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.     

Building effective organizations: transformational leadership,collectivist orientation,work-related attitudes and withdrawal behaviours in three emerging economies

Abstract

Previous cross-cultural research on transformational leadership has focused mainly on replicating the augmentation effects of transformational leadership over transactional leadership on followers’ attitudes and behaviours. Relatively few studies have systematically examined cultural impacts in moderating the influence of transformational leadership on work-related outcomes taking a cross-cultural perspective. Using a field survey of 577 employees from banking and financial sectors in three emerging economies, namely: China, India and Kenya, we examined the moderating effect of collectivism on the relationships between transformational leadership, work-related attitudes and perceptions of withdrawal behaviours. Our results found support for the moderating effect of collectivism on the relationship between transformational leadership and work-related outcomes, such as facets of job satisfaction, organizational commitment and perceptions of organizational withdrawal behaviours. In addition, our results lend support to the view that transformational leadership might be effective across cultures. The implications of these findings for future research on transformational leadership and cross-cultural research are discussed.     

Positive global leadership

In the wake of increasing globalization, today's organizational leaders are faced with unprecedented complexity. To help meeting the challenge, this article proposes a new positive approach to global leadership. After first providing the background on positivity, positive global leadership is carefully defined and its similarities and differences with both the established and contemporary leadership theories are noted. The discussion then turns to how positive global leadership addresses three major challenges in the global context of distance, cultural differences and cross-cultural barriers. The article concludes that this new positive approach can help global leaders to leverage diverse strengths in themselves and their environment to more effectively meet the escalating challenges they face now and in the future.     

Impact of employees' character strengths of wisdom on stress and creative performance

Both conventional understanding and positive psychology recognise an important link between people's character strengths and how they perform their jobs. However, no research to date has focused on the relationship of employees' wisdom strengths, potential mediating effects and creative task performance. Utilising a large heterogeneous sample (N = 974) of working adults, this study found that participants' levels of the character strengths of wisdom were positively related to their performance on a creative task and negatively related to their reported level of stress. In addition, stress was found to be negatively related to creative task performance, with reported stress partly mediating the relationship between participants' wisdom and their performance on the creative task. Implications for incorporating character strengths in the development of HRM theory and practice conclude the article.     

Marx and Engels: In Praise of Globalization

Marx's vision of history unfolding is one of societal transformationfrom a set of diverse nation states in a capitalist world toa unified economic society in a yet-to-be communist world. Thecatalyst that sets this unfolding into action is the globalizationprocess. Its trigger mechanism is the innovating capitalist.Enticed into creating new labor-saving technologies by the prospectof reaping higher rates of profit, these capitalists confrontunavoidable competition and technology imitation which underminetheir advantage and leads ultimately to falling prices and fallingrates of profit. Their only recourse is to venture abroad, toglobalize, to invest and produce in the less technologicallydeveloped economies. This globalization of resource and productmarkets is a dual-edged sword: It creates and destroys. It destroysthe economic and social fabrics of the less developed economiesand creates in its wake a replica of the more technologicallyadvanced. In the end, we are all one global economy, westernin character. Marx sees this inevitable globalization processas progressive and praiseworthy.     

Advances in evolution and genetics: Implications for technology strategy

Genetic and evolutionary principles are of great importance to technology strategists, both directly (as in the forecasting of genetic engineering technologies) and as a source of metaphor and perspective on socio-technical change. Recent rapid progress in the molecular sciences have revealed new genetic mechanisms of evolution, and introduced new controversies of interpretation. How do these recent developments affect technology forecasting and our view of technological evolution? This paper provides a quick primer for TFSC readers on several new developments in evolution and genetics, comments upon a number of common misconceptions and pitfalls in evolutionary thinking, and critically describes some controversies and open questions, introducing key readings and sources. It relates genetic and evolutionary knowledge, analogies and metaphors to areas of interest to researchers in technology forecasting and assessment, noting possible future directions. The paper concludes with an overview of the other papers in this special section.     

Public and commercial leisure provision: active citizens and passive consumers?

Despite differing domain assumptions, the various perspectives in leisure studies have largely concentrated on providing a negative critique of ideologies of consumerism and the supposed ‘passivity’ of commercial leisure, often juxtaposed to the supposedly more ‘participatory’ and inclusive nature of public leisure provision. This concern with the mode of production and access has resulted in a failure to develop systematic sociological understandings of acts of consumption. It has also limited theoretical and empirical exploration of the extent to which new forms of consumerism may have served to re-define ‘leisure citizenship’ and the relationship between leisure and social exclusion. The article reviews the various perspectives and suggests that, despite differing domain assumptions there is a growing recognition within leisure studies of the need to move beyond a political defence of the ‘excluded’ to develop an empirically grounded sociological understanding of modern leisure forms.     

Inefficiency in Japanese water utility firms: a stochastic frontier approach

I examine inefficiencies in Japanese water utility companies. Efficiency in this context is defined as a firm’s capacity to maximize output given a fixed level of inputs. The findings suggest that the average operation rate, customer density and size variables are associated with lower levels of inefficiency (or higher levels of efficiency), while water purification (a conditioning variable capturing low initial water quality), subsidies and outsourcing are associated with higher levels of inefficiency. Since inefficiency exists, there is an opportunity to improve Japanese water utilities by working on emulating “best practice” firms whenever possible and by providing a regulatory framework that can set appropriate incentive schemes to do so.