A Closer Look at Cross‐Functional Collaboration and Product Innovativeness: Contingency Effects of Structural and Relational Context

This study applies a contingency perspective to examine how the intra‐organizational context influences the relationship between cross‐functional collaboration and product innovativeness. It focuses on the role of (1) formal, structural factors directly controllable by top management decisions and (2) more intangible, relational factors as potential enhancements of the firm's ability to convert cross‐functional collaboration into product innovativeness. A study of 232 firms confirms the hypotheses, finding that the relationship between cross‐functional collaboration and product innovativeness is stronger for higher levels of decision autonomy and shared responsibility (structural context) and social interaction, trust, and goal congruence (relational context). In addition, a post‐hoc analysis using a configurational approach to organizational contingencies reveals that organizations' relational context is more potent than their structural context for converting cross‐functional collaboration into product innovativeness. The study's implications and future research directions are discussed.     

Getting More from Cross‐Functional Fairness and Product Innovativeness: Contingency Effects of Internal Resource and Conflict Management

This research investigates how organizations' internal resource and conflict management influence the relationship between cross‐functional fairness and product innovativeness. It considers two contextual dimensions of both internal resource management (job rotation and internal rivalry) and conflict‐handling mechanisms (integrating and avoiding) as key components of the firm's ability to convert fair interactions, across departments, into product innovativeness. The tests of the study's hypotheses, based on a sample of more than 200 Canadian‐based firms, confirm that the cross‐functional fairness–product innovativeness relationship is amplified at higher levels of job rotation and integrative conflict handling but suppressed at higher levels of internal rivalry and avoidance of conflict handling. The authors discuss the study's implications and future research directions.     

Vertical and Horizontal Cross‐Ties: Benefits of Cross‐Hierarchy and Cross‐Unit Ties for Innovative Projects

Social networks are an important driver for successful innovation, both at the individual level as well as the organizational level. Recent research has also shaped that networks within teams can enhance performance. Innovative project teams are embedded in an organizational context, however, and teams typically consist of people with expertise from diverse backgrounds, and from different units. Team members may have ties to other teams, business units, and hierarchical levels. Although it seems clear that such ties can influence team performance, remarkably little research has focused on what is here referred to as vertical and horizontal cross‐ties. Previous research may have ignored the possibility that vertical and horizontal bridging ties may have different performance outcomes. Although the literature suggests that diversity of input, or horizontal cross‐unit ties will benefit team performance and innovativeness, there is reason to believe that ties to higher levels in the organization might have an effect on project team performance and innovativeness too. This article in particular studies the role of vertical cross‐hierarchy ties. In an exploratory analysis combining quantitative and qualitative results, it is distinguished between horizontal cross‐unit and vertical cross‐hierarchy ties and their contribution to new business development (NBD) project performance, thereby making a substantial contribution to both academic literature and managerial practice. Our study is based on a multiple case‐study approach of several NBD project teams in a large European financial service provider. Our results show that successful innovation project teams are characterized by a large number of cross‐unit ties in combination with a large number of cross‐hierarchical ties compared with less successful project teams. Additionally, proof is found that vertical cross‐hierarchy ties should be concentrated rather than scattered across project members.     

Accounting for Cross‐Country Differences in Employee Involvement Practices: Comparative Case Studies in Germany,Brazil and China

Employee involvement is a contested concept in organizations. While the mainstream of the research debate has focused on measuring the strength of employee involvement (EI), this article emphasizes the existence of very different forms of EI. It draws on case studies of the German, Brazilian and Chinese plants of a German automobile manufacturer to analyse forms of EI and to investigate their societal determinants. The article reveals considerable differences in the design of employee involvement between the self‐organization model and the competition/social involvement model. It shows how industrial relations and cultural factors lead to these very different approaches.     

Cross‐Cultural Creativity: Conceptualization and Propositions for Global New Product Development

In today's global business environment, where multinational companies are pressed to increase revenues in order to survive, creativity may hold the key to ensuring their new product development (NPD) efforts lead to innovations with worldwide appeal, such as Apple's iPad and Gillette's Fusion Razor. To leverage creativity for effective global NPD, businesses want to know how cultures differ in their concepts of creativity and the impact of those differences on approaches to developing new products. Because global new products are increasingly developed in, by, and for multiple cultures, a particular need is for a culturally reflective understanding, or conceptualization, of creativity. While creativity is believed to be culturally tied, the dominant framework of creativity used in business and management assumes that creativity is culturally indifferent or insensitive. This knowledge gap is addressed by studying the role of creativity in NPD practices in a cross‐cultural or global context. The study begins by first developing a culturally anchored conceptualization of creativity. Called cross‐cultural creativity, the concept draws on creativity insights from the field of art and aesthetics. The concept specifies two modes of creativity, neither of which is superior to the other, called the spontaneous or S route and the divergent or D route. The S route emphasizes adaptiveness, processes, intuitiveness, and metamorphism, while the D route focuses on disruptiveness, results, rationality, and literalism. Next, this new concept is applied to NPD by positing how creativity in distinct cultures may shape NPD practices, as illustrated by Japanese and U.S. firms. Research propositions are formulated to capture these patterns, and thereafter, theoretical and practical implications of the framework and propositions are discussed. The implications center on global NPD, which is a complex enterprise involving typically more than one culture to design and develop new products for several geographic markets. The study is of interest to researchers needing a globally situated, culturally attached framework of creativity for international NPD studies, and managers seeking to exploit creativity in multinational and multicultural innovation projects.     

Collective Bargaining,Inter‐Sectoral Heterogeneity and Competitiveness: A Cross‐National Comparison of Macroeconomic Performance

Research on the performance effects of bargaining remains inconclusive. One reason for this is neglect of heterogeneity of the bargainers, namely differences in exposure to world markets and their implications for international competitiveness. Since the effects of bargaining on competitiveness depend on coping with productivity differentials between the exposed and sheltered sector, we discuss how distinct bargaining structures interact with these differentials. Exposed‐sector pattern setting is predicted to be the only bargaining structure that is sensitive to productivity differentials. The findings from time series cross‐sectional analysis corroborate the expected impact on labour costs and the current balance, whereas no employment effects are discernible.     

Spurring Cross‐Functional Integration for Higher New Product Performance: A Group Effectiveness Perspective*

Spurring integration among functional specialists so they collectively create successful, or high‐performing, new products is a central interest of innovation practitioners and researchers. Firms are increasingly assembling cross‐functional new product development (NPD) teams for this purpose. However, integration of team members' divergent orientations and expertise is notoriously difficult to achieve. Individuals from distinct functions such as design, marketing, manufacturing, and research and development (R&D) are often assigned to NPD teams but have contrasting backgrounds, priorities, and thought worlds. If not well managed, this diversity can yield unproductive conflict and chaos rather than successful new products. Firms are thus looking for avenues of integrating the varied expertise and orientations within these cross‐functional teams. The aim of this study is to address two important and not fully resolved questions: (1) does cross‐functional integration in NPD teams actually improve new product performance; and if so, (2) what are ways to strengthen integration? The study began by developing a model of cross‐functional integration from the perspective of the group effectiveness theory. The theory has been used to explain the performance of a wide range of small, complex work groups; this study is the first application of the theory to NPD teams. The model developed from this theory was then tested by conducting a survey of dual informants in 206 NPD teams in an array of U.S. high‐technology companies. In answer to the first research question, the findings show that cross‐functional integration indeed contributes to new product performance as long conjectured. This finding is important in that it highlights that bringing together the skills, efforts, and knowledge of differing functions in an NPD team has a clear and coveted payoff: high‐performing new products. In answer to the second question, the findings indicate that both intra‐ (or internal) and extra‐ (or external) team factors contribute and codetermine cross‐functional integration. Specifically, social cohesion and superordinate identity as internal team factors and market‐oriented reward system, planning process formalization, and managerial encouragement to take risks as external team factors foster integration. These findings underscore that spurring integration requires addressing the conditions inside as well as outside NPD teams. These specialized work groups operate as organizations within organizations; recognition of this in situ arrangement is the first step toward better managing and ensuring rewards from team integration. Based on these findings, managerial and research implications were drawn for team integration and new product performance.     

Open for Ideation: Individual‐Level Openness and Idea Generation in R&D

Organizations are increasingly encouraging their scientists and engineers to source knowledge externally. However, it is unclear how the openness of individuals to external sources of knowledge affects their ideation performance, that is, their ability to develop new, useful innovative ideas for their organization, and which factors might moderate this process. Drawing on theories of combinatorial search, and using a sample of 329 R&D scientists and engineers working in a large organization, we demonstrate that individuals' openness to external sources of knowledge is curvilinearly related to their ideation performance. Openness provides benefits such as alertness and variety which contribute to ideation up to the point where increasing integration and approval costs cause negative returns to set in. We also examine how the R&D time horizon, ties to senior managers, and the breadth of individual knowledge moderate the costs and benefits of openness to individuals. We explore the implications of these findings for managerial practice.     

Resource Dedication and New Product Performance: A Resource‐Based View

Corporate investments in new product development (NPD) initiatives are strategically effective activities that are instrumental in contributing to new product performance. Given that a fundamental nature of product development is the ability to exploit new product opportunities, the authors investigate the firm‐level impact that corporate investments in knowledge workers and financial NPD resources have on new product performance. They track the resource dedication and new product financial performance of 41 firms over a seven‐year period. Our results provide evidence that financial investments have a contemporaneous return on investment while knowledge worker investments provide companies with both contemporaneous and carryover returns. When formulating strategy and making NPD resource allocation decisions, managers must remain cognizant of the time‐dependent nature of resource investments, the need for persistent investment, and the resulting performance impact.     

European Works Councils and the Crisis: Change and Resistance in Cross‐Border Employee Representation at Honda and Toyota

The article analyses the effects of the financial and economic crisis on the structures and activities of the European Works Councils (EWCs) at Honda and Toyota, which until 2007–8 were categorized as non‐efficient representation bodies. A theoretical concept is introduced to measure activation and to analyse the factors explaining change/stability. In the empirical part, the EWCs are analysed using data from expert interviews. Both EWCs have undergone different activation ‘paths’, which partly lead to a restructuring of the bodies and the implementation of new co‐ordination processes. Yet the basic logic was retained because of cultural and power related aspects.     

Explaining Employment Effects in Multipolar Value Chains: A Cross‐National Study on Soft Drinks and Dairy Manufacturing in Europe

The article develops an integrated framework that employs a dynamic perspective on interlinked levels of value chain governance in order to explain employment in value chains. It compares two multipolar chains in food and beverage manufacturing, in two different producer and consumer markets, Belgium and Germany. Analysis reveals that varied value capture dynamics in the food and beverage industries underpin distinct employment effects at specific inter‐firm nodes, as well as between labour and product markets. This reveals institutional and product variation explaining firms’ value capture trajectories. However, it also illustrates a concomitant transnational trend of deteriorating working conditions, stemming from overall chain governance.     

Capital Budgeting Practices for R&D: A Survey and Analysis of Business Week's R&D Scoreboard

This paper discusses results of a survey of U.S. Corporations regarding the extent of the utilization of standard capital budgeting measures of investment worth to evaluate R&D projects. This study analyzes responses by three types of R&D activity: Basic, Applied and Development research. The results indicate that discounted cash flow methods are widely utilized in the evaluation of Development projects, and the analysis of Development projects is as sophisticated as the evaluation of non-R&D projects. The use of discounted cash flow analysis techniques for Applied projects is considerably less widespread than for Development projects. However, the utilization of Net Present Value and Internal Rate of Return increases with firm size. Basic research projects are much less likely to be subjected to a formal economic analysis and are generally thought of as being “strategic” investments. This research also indicates that post-audits of Applied and Development projects are based on economic measures, whereas Basic research projects focus on physical or operational goals. Lastly, this research indicates that most R&D projects are terminated because R&D priorities have changed rather than because they are not technically feasible.     

Dynamic Use Diffusion Model in a Cross‐National Context: A Comparative Study of the United States,Sweden, and India

This study proposes a model of dynamic use diffusion that serves as a basis for investigating post‐adoption technology‐usage behavior. Dynamic use diffusion measures the extent to which technology usage has evolved since the time of adoption. Herein, antecedents and consequences of dynamic use diffusion are investigated. A large‐scale, random sample survey was conducted in the United States, Sweden, and India on the use of Internet and computing technology. The survey results suggest that while the antecedents of dynamic use diffusion are similar across the three countries, the consequences are somewhat different for India. These differences can be attributed to the national cultural differences of India compared with the United States and Sweden with regard to power distance beliefs.     

Resource orchestration for team‐based innovation: a case study of the interplay between teams,customers, and top management

The resource orchestration concept has attracted considerable interest in contemporary innovation research. However, resource orchestration is a manager‐centric framework and not all of its components necessarily reflect the value‐creation processes of organizations focusing on team‐based innovation. Drawing on a single‐case study of an innovative Swedish software company, we illustrate the roles of autonomous teams, customers, and top managers in orchestrating resources for team‐based innovation. Moreover, we introduce the concept of resource flocculation to describe how key actors co‐orchestrate various resource orchestration processes. The study contributes to research on resource orchestration by adapting the model to the conditions characterizing team‐based innovation, and to research on team‐based innovation by addressing how innovative teams are related to overall resource orchestration processes and, ultimately, organizational innovation outcomes.