New Market Creation for Breakthrough Innovations: Enabling and Constraining Mechanisms

While the technological development associated with breakthrough innovation (BI) is truly challenging, creating markets to stimulate their use may be an even more daunting barrier to successful commercialization. Co‐development partners, distribution channel agents, and ultimate users are all required to adopt new processes and to change behaviors in many cases, and the outcomes are unknown. In this paper, the processes and challenges associated with creating new markets for BIs are explored in a qualitative prospective cross‐case comparison of 12 breakthrough projects under development in 10 large established companies. A number of activities that take place in implicit fashion that create both enabling and constraining mechanisms for BIs are observed. The data suggest, for example, that the earliest application choices that scientists make in the project's development ultimately affect the revenue model, that scientists are unaware of the impact of these decisions, that business model development is a very exploratory process, that criteria used to choose initial market entry points conflict with the expectations of operating units, and that the concept of a killer application can be rather dangerous to the health and well‐being of a BI in its commercial infancy. It is argued that new market creation is the result of managing a specific set of events and activities, which are identified in a grounded theoretic fashion. The companies studied, however, were neither fully aware of nor systematically attentive to these activities. A framework is presented of enabling and constraining mechanisms that teams and organizations impose through the processes and decisions they take in the course of the project's development, and a series of propositions regarding the dynamics of successful new market creation for BIs is offered. The implications of these results are far‐reaching. These results show that market creation for BIs may require as much time and investment as their technical development. We do not find evidence of large established organizations’ awareness of or willingness to make these investments as readily as they invest in technical development. The result is research and development labs at large established firms with stockpiles of potentially game‐changing technologies. To evolve a mature BI commercialization competency, a firm must recognize and address the implications for managerial processes, for personnel recruitment, for setting leaders’ expectations, and for developing appropriate performance metrics for those responsible for market creation that go beyond technical discovery and engineering development. Implications for each are discussed.     

A Comprehensive Model of Uncertainty Associated with Radical Innovation

Large established firms typically focus on enhancing their ability to manage their core businesses, with an emphasis on cost reduction, quality improvements, and incremental innovation in existing products and processes. To sustain competitive advantage over the long term, mature firms must in parallel develop radical innovations (RI) as a basis for building and dominating fundamentally new markets. Management practices that are effective in established businesses are often ineffective and even destructive when applied to RI projects because of higher levels of uncertainty inherent in the latter. Understanding the characteristics of RI projects and the nature of the uncertainty that pervades them is critical to developing appropriate managerial practices. This paper reports the results of a longitudinal study of 12 RI projects in 10 large established U.S.‐based firms. A qualitative, prospective design was used to collect and analyze data. Project team leaders, members, and sponsors for each project were interviewed repeatedly over five years. The analysis centers on the dimensions and characteristics of uncertainty that project teams experienced. The analysis of the challenges they confronted is used to construct a multidimensional model of RI uncertainties. The model identifies four categories of uncertainty as key drivers of project management: technical, market, organizational, and resource uncertainty. Each of these four categories is elaborated in the context of radical innovation and further distinguished via two additional dimensions: criticality and latency. These are substantiated through case based data. Implications for management skills, processes, and appropriate tools associated with radical innovation projects are discussed.     

New product launch strategy for network effects products

In recent years, there has been a growing interest in the link between launch strategy decisions and new product performance. Much of that research focuses on investigating successful launch strategies for innovative, high-tech-nology products. With the rapid growth of information technology as one high-technology sector, in certain industries,network effects occur, which change the competitive game. The existing literature offers little decisionmaking guidance to managers on how to successfully introduce a product that exhibits network effects. The authors discuss the influence of network effects on the dynamics of market competition and on consumers' consumption behaviors. They argue that, because of these changes, the priority of particular performance objectives and the impact of specific launch strategies differ for products that exhibit network effects from what current wisdom and empirical results prescribe. These ideas are formalized in a conceptual framework and a series of research propositions. Yikuan Lee is an assistant professor in the International Business Department at San Francisco State University (SFSU). Before joining SFSU, she held a visiting position in the Marketing & Supply Chain Department at Michigan State University. Her research interests include commercialization of innovative products, network effects, new product development, and strategic marketing management in high-technology arenas. Much of her work focuses on how firms integrate marketing and technology competences. She received the Best Dissertation Award and the Best Paper Award at the 1999 Product Development and Management Association (PDMA) International Conference. She also won the 2000 Edl and Edith Darger Dissertation Prize in Management in recognition of outstanding academic achievement. She has published in theJournal of Product Innovation Management. Gina Colarelli O'Connor is an assistant professor in the Lally School of Management and Technology at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Her fields of interest include new product development, radical innovation, and strategic marketing management in high-technology arenas. The majority of her research efforts forcus on how firms link advanced technology development to market opportunities. She has articles published in numerous academic journals, including theJournal of Product Innovation Management, Organization Science, California Management Review, Academy of Management Executive, theJournal of Strategic Marketing, theEuropean Journal of Marketing, Psychology and Marketing, among others, and is coauthor of the bookRadical Innovation, How Mature Firms Can Outsmart Upstarts (HBS Press, 2000).     

Radical innovation: triggering initiation of opportunity recognition and evaluation

The gap between a firm's reservoir of technical knowledge and the formation of a project to explore the commercial potential of a breakthrough technical insight or discovery is the first major discontinuity in the radical innovation lifecycle. The first step toward bridging that gap occurs when the researcher with the technical insight recognizes that it might have commercial potential and decides to alert a research manager. In our longitudinal study of eight radical innovation projects in six large, multi‐national, R&D‐intensive firms, the initiation of a radical innovation project was neither frequent nor routine. In fact the participants in the study indicated that the initiation of a project – in their terminology, the 'fuzzy front end of innovation'– was the most challenging and uncertain part of the lifecycle. In this paper we explore the case data to illuminate the nature of the initiation gap. In addition we present an assessment framework that can help researchers decide whether or not to bring their technical idea to the attention of management. If the decision is positive, the assessment tool can help them prepare for the discussion with management and identify the strengths and weaknesses of the case to submitted for evaluation.     

What Coaches Believe are Best Practices for Coaching: A Qualitative Study of Interviews from Coaches Residing in Asia and Europe

The industry of executive and leadership coaching has grown over the past decade, becoming an integral part of many leadership and executive training and development initiatives globally. As a result, research focusing on coaches in Asia and Europe may uncover useful best practices that could inform the field. Such knowledge would enable coaches to better understand how to work better with their client–leaders and can also inform and develop coaching practice and research. The purpose of our qualitative study was to understand, through the interviews of 12 practicing coaches residing in Asia and 19 practicing coaches residing in Europe, what their best practices are in one‐to‐one coaching engagements. Ten best practices from the coaches in Asia and six best practices from the coaches in Europe emerged. Each best practice is discussed as well as limitations, future research, and implications from the findings of our study.     

贝塔斯曼：给我一个支点

图书出版业是德国的一大景观,过去 10年中,图书品种数量有了大幅增长了。目前世界上,只有少数几个国家可以像德国那样拥有那么多的书店。德国每 1．6万个居民就有一个书店,它的书商是一个联系紧密的群体,被认为是国家文化的宝库。在过去的这些年,德国出版市场变化很大,出版社之间的兼并不断发生。一些家族式的独立出版社并入到更大的集团之中。     

Savings and loan clubs: Risky ventures or good business practice? A study of the importance of rotating savings and credit associations for poor women

This article is based on research into rotating savings and credit associations (ROSCAs) which was conducted for the HSRC Cooperative Programme on Marriage and Family Life, in Grahamstown (Rhini) and Zwelitsha, near King William's Town, Eastern Cape, in 1993. One hundred women and men who were members of different ROSCAs were interviewed. These associations had from six to 22 members each. Unstructured interviews with members were the main method of research but meetings and events, organised by members of Roscas in these areas, were also attended The interviews were conducted by the author and three research assistants, two of whom were first‐language Xhosa speakers. Use was also made of an aide‐memoire based on Ardener (1964). Pseudonyms have been used throughout the article to protect the anonymity of informants. The research found that among poor women, both wage earners and self‐employed, membership of a Rosca was a support mechanism in their search for income‐earning activities, and a means of maximising their resources. In addition, membership of such schemes provided a supportive environment in which women could enjoy socialising at the weekly meetings, and also make important contacts which assisted them in their business and childcare activities.     

In search of safety: an interview with Gina Pugliese. Interview by Alison P. Smith

Gina Pugliese, MS, RN, is currently a vice-president for Premier, Inc. In addition to faculty and editorial positions, she directs international training courses in hospital epidemiology. She has made innumerable contributions to the field of safety over the past 25 years through her work with regulatory and federal agencies. Changing organizational culture from a "blame culture" to a "safety culture" is one notable challenge facing organizations. The airline industry has achieved significant changes in its safety culture by virtually eliminating a power hierarchy in the cockpit, a worthy example for operating rooms. Redesigning care delivery processes will minimize the opportunity for error if efforts are made to avoid reliance on memory, automate repetitive functions, reduce the number of steps involved, or use protocols when appropriate. The sophistication of consumers and the emergence of organizations like the Leap Frog Group will continue to challenge health care providers and potentially accelerate safety improvements.