Alex Pedrosa

Logistics case study based research: Towards higher quality

Purpose – This paper aims to assess the quality of the case study based research approach as documented in articles published during the past 13 years, based on a synthesis of indicators for the quality criteria truth‐value, transferability, and traceability.Design/methodology/approach – Content analysis of 134 case study‐based articles published in six leading logistics and supply chain management (SCM) journals between 1998 and 2010 is used to assess and evaluate the quality of the case study‐based research approach as documented in these publications.Findings – This research provides an overview of the quality of the case study‐based research approach. Results show that the quality is generally low, supporting the ongoing, but empirically unsupported criticism on the quality of case study‐based research. The results also highlight which specific aspects authors and reviewers need to address to ensure high quality of the case study‐based research approach in published articles.Research limitations/impli...

Knowledge related activities in open innovation: managers' characteristics and practices

Theory and practice both have recognised the importance of external knowledge to enhance organisations’ innovation performance. Due to organisations’ growing interest in effectively collaborating with external knowledge sources, research has investigated the importance of firm-external stakeholder interaction in open innovation. Despite valuable insights into the importance of the variety of external knowledge sources to enhance (open) innovation, research has overlooked so far that managers’ characteristics and practices are relevant for the absorption of external knowledge in open innovation. Thus, the purpose of this study is to explore how organisations’ absorptive capacity – exploration, transformation, and exploitation – becomes manifested in managers’ characteristics and practices in open innovation. This article reports on the findings obtained from four case studies of manufacturing and service organisations. Our findings show that the exploration, transformation, and exploitation of external knowledge are associated with a distinct set of managers’ characteristics and practices that capture the dominant pattern of processing external knowledge in open innovation.

Logistics innovation development: a micro-level perspective

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the microfoundations of customer knowledge acquisition during logistics innovation development. Specifically, the authors explore the activities and behaviors of employees with customer contact (i.e. boundary-spanning employees (BSEs)) to deepen and broaden their knowledge about customers for the development of innovations. Design/methodology/approach – Qualitative research based on multiple semi-structured interviews with BSEs of six logistics service providers was conducted to explore the deepening and broadening of customer knowledge during innovation development. Data were analyzed for similarities and differences in BSEs’ knowledge acquisition and their interactions with customers across six innovations. Findings – Results show that BSEs engage sequentially in deepening and broadening customer knowledge throughout the logistics innovation development process. Yet, the specific sequence depends on the type of innovation developed (customized vs sta...