Managing radical product development in large manufacturing firms: a longitudinal study

This study explores and documents the processes by which large manufacturing firms develop and produce radical products. Seven projects from five Fortune 500 firms were analyzed over a 3-year period. Through the use of these case studies, we found common themes emerging in the way these firms manage their new product development (NPD) process in this turbulent environment. Our observations suggest that these high levels of uncertainty result in several unique challenges in developing the project, especially in the areas of managing functional integration and finding a divisional home for the emerging product.     

Managing the global supply base through purchasing portfolio management

‘How to source globally’ has become a critical strategic decision for companies competing on a global basis. Despite an increased focus on global sourcing and supply chain management, little is known about the challenges and solutions surrounding such sourcing practices. Extant literature points at the critical importance of developing and sharing knowledge in multinational companies (MNCs). However, little work has been undertaken to examine the organizational mechanisms used by MNC headquarters for knowledge leveraging across subsidiaries, especially in the area of purchasing and supply management. Based on an in-depth case study, focusing on a chemical company, the actual buying systems for managing the global supply base are explored. Kraljic's purchasing portfolio approach appears useful, both for developing effective purchasing strategies as well as for managing a global supply base.     

Optimal pricing of a conspicuous product during a recession that freezes capital markets

This paper considers the problem of how to price a conspicuous product when the economy is in a recession that disrupts capital markets. A conspicuous product in this context is a luxury good for which demand is increasing in brand image. Brand image here means the ability of a consumer to impress observers by conspicuously displaying consumption of the good. Brand image is built up when the good is priced high enough to make it exclusive, and eroded if the good is discounted.Recession is modeled as having two effects: it reduces demand and it freezes capital markets so borrowing is not possible. In pricing the conspicuous product the firm faces the following trade-off. Reducing price helps maintain sales volume and cash flow in the face of reduced demand, but it also damages brand image and thus long-term demand.The paper analyzes the firm's pricing policy facing scenarios of mild, intermediate and severe recessions, while taking the threat of bankruptcy into account. For an intermediate recession the optimal solution is history-dependent. The results have implications for policy interventions in capital markets and for timing of mergers and acquisitions.     

Balancing on a tightrope: Managing the boundaries of a firm-sponsored OSS community and its impact on innovation and absorptive capacity

Realizing the innovation potential of OSS communities, firms now create or sponsor their own open source software (OSS) communities, generally as part of an open innovation strategy. However, maximizing the innovation capability of a sponsored OSS community is a challenging task since firms cannot rely on traditional hierarchical authority to control community members. Furthermore, a firm's efforts to manage its sponsored community may also impact the firm's absorptive capacity, or its ability to effectively absorb and leverage the valuable knowledge created by the community. Thus, the purpose of this article is to investigate two research questions: 1) How does the boundary management of a firm-sponsored OSS community impact the community's innovation capacity? and 2) How does the boundary management of a firm-sponsored OSS community impact the firm's absorptive capacity? Using the results from our qualitative analysis of eZ Systems and its successfully sponsored OSS community – eZ Publish – we develop a theoretical model depicting how the boundary management of a firm-sponsored OSS community influences both the community's innovation capacity and the absorptive capacity of the firm. In addition, the results of our study highlight the central importance of an integrative IT platform in boundary management activities.     

A common base for quality control criteria in quantitative and qualitative research

In the social sciences, several scientific paradigms are mutually isolated owing to their use of specific sets of methodological criteria and quality control procedures. In this article, the central hypothesis, to be tested by conceptual analysis and logical reasoning, is that recommended procedures for quality control in quantitative as well as qualitative research can be derived from a common base of regulative ideas. By ‘qualitative’, we mean the complex of ethnographic, anthropological, symbolic interactionist, ethnoscience and related approaches. A second goal is to demonstrate the use of regulative ideas as a parsimonious and fruitful base for a comparative analysis of methodological canons. Although our focus is on the comparison of quantitative and qualitative (or: naturalistic) research, we also pay attention to policy research as opposed to fundamental research.     

Managing workforce diversity at IBM: A global HR topic that has arrived

To be successful, global companies must continue to look toward the future, and CEOs, senior line and HR management, and diversity leaders play a key role in that process. Workforce diversity cannot be delegated; it must be a partnership. Although the HR team plays the key staff role, total delegation from the top, without active involvement, is a recipe for failure. IBM considers diversity a business imperative as fundamental as delivering superior technologies in the marketplace. To ensure that talented people can contribute at the highest possible level, the company insists on a workplace that is free of discrimination and harassment and full of opportunity for all people. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

10kV线路常见故障及防范措施浅析

10 kV架空线路是电网的传输结构,主要功能是负责各地区电力传输的供应。架空输电线路是用绝缘子将输电导线固定在直立于地面的杆塔上以传输电能的输电线路。文章介绍了架空输电线路运用于电网建设,及10 kV架空线路的常见事故,重点分析了引发线路故障的因素,提出了防范事故发生的相关措施,希望对相关研究有所启发。     

设计企业产品、技术、专利及标准间推动发展的实践应用

企业要做产品就需要技术,技术通过科技研发产生;产生的新技术通过申请专利获得专利权;企业要编制产品的标准,并将专利技术纳入标准。文章结合所在企业的应用实践,体会到企业的产品、技术、专利、标准之间存在一种互动关系,它们相互作用,相互推动,共同发展。     

Managing materiel in a multidivisional corporation

By using centralized purchasing and prime vendor contracts, the Allied Services material management department has been able to handle very effectively the purchasing needs of this multidivisional health care complex. Through active enforcement of Allied Service's materiel management policies and procedures, the department continues to be able to acquire the products and services that are necessary to keep the many programs running. Most importantly, these products and services continue to be acquired while the three significant attributes of materiel management--quality, availability, and service--are maintained.     

The R&D knowledge base in city-agglomerations and knowledge searching in product innovative SMEs

ABSTRACT

This paper looks at the relation between the R&D knowledge base of city-agglomerations and knowledge sourcing in product innovative small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The small open Belgian economy is used as a test case. The characteristics of the city-agglomeration’s R&D knowledge are posited to be instrumental for SMEs’ reliance on particular sources of information for innovation. The R&D knowledge base is studied as a multidimensional concept consisting of R&D capacity, R&D specialization and R&D diversification. A representative sample of product innovative SMEs drawn from two waves of the Community Innovation Survey between 2008 and 2012 reveals that a strong R&D capacity at city-agglomeration level favours private external information sources for innovation, but has no influence on the likelihood to rely on public sources for innovation. Accordance between specialization of the private R&D knowledge base and the SME’s activities positively influences the use of clients as information sources for innovation, whereas under these circumstances supplier responsiveness turns out to be less frequently solicited for. A more diversified private R&D environment reduces the reliance on universities and public research organizations as information sources for innovation. A public R&D knowledge base specialized in natural sciences or engineering favours information sources from universities.     

Bring your suppliers into your projects—Managing the design of work packages in product development

Early supplier involvement and integration is important in product development on strategic as well as on operational, project and team levels. Saab Aerospace intended to achieve early supplier involvement and high level of integration on all levels in the redesign of the aircraft JAS 39 Gripen. The research underlying this article shows that the intended strategy was only achieved on the strategic level and not on the operational project and team levels. One major reason for this was that the design of the work breakdown structure (WBS) and work packages (WP) in the product development followed the functional and departmental logic within each company resulting in incompatible structures and preventing communication and information exchange. This article intends to explore how prevailing functionally designed WBS and WP structures created barriers and to demonstrate how supplier integration can be improved by designing collaborative WBS and integrated WP. The Dependence Structure Matrix (DSM) is introduced in order to analyze, visualize and manage interdependencies and information exchange between Saab Aerospace and its supplier on different levels of the WBS and in different phases of the development process, following the logic of interdependencies and information flow, in order to support a strategy focusing on integration of suppliers on the project and team level.     

Valuing intangible assets with a nested logit market share model

This paper develops an econometric method for valuing intangible assets using nested logit market share assumptions. Specifically, a method is developed to measure the value to a license holder of owning a branded consumer product. While it is well known that brands confer values to their owners, existing methods for establishing a brand's value via comparable, profit, or income methods are often fraught with imprecision or are frequently based on untested assumptions. An economic approach to brand valuation is developed in which the demand for branded goods is estimated and compared to the demand for comparable unbranded goods including both private label and generic commodities. The economic analysis relies on oligopoly pricing models and certain assumptions regarding the opportunity use of the brand holder's fixed investment. This paper extends the multinomial logit structure of preferences assumed in Dubin [1998a. The Demand for Branded and Unbranded Products—An Econometric Method for Valuing Intangible Assets. Studies in Consumer Demand—Econometric Methods Applied to Market Data. Kluwer Academic Publishers, Massachusetts, Boston, pp. 77–127] and derives trademark valuation fractions with a nested logit market share model. The market share demand model in Dubin [1998a. The Demand for Branded and Unbranded Products—An Econometric method for Valuing Intangible Assets. Studies in Consumer Demand—Econometric Methods Applied to Market Data. Kluwer Academic Publishers, Massachusetts, Boston, pp. 77–127] is re-estimated under nested logit assumptions and results for the trademark fraction are compared.     

Enhancing capacity planning through forecasting: An integrated tool for maintenance of complex product systems

Despite the extensive amount of data generated and stored during the maintenance capacity planning process, Maintenance, Repair, and Overhaul (MRO) organizations have yet to explore their full potential in forecasting the required capacity to face future and unprecedented maintenance interventions. This paper explores the integration of time series forecasting capabilities in a tool for maintenance capacity planning of complex product systems (CoPS), intended to value data that is routinely generated and stored, but often disregarded by MROs. State space formulations with multiplicative errors for the simple exponential smoothing (SES), Holt’s linear method (HLM), additive Holt-Winters (AHW), and multiplicative Holt-Winters (MHW) are assessed using real data, comprised of 171 maintenance projects collected from a major Portuguese aircraft MRO. A state space formulation of the MHW, selected using the bias-corrected Akaike information criterion (AICc), is integrated in a Decision Support System (DSS) for capacity planning with probabilistic inference capabilities and used to forecast the workload probability distribution of a future and unprecedent maintenance intervention. The developed tool is validated by comparing forecasted values with workloads of a particular maintenance intervention and with a model simulating current forecasting practices employed by MROs.     

Managing labour on a large construction site

Large construction sites are frequently characterised by industrial action and other labour problems. However, some companies have a consistently superior record in managing their labour relations. Here the authors examine the policy and practice of a joint venture composed of two such companies responsible for managing one of the largest sites in Australia.     

Estimating heterogeneous capacity and capacity utilization in a multi-species fishery

We use a stochastic production frontier model to investigate the presence of heterogeneous production and its impact on fleet capacity and capacity utilization in a multi-species fishery. We propose a new fleet capacity estimate that incorporates complete information on the stochastic differences between vessel-specific technical efficiency distributions. Results indicate that ignoring heterogeneity in production technologies within a multi-species fishery as well as the complete distribution of a vessel’s technical efficiency score, may lead to erroneous fleet-wide production profiles and estimates of capacity. Our new estimate of capacity enables out-of-sample production predictions which may be useful to policy makers.     

Having a share in creating a peaceful world: teaching students to become tolerant

The occurrence of terrible incidents and situations all over the world where people are dying or suffering, due to political, economic, or cultural reasons have a great impact not only on students but on all human beings. It is therefore feasible for educators to take an active role to overcome or at least to diminish the negative effects of the situations mentioned above by including human rights education in their curriculum. For these reasons, the aim of this study is to identify the perceptions of students in a multicultural setting through the content topic of human rights to meet the language objectives of the course and also to raise tolerance awareness. The researchers obtained data through interviews, paragraphs, and the teacher’s diary based on observations and content analysis is used to analyse the qualitative data while triangulation research method is used to support the validity of the results. Results of the current study demonstrate that the course had various positive effects on the students and the objectives were met concerning language together by raising more awareness towards tolerance through the content topic of human rights.