Leif Edvinsson, Ron Dvir, Norman Roth and Edna Pasher
For quite a while the issues of knowledge management, innovation and performance measurement have been on the agenda of researchers and practitioners alike throughout the world…
Abstract
For quite a while the issues of knowledge management, innovation and performance measurement have been on the agenda of researchers and practitioners alike throughout the world. Not too long ago it was recognised that there are direct cause and effect relations between knowledge reuse and invention. The present paper therefore discusses the constituent elements of innovation from a knowledge perspective which have been identified in the context of a European Union co‐sponsored research project. The six facts of the “innovation cube” are: reuse of existing knowledge; invention of new knowledge; exploitation (i.e. turning knowledge into value); stakeholders' contributions (to the innovation life cycle); the enabling ecology or operating context in which the innovation occurs; and the performance facet, i.e. the bottom line. A toolkit based on performance measurement thinking and implementation process for better management of the balance between reuse and invention in development environments is proposed and results from their deployment in three real‐life case studies are discussed.
Details
Keywords
Fiona Lettice, Norman Roth and Ingo Forstenlechner
To present a measurement framework to capture the importance of the use of knowledge within the new product development (NPD) process.
Abstract
Purpose
To present a measurement framework to capture the importance of the use of knowledge within the new product development (NPD) process.
Design/methodology/approach
A literature review enabled 200 product development measures to be compiled. These were categorised into six dimensions: stakeholder contribution, operating context, reuse, invention, exploitation, and NPD performance. Four companies applied selected measures and assessed the cube for its ability to improve measurement and management of their NPD process. This process refined the approach. A web‐based questionnaire (with 130 responses) assessed how a wider population perceived their performance and capability to measure performance in each of the six dimensions.
Findings
Respondents consider themselves capable of delivering good products and services, but are less confident in their ability to manage and measure knowledge reuse, invention and exploitation activities.
Research limitations/implications
Full implementation of the measurement cube was not possible. Further research should assess the comprehensiveness, applicability and usefulness of the approach in more detail.
Practical implications/implications
Introduction of the measurement cube and measures in the six dimensions identified would enable companies to go beyond traditional financial measures for their NPD processes and move towards a more performance‐oriented culture.
Originality/value
This paper synthesises the results from many other isolated studies on NPD metrics. In addition, it focuses on the measurement of the NPD process from a knowledge perspective, providing an integrating framework (the measurement cube), which is unique.
Details
Keywords
Mamoun N. Akroush and Abdulkareem Salameh Awwad
The purpose of this paper is to examine new product development (NPD) financial performance enablers through examining the roles of NPD capabilities improvement, NPD knowledge…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine new product development (NPD) financial performance enablers through examining the roles of NPD capabilities improvement, NPD knowledge sharing and NPD internal learning in manufacturing organisations in Jordan.
Design/methodology/approach
Based on relevant literature review on NPD performance, a structured questionnaire was developed to collect data related to NPD performance measures. Questionnaires were distributed to a sample of 558 manufacturing organisations in Jordan, out of which 355 were returned and valid for the analysis. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were applied to reveal NPD performance success dimensions that manufacturing organisations use to assess NPD performance success. Then, path analysis was employed to examine the research model and test its hypotheses.
Findings
The study’s findings reveal that manufacturing organisations use a multidimensional construct for assessing NPD performance success, which consists of NPD financial performance, NPD internal learning, NPD capabilities improvement, NPD knowledge sharing, and NPD marketing performance. NPD capabilities improvement exerted a positive and significant effect on each of NPD internal learning, NPD knowledge sharing, and NPD marketing performance, respectively. NPD knowledge sharing exerted a positive and significant effect on each of NPD internal learning NPD marketing performance. Each of NPD internal learning and NPD marketing performance exerted a positive and significant effect on NPD financial performance. The structural findings also indicate that 38.1 per cent (R2 is 0.381) of NPD financial performance is explained by the path of NPD capabilities improvement, NPD knowledge sharing and NPD marketing performance, which is the strongest path in the empirical model.
Research limitations/implications
The paper’s focus on manufacturing organisations limits its contribution to the manufacturing sector only. The services sector is a rich field for understanding NPD financial performance enablers in various service industries. Further, the paper focusses on only five dimensions of NPD performance success, other dimensions of NPD performance success might add more insights to their effect on NPD performance success measures especially their effect on organisational performance.
Practical implications
The findings of this study provide managers of manufacturing organisations with empirical insights related to the multidimensionality of NPD and their complex relationships to enhance NPD financial performance. The empirical findings assist managers to assess their NPD strategies, processes and implementation based on a results-oriented approach. The major contribution of the study is identifying the strongest paths of NPD financial performance enablers which reveals the complexity and criticality of NPD capabilities improvement, NPD knowledge sharing and NPD marketing performance on NPD financial performance. The rationale is NPD financial performance is still the most important NPD performance success dimension amongst manufacturing organisations.
Originality/value
The originality of this paper stems from developing and testing a multidimensional model of NPD financial performance enablers for the first time in emerging markets, Jordan. NPD financial performance is a function of other areas of NPD performance dimensions, namely; NPD capabilities improvement, NPD knowledge sharing and NPD marketing performance. This empirical evidence is provided to managers for the first time by this study.
Details
Keywords
D.H. Lawrence thought Lady Chatterley’s Lover was his best and most important novel. Yet he had to pay to have it privately printed. His publishers thought his sexual descriptions…
Abstract
D.H. Lawrence thought Lady Chatterley’s Lover was his best and most important novel. Yet he had to pay to have it privately printed. His publishers thought his sexual descriptions and language were obscene under the censorship laws of the UK and the USA, and they were right. From 1928 until 1959 no‐one could legally publish or sell the unexpurgated novel, and copies were subject to confiscation. All this changed in 1959 when Charles Rembar successfully defended Grove Press’s right to publish the novel. His defense, which rested on a unique interpretation of Justice Brennan’s opinion in Roth v. United States, introduced the redeeming‐social‐value test for obscenity. Within six years it revolutionized American obscenity laws, ensuring that sexual material with even a small measure of social value would enjoy First Amendment protection.
Details
Keywords
Tobias Koellner and Steffen Roth
This article shows that business family and family business research is dominated by reductionist and biased concepts of culture that are in sharp contrast with recent advances in…
Abstract
Purpose
This article shows that business family and family business research is dominated by reductionist and biased concepts of culture that are in sharp contrast with recent advances in anthropology and the broader social sciences that would allow for more fine-grained analyses.
Design/methodology/approach
Through an inbound theorizing approach, state-of-the-art anthropological and sociological concepts of culture are introduced to family business research.
Findings
The resulting interdisciplinary update unveils that prevailing concepts of culture in family business research confuse cultures with countries or nations and neglect the processual constitution of culture.
Originality/value
The article advocates a research agenda emphasizing the social construction and reproduction of culture as well as the need to systematically draw on findings from anthropology and sociology so as to allow for better cross-cultural comparisons in the field of family business research.
Details
Keywords
Timothy G. Ford, Jentre Olsen, Jam Khojasteh, Jordan Ware and Angela Urick
The actions of school leaders engender working conditions that can play a role in positively (or negatively) affecting teachers’ motivation, well-being or professional practice…
Abstract
Purpose
The actions of school leaders engender working conditions that can play a role in positively (or negatively) affecting teachers’ motivation, well-being or professional practice. The purpose of this paper is to explore how leader actions might bring about positive teacher outcomes through meeting teachers’ psychological needs at three distinct levels: the intrapersonal, interpersonal and organizational.
Design/methodology/approach
Using a sample of over 1,500 teachers from 73 schools in a large, high-poverty, urban Midwestern school district, the authors applied a multilevel path analysis to the study of the relationships between the intrapersonal, interpersonal and organizational dimensions of teacher psychological needs and the teacher affective states of burnout, organizational commitment and intent to leave the school and/or profession.
Findings
Whereas the intrapersonal dimension works primarily through burnout, the findings suggest that the interpersonal dimension (teacher–principal interactions) primarily functions to cultivate organizational commitment among teachers. At the organizational level, cultivating a trusting, enabling work environment where teachers can build on existing knowledge and skills had a demonstrated relationship to collective teacher burnout and organizational commitment, but only to the degree that these actions serve to build collective teacher efficacy.
Practical implications
In addressing existing deficits in support for teachers’ psychological needs within a school, school leaders have a significant mechanism through which to affect the attitudes and emotions of teachers which precede turnover behavior. However, addressing teacher psychological needs should be thought of as multidimensional – no single dimension (either the intrapersonal, interpersonal or organizational) alone will be sufficient. Principals should expect to work both one-on-one as well as collectively with teachers to address school working conditions which support their psychological needs as learners.
Originality/value
Prior studies examining the various working conditions of schools have included many common constructs, but the authors demonstrate how self-determination theory could be used to unify these seemingly unique characteristics of school working conditions with respect to how they support (or thwart) the psychological needs of teachers. The authors also empirically test the relationship of these dimensions to a wide-range of commonly-used teacher affective outcomes.
Details
Keywords
Miriam Naiman-Sessions, Megan M. Henley and Louise Marie Roth
This research examines effects on emotional burnout among “maternity support workers” (MSWs) that support women in labor (labor and delivery (L&D) nurses and doulas). The…
Abstract
This research examines effects on emotional burnout among “maternity support workers” (MSWs) that support women in labor (labor and delivery (L&D) nurses and doulas). The emotional intensity of maternity support work is likely to contribute to emotional distress, compassion fatigue, and burnout.
This study uses data from the Maternity Support Survey (MSS) to analyze emotional burnout among 807 L&D nurses and 1,226 doulas in the United States and Canada. Multivariate OLS regression models examine the effects of work–family conflict, overwork, emotional intelligence, witnessing unethical mistreatment of women in labor, and practice characteristics on emotional burnout among these MSWs. We measure emotional burnout using the Professional Quality of Life (PROQOL) Emotional Burnout subscale.
Work–family conflict, feelings of overwork, witnessing a higher frequency of unethical mistreatment, and working in a hospital with a larger percentage of cesarean deliveries are associated with higher levels of burnout among MSWs. Higher emotional intelligence is associated with lower levels of burnout, and the availability of hospital wellness programs is associated with less burnout among L&D nurses.
While the MSS obtained a large number of responses, its recruitment methods produced a nonrandom sample and made it impossible to calculate a response rate. As a result, responses may not be generalizable to all L&D nurses and doulas in the United States and Canada.
This research reveals that MSWs attitudes about medical procedures such as cesarean sections and induction are tied to their experiences of emotional burnout. It also demonstrates a link between witnessing mistreatment of laboring women and burnout, so that traumatic incidents have negative emotional consequences for MSWs. The findings have implications for secondary trauma and compassion fatigue, and for the quality of maternity care.
Details
Keywords
Roberta Spalter-Roth and Peter F. Meiksins
Purpose – In this chapter, we report on the lessons of cross-disciplinary collaborative workshop between sociologists and engineering educators to synthesize what is known about…
Abstract
Purpose – In this chapter, we report on the lessons of cross-disciplinary collaborative workshop between sociologists and engineering educators to synthesize what is known about legitimating and disseminating educational reform and to develop a research agenda for what needs to be known in order to spread educational reform and to overcome on-the-ground resistance to change.
Methodology/approach – This chapter is based on a case study of this workshop, describing the “white papers” prepared by participants prior to the workshop and the research agendas that emerged from discussions of them during the workshop and after.
Findings – The workshop resulted in a sophisticated research agenda as well as some modest efforts to create cross-disciplinary links to implement it. However, a one-time workshop did not overcome institutional barriers to this kind of activity.
Research limitations – Since this is a case study of a single collaboration we cannot generalize to all cross-disciplinary collaborations, although it does provide an example of what works to facilitate cross-disciplinary efforts and what obstacles remain.
Practical implications – An advantage to the workshop was the absence of institutional barriers to cross-disciplinary collaboration. Attendees were removed from their institutions, departments, disciplines, and turf battles. However, without increased institutional support for cross-disciplinary efforts, such as this one, the value of the social sciences for diffusing the innovations of science and engineering reform movements may not be realized.