Alexandra Rese

Success Factors for Innovation Management in Networks of Small and Medium Enterprises

Because firms today operate in increasingly turbulent and complex environments, they need to be more proactive and innovative. Networks are gaining in importance, especially for small and medium enterprises with limited resources as R&D cooperations or cooperations along the value chain seem to be the only way to succeed with technologically challenging and promising but also expensive and risky product innovations. One of the key problems of these networks, however, is the question of how to plan, organize and control the innovation processes that are distributed over several partners. Theoretically derived and empirically proven success factors could help as much here as in the traditional success/failure discussion of new product development within firms. This paper discusses the effects of such factors, which partly derive from the traditional success/failure discussion within firms (e.g. market potential, product advantage, technological synergy, proficiency of technological or marketing activities) but also factors derived from recent network research (e.g. trust or dependence on partners). Their effect on new product performance is discussed on the basis of a comprehensive survey with 271 participating networks. The results confirm the traditional success factors, especially the product advantage and proficiency factors. But they also show that network-related success factors (especially network cohesion and organization) are of similar major importance.

‘Too Many Cooks Spoil the Broth’: Key Persons and Their Roles in Inter‐Organizational Innovations

Key persons can play an important role in the development and diffusion of new products, processes or technologies. Their functions, contributions and interactions within companies have been subject to numerous investigations. From a theoretical point of view, promotor theory focuses on several specialists to overcome different barriers to innovation, while champion theory concentrates on generalists playing multiple roles. Empirical results point to generalists being better suited for highly innovative projects, but on the other hand different roles should preferably be played by different key persons. A central gap in the literature is that this issue has not been investigated sufficiently so far in an inter‐organizational context. The questions are: Is role accumulation beneficial for innovation project performance with respect to the key persons? Is role accumulation even more advantageous with increasing degrees of innovativeness? A sample of 107 innovation projects where small and medium‐sized enterprises take part is used as a unit of analysis. The network manager served as the respondent. A measurement approach based on an extended Rasch scale was introduced for this purpose. The results show that indeed ‘too many cooks spoil the broth’: Instead of many single‐role players in each organization, we need a few multiple role players in an inter‐organizational context.

Deciding on new products using a computer-assisted real options approach

Technical and market uncertainties are significant challenges for R&D management. Especially, in the case of New Product Development (NPD), investment decisions have to be made under uncertainty due to unknown costs and returns which arise from project complexity and duration. The framework of real options has been proposed for a better understanding of R&D projects uncertainty, for modelling managements flexibility during the project and for selecting the best project alternative. This paper describes the application of a real options approach to the management of NPD projects using standard computer-assisted add-ons to spreadsheet technology.

Stages, Gates, and Conflicts in New Product Development : a Classification Approach

Formal management processes for new product development (NPD) make use of multi-functional integration with cross-functional team meetings at socalled communication points. These meetings are of different type and reach from information exchange up to choice decisions or “sign offs” of concepts, products, or production processes. For the outcome of the NPD the recognition and adequate management of conflicts play an important role. We concentrate on information exchange and choice decisions in cross-functional integration using stage-gate approaches. Communication points and conflict potentials are identified. Finally, a conflict classification is derived.

Identification and Generation of Innovative Ideas in the Procurement of the Automotive Industry : The Case of AUDI AG

Open innovation and the use of suppliers and start-ups as external idea sources have become increasingly important in the automotive industry. Since the purchasing function in a company has correspondingly become more strategic, scholars have taken the role of procurement in innovation more intensely into account. This study examines procurement’s role in the innovation process of the automotive industry and investigates which and how open innovation instruments are used in order to benefit from the innovation capability of suppliers and start-ups. The empirical evidence is based on an in-depth case study of the automotive manufacturer AUDI AG. Several arguments are elaborated which justify a key role for procurement in the innovation process (e.g., interface role, economic activities). Furthermore, we identified nine pull and push instruments enabling procurement to contribute to Audi’s innovation performance. Since the instruments are designed to meet different internal requirements (e.g., in relation to a vehicle project or not), interesting insights for scholars and practitioners are provided.

Analyzing The Relative Influence Of Supply Side, Demand Side And Regulatory Factors On The Success Of Collaborative Energy Innovation Projects

The analysis of the importance of supply side and demand side factors with regard to innovative behavior is quite old. In this paper, these two categories are used to distinguish and examine the relevance of several success factors for collaborative innovation projects on the firm level in the German energy sector. The literature emphasizes that solving environmental problems requires extensive technological change. On the other hand, due to higher prices the market push is weaker. Regulatory factors are therefore designed to stimulate environmental innovations. The relative influence of these three categories on project performance is investigated on the basis of a sample of 128 German collaborative energy innovation projects in the development phase using a scale-based approach and structural equation modeling at the firm level. The results confirm the importance of supply side factors followed by demand side factors. In contrast to literary assumptions, R&D subsidies played no significant role.

Kristallisationspunkte in Clustern: Universitäten als Ausgangspunkte von Netzwerken im Bereich innovativer Energietechnologien

Der nachfolgende Beitrag untersucht, inwieweit Netzwerke aus der hochinnovativen Energiebranche in der geografischen Nahe von Forschungseinrichtungen auftreten. Ausgehend von Erkenntnissen aus der Clustertheorie wird zunachst die Bedeutung der geografischen Nahe in Clustern sowie die Rolle von Forschungseinrichtungen (Universitaten und Forschungsinstitute) in einer solchen Partnerschaft diskutiert. Die Clusterforschung hat in der Vergangenheit gezeigt, dass regionale Einflusse im Sinne von vorhandenen Clustern (z.B. Dumais et al. 2002) sowie die geographische Nahe (Zaheer/Hernandez 2011) zum Partner masgeblich den Erfolg von kooperierenden Unternehmen bestimmen. Fruhere Untersuchungen hatten ergeben, dass sich vermehrt Zweigstellen groser Konzerne in der Nahe von Universitaten niederlassen, da diese als Bezugsquelle von speziellem Wissen gelten (Dunning/Narula 1995; Yusuf 2007).

Networks of Promotors as Success Factor for Radical Innovations: Theoretical Considerations and Empirical Findings

Based on the conceptual framework developed in the previous chapter, this chapter presents empirical findings regarding the role and relevance of transformational leaders like “promotors” and “champions” in innovation networks, and their effect on innovation success. Section 2.1 gives an introduction to state-of-the-art innovation network research, success factor research and open innovation research, as well as linking key findings from these areas to the research agenda of Innovation Communities. Section 2.2 develops the theoretical background and terminology for studying the role of innovators and extends well-known studies on key persons in innovation projects by using a cross-company, network-oriented perspective. The chapter also develops concepts of group interaction and identity and operationalizes the Innovation Community concept for a large-scale survey. In Sect. 2.3, the research hypotheses on innovation communities are developed, and measures for promotor roles, group identity, group interaction, project performance and degree of innovativeness are introduced. Section 2.4 presents the findings of the innovation networks survey. The hypothesized relationships were tested using a comprehensive sample of 107 German networks of companies and research institutions. The results support the proposition that group interaction and group identity factors are significantly higher in successful innovation networks. One important finding of the survey is that innovation communities have a considerable (positive) effect on project performance and overall innovation success, especially in radical innovation projects. These “promotor networks” can be considered to be an important success factor for radical innovation projects. The implications of these findings are discussed in Sect. 2.5.

Digital Technologies for Ordering and Delivering Fashion: How Baur Integrates the Customer’s Point of View

(a) Situation faced: Digital technologies such as augmented/virtual reality, chatbots, image processing, messaging services, or speech recognition have the potential to fundamentally change ordering and delivery in online-fashion shops: Disrupting customer interaction formats like attended shopping, curated shopping, scanned shopping, or virtual fitting may increase customer experience, satisfaction, and sales. However, when smaller amounts of money are available, the question arises as to in which of them to invest. Baur, a major German online fashion retailer, is faced with this question and wants to integrate the customer’s point of view in the site engineering process explicitly. (b) Action taken: Secondary research as well as workshops with experts and customers were applied to generate lists of aspects to be improved and potential improvements by digital technologies in the company’s ordering and delivery process. A representative sample of 15,865 customers was confronted with these aspects and potential improvements and asked to evaluate them. 9722 customers returned completed questionnaires. Many of them additionally included detailed comments. The survey data were analyzed and the improvements were prioritized for implementation. The survey methodology yielded recommendations for action to such an extent that it is now integrated in the company’s site engineering process. (c) Results achieved: Overall, the survey showed that the customers are satisfied with the company’s current ordering and delivery process. However, with regard to selection, packaging, and delivery several changes are necessary. Many customers rated potential improvements like virtual fitting and curated shopping as attractive whereas most of them were indifferent with regard to scanned shopping, personalized areas, attended shopping, or C2C inspiration. The survey research resulted in valuable input for the company what actions should be taken in terms of digital technologies to implement. In addition, the company received valuable information on how to improve the ongoing site engineering process. (d) Lessons learned: Improvements aimed at integrating digital technologies—in particular virtual fitting by relying on virtual reality as well as curated shopping by making use of chatbots and messaging services—were rated by many customers as attractive and should also be implemented by other online fashion retailers. Other digital technology-based improvements are of lower priority. From a methodological point of view, customer surveys—if developed carefully and integrated in the company’s site engineering process—provide valuable support when selecting digital technologies for implementing improvements.

Augmented reality tools for industrial applications: What are potential key performance indicators and who benefits?

Abstract Augmented reality (AR) tools are poised to have great potential for organizations when it comes to complex processes in the field of industrial applications – like construction or maintenance in the automotive industry. The human-centred technology displays context-specific 3-D information in a real environment related to a specific targeted object. Immersive experiences are expected to boost task efficiency, the quality of training and maintenance purposes. However, ready-for-market AR tools are still rarely used and benefits seldom demonstrated. This paper focuses on the key performance indicators (KPIs) that are able to benchmark the impact of using ready-for-market AR tools on automotive maintenance performance. After a comprehensive literature review on the benefits of AR for several industrial applications in design, education and training, KPIs were extracted and evaluated by experts from the automotive industry. They were used in an empirical study – based on the technology acceptance model (TAM) – with users evaluating the KPIs before and after training situations. In addition, ‘Perceived Usefulness’ and ‘Intention to Use’ were investigated. Significant enhancements of all KPIs were observed and novice users were identified as a potential target group.