International Journal of Innovation Management

This paper presents a case history of an Ericsson design centre in the Netherlands, from its founding in 1990 till its dramatic end in 2003. The paper describes the development of the organisation over the years — its origins, the abundant growth, the many organisational and technological metamorphoses it underwent and the eventual downfall. The purpose of this paper is to search for patterns in the dynamics of internationally operating R&D organisations and to clarify the peculiarities in the innovation journey of this Ericsson design centre. In particular, we focus on the actions of local R&D managers, the design of organisational forms, the relation between technology and organisation, and the relation between local design centres and their headquarters.

Organisation and management of the product development process have been an issue in both academia and industry for over three decades. The literature on product development is growing, but Process Industry is often lacking in these discussions. Therefore, this paper focuses on linking the determinants of an effective product development process to Process Industry and the implication this may have on a traditionally very process-oriented industry by nature. Further, the paper organises the burgeoning product development literature into three main determinants: innovation type, technology strategy and organisational aspect. The selection of determinants to the conceptual framework, adjusting for Process Industry origins in previous written research material and our own empirical work of product development in Process Industry, is briefly presented at the beginning of the paper. Our literature review focuses on the product development process and builds the framework of our conceptual model detailing the elements of intra- and inter-firm processes in the product development process of the Process Industry. Our purpose is to give an increased understanding of the changed innovation pattern in Process Industry and its implication on activities concerning organisation and management of the product development process.

Because of fundamental changes in the competitive environment, the amount of resources and knowledge needed in research and development (R&D) activities has become overwhelming for a single organisation. Moreover, new technologies create lucrative new possibilities for new service development, which are out of reach for a single organisation. Thus, there is a strong need to perform R&D activities in networks. This study increases the understanding of R&D networks by presenting an empirically grounded process model of the formation of such networks. The model has three main elements: the initial conditions, the role of network webber and the sub-processes through which the formation progresses. The process model highlights the importance of the network webber both in triggering the formation process and in managing the process. Moreover, the model suggests a view of the process that is overlapping and iterative, i.e., the sub-processes of enabling the network, acquiring actors, assuring continuity, formal structuring, learning and developing commitment do not follow each other in a certain order.

In this paper, we investigate a relatively neglected but important aspect of team research, namely team goal commitment or the team member's attachment to the team goal. Specifically, we examine whether the performance effect of team goal commitment is contingent on the level of innovativeness of the team task. Furthermore, we also examine five controllable team-level antecedent factors to team goal commitment. Results provide support for the hypothesis that team goal commitment is related to performance only in teams with highly innovative tasks. Moreover, we find three factors (i.e., constructive task feedback, participative decision-making and small team size) related to team goal commitment. Surprisingly, outcome interdependence and team-external obligations are not related to team goal commitment. Implications for practice and research are discussed.

Innovation at work is mainly driven by employees' ideas. This paper reports a study of the effectiveness (e.g., rate of suggestion making) of schemes for capturing these ideas. Based on a survey of 182 UK organizations, the study shows that decentralized suggestion schemes and work-based systems are more effective than centralized and informal schemes. The extent of planning, publicity, feedback and management support given to the scheme, and the type of reward offered to employees, also independently account for variation in effectiveness. Publicity and non-monetary rewards, though, are found to be most decisive, regardless of scheme type. Learning culture also affects the rate of suggestion making, though the effect is greater for centralized and decentralized schemes than for the others. The key implication of the findings is that by paying particular attention to how they are advertised and how participation is rewarded, organizations could improve the return on their idea capture schemes.