Performance of alliances: formative stages and changing organizational and environmental influences

There is near unanimous agreement that the performance of alliances usually falls short of expectations. Studies have identified several generic reasons for poor performance: inadequate communication, lack of trust, insufficient complementarity of resources, inappropriate organizational structures and processes, and so on. While we broadly agree with these, knowledge of these self-evident reasons does not seem to have turned the tide of bad news in any way. We show in this paper that it is important to unpack a broad set of antecedent variables, including the ones identified above, and to track them over the crucial formative stages of an alliance. Based on our interviews with 24 senior and middle level managers and professionals of a focal company about 10 of its major alliances, we identify the following four formative stages of an alliance: (1) Recognition , (2) Research , (3) Relationship Set-up , and (4) Ramp up . We show that the primary predictors of success across these stages are not identical, nor their effect uniform. Further, proper completion of all the preceding stages is essential for the success of subsequent stages. We finally show that the compaction of the various successful stages, in particular of the Ramp-Up stage, is one of the best predictors of overall success of an alliance.     

国际总包工程风险分析及应对措施

以一个典型的国际总承包项目--Sudapet总部大楼为案例．从该项目运行的投标阶段及运行阶段两个阶段．阐述了各类风险．并提出了相应的应对措施。     

A Stage‐Wise Approach to Exploring Performance Effects of Cycle Time Reduction

Research on reducing new product development (NPD) cycle time has shown that firms tend to adopt different cycle time reduction mechanisms for different process stages. However, the vast majority of previous studies investigating the relationship between new product performance and NPD cycle time have adopted a monolithic process perspective rather than looking at cycle time for the distinct stages of the NPD process (i.e., fuzzy front end, development, and commercialization). As a result, little is known about the specific effect of the cycle times of the different stages on new product performance or how they interact to influence new product performance. This study uses a stage‐wise approach to NPD cycle time to test the main and interacting effects of fuzzy front end, development, and commercialization cycle times on new product performance using objective data for 399 NPD projects developed following a Stage‐Gate® type of process in one firm. The results reveal that at least in this firm, new product performance only increases if all three stages of the NPD process are consistently accelerated. This finding, combined with the previous research showing that firms use different mechanisms to accelerate different stages of the process, emphasizes the need to conduct performance effect studies of NPD cycle time at the stage level rather than at the monolithic process level.     

科技型中小企业生命周期的划分及应用

选取2009-2010年在创业板上市的科技型中小企业为样本,运用现金流组合法将其划分为导入期、增长期、成熟期和衰退期四个阶段,考察处于不同生命周期阶段的科技型中小企业资本结构是否具有显著差异,进而揭示科技型中小企业不同生命周期阶段资本结构差异性,为企业及时调整发展战略提供依据。     

Asymmetric customer–supplier relationship development in Taiwanese electronics firms

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the relationship development stages of asymmetric customer–supplier relationships. The structure of relationships between larger customers and smaller suppliers has been the focus of a number of studies in IMP (Industrial Marketing and Purchasing Group) research. But, there is a paucity of research that examines development stages in relationships where a difference in size between the parties exists. The paper links the characteristics of asymmetric customer–supplier relationships and the relationship development stages through a literature review. The findings from a set of five in-depth case studies of asymmetric customer–supplier relationships in the Taiwanese electronics industry are presented. The case studies involved 50 semi-structured interviews with customer and supplier executives and, in addition, multiple observations of customer–supplier interactions within each case study. Individual and cross-case analysis was conducted to examine the links between the characteristics of asymmetric customer–supplier relationships and relationship development stages. The findings revealed that asymmetric customer–supplier relationships in the Taiwanese electronics industry were very unbalanced and vulnerable in the exploratory stage of development. In the developing stage relationships were more likely to develop if suppliers and customers mirrored each other's behaviour and echoed each other's priorities. In the stable stage suppliers and customers worked on shared and balanced contributions to the relationship. The paper contributes to the understanding of how smaller suppliers and larger customers can identify and develop key sets of relationship characteristics through the exploratory, developing and stable stages of asymmetric relationship development from both customer and supplier perspectives.     

A systems approach for developing high technology products

Product development for high technology products is comprised of the three stages of assessment, development, and execution. In addition, all three stages consist of information and decisions involving technological, product, and market dimensions. This article presents a systematic approach for integrating these three dimensions by which a go—no-go decision can be reached prior to the expenditure of large amounts of funds for research and development.     

How Involving More Functional Areas Within a Firm Affects the New Product Process

Effective new product development decisions are often based on information obtained from multiple functional areas in the organization, making effective communications an important part of successful development efforts. Linda Rochford and William Rudelius examine the effects on new product performance of obtaining information from multiple functional areas during the stages of the new product development process. In addition, they explore the effects of information sharing among functional areas on new product performance. Results suggest that a surprisingly large number of functional areas in the medical products firms in the study do not contribute or use information in many of the new product development stages. However, for several stages of the new product process, obtaining information from more functional areas and sharing information among more functional areas has a positive impact on new product performance.     

Innovative clusters and the industry life cycle

The purpose of this paper is to link the propensity for innovative activity to spatially cluster to the stage of the industry life cycle. The theory of knowledge spillovers, based on the knowledge production function for innovative activity, suggests that geographic proximity matters the most where tacit knowledge plays an important role in the generation of innovative activity. According to the emerging literature of the industry life cycle, tacit knowledge plays the most important role during the early stages of the industry life cycle. Based on a data base that identifies innovative activity for individual states and specific industries for the United States, the empirical evidence suggests that the propensity for innovative activity is shaped by the stage of the industry life cycle. While the generation of new economic knowledge tends to result in a greater propensity for innovative activity to cluster during the early stages of the industry life cycle, innovative activity tends to be more highly dispersed during the mature and declining stages of the life cycle, particularly after controlling for the extent to which the location of production is geographically concentrated. This may suggest that the positive agglomeration effects during the early stages of the industry life cycle become replaced by congestion effects during the latter stages of the industry life cycle.     

对“企业生命周期理论”的回顾和思考

回顾了企业生命周期理论的发展历程及主要内容。企业作为人造的生命体,与自然界中的生物类似,经历着诞生、成长、成熟、衰退直至死亡的生命历程。在企业发展的不同阶段,应有针对性地选择相应的企业文化。在不同成长阶段,企业所遵循的规律也有所不同。竞争是促使企业不断创新的根本动力。只有“勇于创新、不断超越”的企业才能长期保持生机和活力。     

基于生命周期的智力资本对企业创新能力的影响研究

进入知识经济时代后,智力资本成为提高企业创新能力的关键要素。本文以2014年上市制造业企业作为研究对象,分析智力资本与企业创新能力的关系。研究发现,不同的生命周期中,人力资本、结构资本和关系资本对企业创新能力的影响程度不同。其中在成长期时,人力资本和结构资本对企业创新能力影响较大。在成熟期时,人力资本、结构资本和关系资本都正向显著影响企业创新能力。在衰退期时,人力资本和关系资本对企业创新能力影响较大。研究结果可以为上市制造业企业有效实施智力资本的积累,进一步实现企业创新提供借鉴。     

Optimal organization in a sequential investment problem with the principal's cancellation option

This paper considers a two-stage sequential investment problem where the principal wishes to cancel the project if it fails in the first stage. Suppose that only the first-stage agent can observe the outcome in the first stage. There are two organizational forms to choose from: integration, where a single agent is in charge of investments in two stages; and separation, where two different agents are in charge of the two stages. Integration gives rise to a smaller wage cost of inducing high effort in both stages; however, in order to obtain the correct information to cancel the project, separation may have some advantage in terms of saving the information rent. We show that when the effort cost in the first stage is sufficiently small, the principal prefers separation because the first-stage agent has less incentive to lie about the outcome.     

Patterns of cooperation during new product development among marketing, operations and R&D: Implications for project performance

Successful new product development is fundamentally a multidisciplinary process. While this view has helped lead management to the wide‐spread adoption of cross‐functional new product development teams, in this study we question whether simply increasing the level of functional integration is truly a guarantee for enhancing the performance of new products. To assess this we examined patterns of cooperation between marketing, R&D, and operations at both early and late stages of the new product development process for 34 recently developed products whose level of innovativeness ranged from high to low. A unique feature of this study is that data were collected from four sources for each project. This included personal interviews with a project leader and written surveys from marketing, operations, and R&D personnel on each project. Findings from this study reveal that: (1) functional cooperation typically increases as the process moves from early to late stages; (2) cooperation between marketing and R&D is highest during early stages of the process, but for marketing and operations, and for R&D and operations, cooperation typically increases as the process moves from early to late stages; (3) higher project performance — irrespective of the level of project innovation — is demonstrated when cooperation between marketing and R&D, and cooperation between operations and R&D is high during early stages; (4) late stage cooperation between marketing and operations, and R&D and operations is a key determinant in project performance for innovative products but not for noninnovative products, and; (5) that early stage cooperation between marketing and operations is associated with superior performance for low innovation projects but is also associated with poor performance for innovative projects. Findings from this study demonstrate that the importance of cooperation between specific functional dyads (i.e., marketing — R&D; R&D — operations; operations ‐ marketing) indeed varies by time (i.e., early vs. late stages), and by the level of innovativeness (i.e., new‐to‐the‐world vs. modifications) associated with the new product being developed.     

Strategy over the business cycle

This article develops an analytical and empirical framework for examining strategy over the business cycle. Firms were observed to adjust their strategies significantly and asymmetrically over business cycle stages. There was no consistency in performance between up markets and down markets. A variable-parameter profitability model of strategy in a cyclical industry suggested the importance of a strategy's contemporaneous and inter-temporal relationships with performance. Discrepancies were observed between actual strategies and optimal strategies over business cycle stages.     

Purchasing agent's influence in the buying process

As in previous studies the role of the purchasing agent can here been seen to vary throughout the buying process. The results both support and reject previous findings. This study finds that while purchasing agents are heavily involved in some buying stages, such as the selection of an order routine as suggested by previous studies, they may not be heavily involved in such other buying stages as post-sale performance feedback. This is contrary to previous findings. This study was conducted in the commercial construction industry.     

How to analyze technology lifecycle from the perspective of patent characteristics? the cases of DVDs and hard drives

This study aims to analyze the technology lifecycle from the perspective of the dynamics of patent characteristics; the dynamics of patent characteristics are proposed as an approach for characterizing technology lifecycle in this study. DVD and hard drive technologies, which have already experienced their complete technology lifecycles, were selected for analyzing their patent characteristics as a function of the different stages of their technology lifecycles to thus obtain the objective of this research. The results obtained in this study provide a channel to assess the nature of firms’ innovation strategies along technology lifecycles. It can be observed that (1) patents attempt to cite more prior patent or non-patent references at the latter stages to find more technological or scientific sources that can contribute to technological innovation, (2) most litigated patents are granted in the Growth stage, so it is expected that patents in the Growth stage should be more important and, thus, more relevant to dominant design than the patents granted in other stages.     

A systematic small group approach to creativity and innovation: A case study

The paper reports a longitudinal study of the result of applying systematic creative problem-solving techniques in a particular multinational firm. The first section of the paper describes the way the system was applied to the five stages of an innovation from conception to implementation. Fifteen different techniques were used, the choice varying with the stage. The paper then describes three examples of actual innovations (disguised), stage by stage, giving a judgment of the value of the techniques used, the frequency of success or failure of all the sessions undertaken, the relative success of the techniques used, and the usage of the techniques by stage of innovation.
Two further points are made; firstly, creative thinking is needed and manifested at all stages of a project and not just in the early stages; secondly, although Synectics was shown to be rather effective it gradually lost ground to a less successful technique because the managers concerned did not like its seeming inconsequentiality and abandonment of logic.     

信息化项目监理经验探讨

信息化项目监理主要包括软件开发监理和硬件系统集成监理,与信息化工程建设阶段相对应的各监理阶段,分别有具体的监理手段和监理内容。从工程建设不同阶段着手,结合工程建设内容,从软件建设和硬件建设方面,讨论了招投标阶段、实施阶段、验收阶段的具体监理内容和监理检查要点,阐述了监理工作的必要性和重要性。     

A mathematical model for a buffered two-stage manufacturing cell with an unreliable transfer device

In this paper, a mathematical model is developed for a manufacturing cell of two manufacturing stages with a single-storage buffer and a transfer robot for loading, unloading and moving parts into and out of the buffer. Both stages and the transfer robot are subject to failure. The cell is modeled as a random Markov process on the assumption that time to failure and time to repair are exponentially distributed. The output of such manufacturing cell is established, and as expected, it is less than that where the transfer means are continuously available.     

Social media affordances in entry‐level employees’ socialization: employee agency in the management of their professional impressions and vulnerability during early stages of socialization

This study examined how entry‐level employees interacted with social media during three stages of organizational socialization. They navigated between four different media affordances (persistence, editability, visibility, and association) while experiencing them as both enabling and constraining in different socialization stages. Qualitative interview data analysis revealed during anticipatory socialization, job applicants realized visibility and persistence in relation to institutional and individualized socialization. During encounter, new employees managed personal and professional life boundaries carefully against the association and visibility affordances. Although some participants used both public and enterprise social media for obtaining job‐related information and understanding coworkers and company culture, during metamorphosis, most interviewees adopted passive information seeking strategies and experienced a paradoxical tension between the enabling and constraining affordances of social media. Findings are discussed with regards to employees’ exertion of agency in managing their professional impressions and coping with high levels of uncertainty and vulnerability during early stages of socialization.