological environment. This study combines different concepts related to research and development (R&D) collaboration strategies of large firms and applies these concepts to R&D alliance projects undertaken by Nokia Corporation in the period 1985–2002. The research methodology is a combination of in‐depth semistructured interviews and a large‐scale quantitative analysis of alliance agreements. For the empirical analysis a distinction is made between exploration and exploitation in innovation networks in terms of three different measures. As a first measure, the difference between exploration and exploitation strategies by means of the observed capabilities of the partners of the contracting firms is investigated. The second measure is related to partner turnover. The present article argues that in exploration networks partner turnover will be higher than in exploitation networks. As a third measure, the type of alliance contract will be taken; exploration networks will make use of flexible legal organizational structures, whereas exploitation alliances are associated with legal structures that enable long‐term collaboration. The case of Nokia has illustrated the importance of strategic technology networks for strategic repositioning under conditions of change. Nokia followed an exploitation strategy in the development of the first two generations of mobile telephony and an exploration strategy in the development of technologies for the third generation. Such interfirm networks seem to offer flexibility, speed, innovation, and the ability to adjust smoothly to changing market conditions and new strategic opportunities. These two different strategies have led to distinctly different international innovation networks, have helped the company in becoming a world leader in the mobile phone industry, and have enabled it to sustain that position in a radically changed technological environment. This study also illustrates that Nokia effectively uses an open innovation strategy in the development of new products and services and in setting technology standards for current and future use of mobile communication applications. This article presents one of the first longitudinal studies, which describes the use of innovation networks as a means to adapt swiftly to changing market conditions and strategic change. This study contributes to the emerging, but still inconsistent, literature on explorative and exploitative learning by means of strategic technology networks.     

Sustaining Complement Quality for Digital Product Platforms: A Case Study of the Philips Hue Ecosystem

Innovation in a digital world increasingly revolves around open platforms that consist of a core technology and a large variety of complementary products developed by an ecosystem of independent complementors. The platform ecosystem literature has mainly focused on indirect network effects arising from the quantity of complements, with little attention to the quality of complements, despite the importance of quality for the complementary value that drives platform ecosystems. Because digital products are malleable and dependent on the ever‐evolving ecosystem, we advance a relational and dynamic conceptualization of complement quality. Drawing on a systematic, in‐depth qualitative case study of the Philips Hue connected lighting platform and its complementary third‐party apps, we study how and why complement quality is sustained over time. By analyzing apps and their updates, we developed a process model that explains pathways through which complement quality is enhanced, maintained, or deteriorates. Changes in the platform core, changes in other ecosystem elements, and idiosyncratic connections by users result in expanding affordances, materializing glitches, and emerging obsolescence. Without further action, glitches and obsolescence lead to deteriorating quality. Joint action of complementors, platform owners, and users is needed to act upon affordances, glitches, and obsolescence, in order to maintain integrity and enhance functionality. This paper contributes to the literature on innovation in platform ecosystems by explaining the dynamic and relational nature of complement quality in a digital platform ecosystem and showing the interdependence of ecosystem members (the triad between platform owner, complementors, and users) in sustained development efforts.     

Exploring the Relationship Between Aesthetic Design as an Element of New Service Development and Performance*

The purpose of this research is to investigate the conditions under which the use of aesthetic design as an element of new service development is likely to improve performance—more specifically, to empirically examine how aesthetic design can contribute to competitive advantage, resistance to imitation, and profitability, and how these contributions are moderated by the process of commoditization. Based on analysis of three rounds of longitudinal data collected one year apart in a population of new technology‐based firms, the findings are that aesthetic design as an element of new service development can contribute positively to competitive advantage, resistance to imitation, and profitability, but that the effectiveness of using aesthetic design to achieve these outcomes differs depending on the level of commoditization. Positive relationships are found between the use of aesthetic design and competitive advantage and profitability, respectively, when the level of commoditization is high. Furthermore, the positive relationship between aesthetic design and resistance to service imitation is stronger when the relative importance of aesthetic design in a firms' sector is low, that is, conditions under which aesthetic design is not already expected. This research suggests that practitioners should consider using aesthetic design to counteract commoditization when the markets in which they compete are characterized by ready access to services that meet customers' needs and expectations for features, performance, and reliability, and expectations for aesthetic design have not already become established. Furthermore, they should be aware that the use of aesthetic design may turn into a baseline customer requirement, implying that while attention to aesthetic design is necessary to compete it may cease to constitute a potential source of competitive advantage.     

New Contractual Relationships in the Agency Worker Market: The Case of the UK's National Health Service

In recent years, there has been a trend towards the negotiation of closer contractual relationships between employers and employment agencies. However, little is known about this change or its likely consequences. In theory, such relationships can benefit employers by lowering fees and also reducing many of the hidden costs associated with the use of agency staff by improving the effectiveness of placement matching. Against this is the suggestion that formal partnerships are unlikely to have a positive impact given the uncertainty of demand for temporary labour and broader tendencies for risk displacement in buyer–supplier networks. In this article, our aim is to explore this matter focusing on recent developments in the UK's National Health Service. We find that new contractual relationships such as framework agreements and master vendor contracts are having mixed effects. While they serve to reduce direct costs for employers in the short term, this has been at the expense of relationship building and improvements in placement matching. These developments are also found to have some potentially negative consequences for the agency workforce itself.     

新疆移动服务营销策略浅析-以乌鲁木齐市场为例

本文以服务营销组合策略为依据,简述新疆移动通信有限公司概况,分析新疆移动乌鲁木齐市场服务营销组合现状并从中发现问题,然后以乌鲁木齐市消费者需求为出发点,提出新疆移动乌鲁木齐市场服务营销组合策略的改善意见,为提高服务水平、企业竞争优势提供可行性依据。     

钢铁工业与现代服务业融合发展的案例分析

简要叙述了钢铁工业与现代服务业开展“两业融合”的重要意义,分别以宝钢、河钢为代表的国内钢铁企业和以浦项、蒂森克虏伯为代表的国外钢铁企业为例,对钢铁企业开展两业融合的做法进行了分析,最后针对两业融合发展提出了几点建议。     

The Keisho1 of Development Technology: The Case of the Japanese Aircraft Industry

In many respects, development of highly innovative products such as fighter aircraft comes down to a quest for technological superiority. If such products lack best-in-class technologies, they face almost certain defeat at the hands of the competition (or, in the case of fighter aircraft, the enemy). In addition to the latest and greatest technologies, however, this type of development effort must draw on the past. Takashi Nakayama explores the role that keisho—or inheritance—of development technology plays in the Japanese aircraft industry. He illustrates the concept of keisho through examples ranging from the projects that culminated in development of the famed Zero fighter aircraft during the 1930s to those that produced the FSX (recently renamed the F-2) support fighter during the 1990s. Drawing on these historical perspectives, he addresses three key questions regarding keisho. First, why do Japanese manufacturers insist on keisho of development technology, even in the development of the latest aircraft? Second, what does the term development technology mean? And finally, how is keisho of development technology to be carried out? He then presents two models to show how keisho of development technology is carried out under different circumstances. The term development technology refers to the tacit knowledge that each member of the organization brings to a development effort. In other words, development technology comprises fieldwork knowledge, which consists of intuition, experience, and analogy. In essence, development technology represents the insight necessary for understanding the overall circumstances of a project and actively reframing or integrating various technologies to fit the needs of that project. During a development effort, each member of the organization internalizes this tacit knowledge (that is, development technology). By retaining and assigning these people to subsequent developments, an organization carries out the keisho of development technology. In this straight inheritance (optimal) model of keisho, engineers move from a completed project to another large-scale, next-generation project, continually using, refining, and enhancing the tacit knowledge shared by all members of the organization. The result is successive generations of new, excellent products. In intermediary inheritance (the minimal requisite keisho model), the core of development technology is inherited through various medium-scale intermediate projects, rather than directly from one large-scale project to the next.     

Technology neutrality: Exploring the interaction between International Mobile Telecommunication and national spectrum management policies

This paper reviews ITU-R actions with respect to IMT standardisation, and explores how these actions affect national spectrum management decisions such as those related to technology neutrality. Our analysis, which is based on 52 interviews, demonstrates that the IMT standardisation activities do not explicitly influence the decision of the regulator on the adoption of technology neutrality. They do, however, contain a range of positive (encouraging) and negative (discouraging) perspectives that shape the regulator's views on technology neutrality are two contrasting views on whether there is mutual influence between the IMT definitions within the ITU-R, and 3G and 4G market definitions.Nationally IMT standardisation has largely no influence on the discrimination between mobile technology generations (e.g., 3G, 4G etc.). The IMT spectrum identification has positive influences on selecting technologies from the IMT family.     

国外油田服务公司的产生与发展

作为世界石油工业的重要组成部分,国外油田服务公司伴随着世界石油业的发展,经历了100多年的曲折发展历程,完成了从专业性技术服务公司到多功能综合性服务分司的转变。进入90年代以来,国外油田服务分司成为国际石油舞台上一支日益活跃的力量,在生产经营和管理体制方面形成了自己的特色并积累了丰富的经验。特别是像哈里伯顿、斯伦贝谢和贝克休斯这样的油田服务公司中的大牌“明星”,更是深谋远虑,不断调整发展战略,以求在激烈的国际竞争中取胜。了解国外油田服务公司的产生、发展及经营之道,对于身处改革之中的中国油田服务企业而言是有一定的借鉴意义的。我刊将分两部分对有关内容进行介绍,敬请读者注意阅读。本期刊登第一篇《国外油田服务公司的产生与发展》,下期推出第二篇《国外油田服务公司的经营之道及启示》。     

Stratifying the Development of Product Platforms: Requirements for Resources,Organization, and Management Styles

The prior research on product platforms has added to our knowledge from a strategic, technological, and organizational point of view. However, the existing literature, while exploring the platform concept, considers the actual development of platforms from a rather general perspective although companies develop platforms for different aims, purposes, and product scopes. Following on from this, the requirements for platform development resources, the ways of organizing platform development, and the implications for management styles have not been explored and are presumably varying. To start elaborating on this, the research behind this article uses a clinical research approach in seven platform development cases from eight years' longitudinal research in three global manufacturing automotive original equipment manufacturers. Platform development is here defined and treated as development with the aim of creating a foundation, the platform, for the subsequent development of derivative products. The analysis of the development of platform in different strategic situations and with different purposes demonstrates how combinations of changes in components and/or architecture represent a key differentiator. An important result is the advancement of the platform perspective from an architecture with a set of components to a classification of four platform development variants based on alternative changes in architecture and/or components. Each type has different complexities and characteristics influencing the project length, requirements for platform development resources, principles for organizing, and implications for management styles.     

High Performance Work Systems and Employee Experience of Work in the Service Sector: The Case of Aged Care

In spite of the growing body of research on high performance work systems (HPWS), there is little evidence on their application in the service sector. It is commonly argued, however, that occupational segmentation in services is a barrier to HPWS. Analysis of data from aged‐care workers indicates that: HPWS have positive outcomes for workers; highly skilled nurses are no more likely than lowly skilled personal care workers to be subject to HPWS; and in some cases, HPWS are associated with more positive outcomes for low‐skilled than high‐skilled workers. These findings suggest that HPWS may well be widely applicable in service settings.     

Sectoral Heterogeneity in New Service Development: An Exploratory Study of Service Types and Success Factors

The service industry is of fundamental relevance for the economies of industrialized countries, as the service industry produces the highest growth in the gross domestic product. In this regard, new service development (NSD) represents a critical resource for competitive survival and a decisive factor of growth in the service industry. However, service firms across many industries are increasingly faced with the challenge of determining how best to manage their development of new service offerings. Although researchers have shown growing interest in NSD issues, this area is still underutilized. Furthermore, although the heterogeneity of the service industry has been emphasized for years, the current body of research on NSD mainly focuses on specific service environments, providing data that are often not comparable across different service sectors. Additionally, there is no study to date that comprehensively examines innovation activities and the relevance of service innovations’ success factors within different service industries. The aim of this exploratory study is to establish a more balanced picture of the nature of innovation activities in terms of NSD characteristics and success factors in the heterogeneous service industry. From this perspective, this paper begins with an examination of the factors that contribute to the success of NSD. Based on a meta‐analysis of new service success factor studies, 17 different success determinants are classified and aggregated to service‐related success determinants. Subsequently, a cluster analysis of 1016 service companies is used to identify different service innovation types. For the service sector, four service innovation types are determined: efficient developers, innovative developers, interactive adopters, and standardized adopters. Furthermore, based on interviews with service innovation managers, the previously identified success factors are examined for each innovation type using a standardized survey. Finally, based on the results of this exploratory study, the paper concludes with recommendations for NSD management and research propositions for each service innovation type. These propositions support innovation managers to successfully manage service innovations for the innovation type they are operating in.     

Marketing–Industrial Design Integration in New Product Development: The Case of China*

Despite the acknowledgement of functional integration as an important driver of new product development (NPD) success and the growing recognition of the significance of industrial design (ID), the integration between industrial design and other functional units in NPD has been rarely researched. In this article, we examine the marketing and ID integration in NPD in the context of China. Mainly based on Cooper's (1994) stage‐gate phases of NPD process and Gupta, Raj, and Wilemon's (1985) categorization of NPD activities, we develop a conceptual framework that identifies 29 areas that might require integration or where integration might occur between marketing and ID. Specifically, we investigate and compare the current and the ideal integration between marketing and ID perceived by the two functions. An analysis of data from 113 companies reveals that the current level of integration fell short of the ideal level of integration in all the phases of NPD. Both managers believed in the descending trend of integration along the stage‐gate NPD phases and were dissatisfied with the current level of integration in all the NPD phases. Except for a few areas of agreement, marketing and ID managers showed significant differences with each other in their perceptions of the current and the ideal integration in most of the 29 areas. Despite the disagreements however, the two functions agreed with each other on the most important areas that require integration and achieved the highest level of marketing–ID integration. These findings suggest that firms should improve the marketing–ID integration in all the NPD phases and that management could improve the effectiveness of marketing–ID integration by prioritizing and focusing on the most important areas. Research and managerial implications, limitations, and future research directions are presented in the paper.     

如何做好对浅海石油平台应急电源的检验

在紧急状态下,浅海石油平台的应急电源对平台的安全扮演着极其重要的角色,为了增强平台的安全等级,尝试从独立于工程甲乙双方第三方的角度,参照国家、行业的多项标准、规范和工作经验,对在工程设计图纸审查阶段、建造阶段和生产期海洋石油平台应急电源的重点检验内容进行了阐述,其中在图纸审查阶段主要是审查应急电源图纸的科学性、合理性、安全性;建造检验阶段主要是检验应急电源施工的质量、设计图纸的执行情况、国家标准的实施情况及是否对平台的安全构成威胁;生产期检验的主要内容是检查应急电源功能的完整性.     

河北省服务业发展影响因素的实证分析

利用1985年～2008年的数据,采用逐步回归方法对河北省服务业发展影响因素进行了实证分析。结果表明,人均GDP、城镇居民收入水平、农村居民生活质量以及服务业劳动生产率对服务业的发展有显著的影响。进而提出了加快河北省服务业发展的建议及对策。     

"中国价格"探索--以MP3音乐播放器为例

“中国价格”（The China Price）最引起很多人的关注。对中国出口的商品为何拥有如此强大的竞争力,西方国家一直解释不清楚,贸易摩擦也不断发生。MP3音乐播放器案例阐明,在全球价值网络的背景下,中国价格的构成关系及其核心因素．产品知识价值投放的地理位置、知识含量程度对价格效应的不均匀分布。以及产业模块集聚等要素对价格的影响,引发超大规模产业集群、蝗虫工业现象的“中国价格”的系统效应。