Ali E. Akgün

Knowledge networks in new product development projects: a transactive memory perspective

Even though an individuals knowledge network is known to contribute to the effectiveness and efficiency of his or her work in groups, the way that network building occurs has not been carefully investigated. In our study, activities of new product development teams were analyzed to determine the antecedents and consequences on the transactive memory systems, the moderating affect of task complexity was also considered. We examined 69 new product development projects and found that team stability, team member familiarity, and interpersonal trust had a positive impact on the transactive memory system and also had a positive influence on team learning, speed-to-market, and new product success. Further, we found that the impact of the transactive memory system on team learning, speed-to-market, and new product success was higher when there was a higher task complexity. Theoretical and managerial implications of the study findings are discussed.

Organizational unlearning as changes in beliefs and routines in organizations

Purpose – Organizational learning and unlearning is a popular and important topic in business as well as academia. Even though there is a plethora of studies on organizational learning, surprisingly little is known about the conceptualization and operationalization of organizational unlearning. The purpose of this paper is to discuss organizational unlearning based on the organizational change and memory literature enhancing the organizational learning and change scholarship.Design/methodology/approach – It is argued that unlearning is conceptualized as organizational memory eliminating, and is operationalized as changing beliefs and routines covariates in organizations. This is followed with a discussion of unlearning types, specifically, reinventive, formative, operative and adjustive, which are contingent on the environmental conditions. Finally, future research suggestions are proposed to leverage understanding on unlearning in the literature.Findings – Shows that organizations first need to unlearn e...

Knowledge management in new product teams: practices and outcomes

This paper explores the critical practices impacting a new product teams ability to learn and succeed. By investigating the practices of 281 new product teams from around the world, several factors emerged that impact a teams ability to acquire and use knowledge to reduce cycle time and improve their probability of success. The significant factors include: (1) documentation of project information, (2) storage and retrieval systems for project information, (3) information reviewing practices, (4) vision clarity, (5) vision stability, and (6) management support of the project.

Organizational Learning: A Socio-Cognitive Framework

Organizational learning is a popular topic in business and academia and attracts many researchers and practitioners from different fields. Even though organizational learning scholarship is still growing, there are few studies that cross-fertilize social cognition and organizational learning. This investigation examines organizational learning from the perspective of social cognition. It is argued that social cognition explains the organizational learning process better by integrating fragmented studies on the processes of learning, and the study proposes that organizational learning is an outcome of reciprocal interactions of the processes of information/knowledge acquisition, information/knowledge dissemination, information/knowledge implementation, sensemaking, memory, thinking, unlearning, intelligence, improvisation, and emotions - connected by organizational culture. In addition, the implications of social cognition on organizational learning are discussed.

Innovation Strategies Under Uncertainty: A Contingency Approach for New Product Development

AbstractInnovation is especially critical, yet risky, in dynamic, uncertain markets where the product or service employs new and uncertain technologies. Under these conditions, the new product professional should rely on a variety of tools and techniques to assist him or her to innovate more effectively with a greater probability of succeeding. The new product development literature offers several tools to help. These tools are based on one of six innovation strategies: process, speed, learning, market, technology, and quantitative. However, it is not clear which strategy should be used and when. This article examines these dominant innovation strategies and evaluates their applicability in the environment of emerging markets with emerging technologies. We have found that for the more extreme forms of innovation, a learning-based strategy will improve the chances of success.

Antecedents and Consequences of Team Stability on New Product Development Performance

Group member change or team stability is a popular and important topic in the group and organizational behavior literature. Team member stability is viewed as a critical factor for an effectively functioning and performing group. Even though there is a plethora of studies on group member change and stability, research on member stability in cross-functional new product development teams is still lacking. This study explores the antecedent factors that impact new product development team stability as well as its consequences. By studying 211 new product teams, we found: (1) the most direct antecedents of team stability are goal stability and goal support; and (2) team stability has a significantly positive effect on outcome variables including team learning and cycle time. This study also shows that team stability may not be universally good; under some circumstances, such as when there is a high degree of market and technical turbulence, team instability can be advantageous.

Project visioning: Its components and impact on new product success

The concept of corporate vision has been receiving considerable attention in the strategy scholarship. A clear and lofty organizational vision can provide direction to a company and can positively impact its ability to succeed. Yet research on vision at the project level has been curiously lacking. The purpose of this research is to define project vision, discuss its components and explore its impact on successful new product development. After studying the vision on a series of 13 innovations at three companies (Apple, IBM and HP), we identified several components of an effective project vision that include vision clarity, vision agreement/support and vision stability and assessed their impact on new product success. To confirm the validity and generalizability of our observations, we then tested these insights on 509 new product teams from a wide variety of firms. We found that an effective vision varies depending on the innovation type – incremental, evolutionary and radical. Our results demonstrate that vision clarity is positively associated with success in evolutionary (market or technical), and radical innovations, but not for incremental projects. Vision stability is positively associated with success in incremental and evolutionary market innovations; and vision support is positively associated with success in incremental, and evolutionary technical innovations.

New product development team improvisation and speed‐to‐market: an extended model

Speed‐to‐market is cited as being vital in today’s competitive, uncertain and turbulent environments. To help companies in their quest for speed in new product development, many tools and techniques have been developed. One of the these techniques – team improvisation – is receiving a great deal of attention in both practice as well as theory. However, we know surprisingly little about improvisation in a new product development context. In this paper, we extend previous team improvisation models and test them in a new product development context. By studying 354 new product projects, we found that team improvisation has a positive impact on speed‐to‐market under turbulent markets and technology conditions, and there are some mechanisms that can facilitate a team’s ability to improvise, such as team stability and teamwork. We also found that having a clear project goal will detract from a team’s ability to improvise.

Factors Impacting the Adoption and Effectiveness of the World Wide Web in Marketing

Abstract With the increased popularity of the World Wide Web, companies are rushing to have a presence on the Web. However, many companies do not know whether the Web will be effective for them, or what they can do to increase its effectiveness. Few empirical studies have been done on what companies can do to increase the adoption and effectiveness of the Web in marketing. By studying the practices of 110 marketers, we found that adoption and effectiveness of the Web can be positively influenced if a company 1) provides formal training to its marketing organization, 2) encourages an effective relationship between the marketing and IS/MIS organization, 3) demonstrates the usefulness of the Web to the marketing organization, and 4) uses younger marketing personnel.

New product development team intelligence: Antecedents and consequences

Our study investigated the effect of team knowledge on new product development (NPD). By investigating 207 NPD projects, we found that the declarative and procedural knowledge of the team and their use of IT had a positive influence on the teams knowledge base; and that the higher the functional diversity of the project team, the greater their overall knowledge. We also found that team knowledge positively impacted new product creativity and success in the market place.