International Journal of Innovation and Technology Management

Introducing "product platforms" in companies to achieve competitive advantages, like decreased costs and increased product variety, is a widely recognized strategy in research and industry. Nevertheless, there are certain challenges involved in developing product platforms. In order to address this complexity, we focus on the decision-making perspective of platform development in this paper. Based on a systematic literature review, we identify the decisions in product platform development projects (PPDP) and categorize them. We identified 21 decisions that are made within PPDP, which represent a greater scope of decisions than presented in the literature sources reviewed. The plausibility of these platform project decisions is illustrated with a case study of a perennial platform development project within the automotive supply industry. While most of the literature sources only mention very few decisions, the case study shows the complexity and high number of decisions required for an actual PPDP. In addition, it also recognizes all of the prior reviews of the decisions identified. Unlike in the literature, the decisions in the case study were made over a certain period of time. Therefore, we propose that the dynamics of the decision-making process in PPDP have to be taken into account. The set of PPDP decisions identified will help project managers to structure future PPDPs better and support researchers in building related product platform models.

Following the guidelines of the European Union (EU), Austria supports scientific research and technological development by publicly funding of research centers. Such centers are positioned between scientific and industrial stakeholders and have to simultaneously fulfill contradictory demands. This paper deeply analyzes the Austrian Center of Competence in Mechatronics (ACCM) and exposes why this publicly funded research center is able to effectively manage these conflicting demands. Using the theory of ambidexterity, the study highlights that appropriate structures and strategies are preliminarily needed. In particular we found that the fundamental abilities for managing contradictory demands are located on an individual level and argue that especially the autonomous, well-educated people and their competences of self-organization enable the research center to be ambidextrous.

This paper examines the influence of perceived ease of use on personal use of the tax e-filing system in South Africa. Data was collected using in-depth interviews and a structured questionnaire. The findings show that higher levels of perceived ease of use are associated with personal use as well as behavioral intentions to make use of the system. The results also indicate that computer self-efficacy and access to information have positive influence on perceived ease of use. These findings point to the need for equipping people with skills and information that can enable them to make use of the system.

Development of the innovation capability represents activities that enable transformation of firms and the regional entity toward improved competitiveness. The main goal of the paper is to model situation with regard to innovation capability in a regional context. The research confirms positive relations between networking, marketing, and knowledge absorption capability, between knowledge absorption, development, and business renewal capability, and between marketing and development capability. Instead, relations between networking and development capability, and between marketing and knowledge absorption capability are not confirmed. Furthermore, the study supports usefulness of partial least squares structural equation modeling as a decision-making supporting tool.

This study investigates model of tourist intention in the context of mobile tourism guide (MTG). We extend the innovation diffusion theory with the interaction quality construct. Partial least squares is used for data analysis. The results show four innovation characteristics such as relative advantage, compatibility, complexity and trialability significantly related to international tourists' intention to use MTG. Furthermore, the interaction quality has an impact on the relationship between lack of complexity and tourists' intention to use MTG. We propose theoretical model for mobile research and provides an important guideline for development and implementation.

Our focus is on the agenda-setting of a purchasing cooperative aiming to have their members consider the adoption of a new logistics information system based on RFID. Adding "technology trust", we used the UTAUT model to determine the adoption intention of associated book retailers. Using structural equation modeling, data analysis shows that the original UTAUT model fits this process of agenda-setting, but two alternative models with technology trust show a better fit, indicating that performance expectancy is mediating all other factors, but "facilitating conditions". This model may therefore better work in studying collective forms of technology adoption.