Bernhard R. Katzy

Knowledge management in virtual projects: a research agenda

Project teams within organizations have many challenges to overcome in doing their work. As computer and collaboration technologies allow project team members to be increasingly dispersed in time, place, and organizational affiliation, even greater opportunities and challenges arise. This paper explores the issues associated with knowledge management in virtual project teams. The advantage of virtual projects is their flexibility to bring together members from diverse contexts for short-term endeavors. Knowledge, in contrast, is by nature a long-term phenomenon and emerges in stable social and organizational contexts. The paper describes some of the main challenges of bridging these contrasting requirements, especially the transferability of knowledge to and from the project. A typology of projects is presented, along with a framework that focuses on the management of virtual projects in particular. Research questions in the management of virtual projects are presented, and an integrated approach for examining those questions is discussed.

Innovation intermediaries: a process view on open innovation coordination

The paper reports an action study of seven innovation projects with collaborative partnerships in inter-organisational networks that are facilitated by innovation intermediaries. It contributes to open innovation literature the understanding of innovation processes as nested processes of co-creation on the one side and economic exchange on the other side. While innovation project management and (online) market places are well researched as distinct strategic positions, our observations suggest a third strategic position for innovation intermediaries as process coordinators with strategic innovation capabilities. The paper identifies matchmaking and innovation process design, management of collaborative projects, project valuation and portfolio management as three such strategic capabilities and identifies directions for future research on this emerging phenomenon.

Academic education of software engineering practices: towards planning and improving capstone courses based upon intensive coaching and team routines

Academic education of professional processes is challenged by a necessary balance of practical activities with academic reflection. In this paper we address this issue by discussing our experiences with teaching software engineering practices and their continuous improvement. By designing a graduate course we embed an intensive coaching routine based upon agile practices with research activities to leverage knowledge of students and coaches. As a concrete example of an embedded research project we conduct an experiment on the impact of two different meeting routines on the teams satisfaction with information exchange. Our results show that the intensive coaching in individual teams is shorter in nature and more appealing to the students. Our findings suggest that software engineering education can benefit from the notion of team routines and process improvement practices contributing to maturity of students and educators.

Matchmaking as multi-sided market for open innovation

An obvious task in open innovation is to find suitable partners for collaboration. In this paper we present results from three participatory case studies of identifying and matching technology firms for collaborative innovation projects. We observe that matchmaking is a more complex process than an (online) market transaction. The cases show how innovation intermediaries organise the matching process as external service-providers and what economic contribution they can have. The paper conceptualises matchmaking for collaborative innovation as economic resource allocation process in the shape of a multi-sided market which involves the innovation partners and intermediaries. The paper concludes with theoretical and practical implications that such a conceptual lens opens for exploratory technology analysis projects and the management of matching processes for innovation partnership formation.

Developing an approach to measure innovation performance in collaborative networks

Innovation is often addressed to be the result of collaborative network settings. Yet it remains difficult to provide proof in hard measurement data. Mainly motivated by practicability of data collection the paper proposes the “innovation alley” as a measurement approach. We discuss its conceptual and theoretical assumptions, first with a view on the network or mezo-level of analysis, second by presenting a longitudinal process basic structure which is well in line with existing product development management knowledge. We then elicit conceptual links to entrepreneurship for methodological reasons of measuring innovation performance. The “innovation alley” model is structured as a theoretical process of six steps with indicators at every stage to collect data on innovation performance. We include very specific network agents such as the ESNC and the concept of Living Labs in our model to evaluate their role and performance in the overall innovation process.

Knowledge-Based Theory of the Firm, Challenges by Social Media

This paper reports on a study of the perceptions of top managers in 18 Swiss firms on the future of knowledge work in an age of new social media (SM). The executives perceive, and are concerned with, future work practices and behavioral norms, they are aware that the use of SM for knowledge work can change the locus of knowledge production from within the firm to networks and communities of practice (CoPs) that extend beyond the firms boundaries. To explore the strategic implications of this shift in locus, we re-conceptualize CoPs that emerge from the use of SM as a theoretical construct independent from the firm. We seek to distinguish the value propositions for firms and CoPs and explore the implications of a richer theoretical description of multiple strategic possibilities of firm-CoP relationships as new economic ecosystems emerge with widespread adoption of SM.

Concurrent process coordination of new product development by Living Labs – an exploratory case study

The risk of New Product Development (NPD) investments is that they are wasted if users and customers do not accept their results. Living Labs set out to involve users early on in the process to reduce this risk. The paper tells the story of how Coliquio discusses the contribution of Living Labs to NPD. User acceptance is a well-known performance indicator for new product success and user-involvement an indicator of development process maturity. As the story suggests, the nature of Living Labs as innovation intermediary is coordination of NPD processes in open-network settings. The paper provides a framework of Living Lab capabilities including team mobilisation and idea scouting, match making, product development, user validation and market positioning, project financing and venturing for future growth. Their concurrent coordination is a capability by itself. Living Labs are entrepreneurship capabilities.

Emerging Collaboration Routines in Knowledge-Intensive Work Processes: Insights from Three Case Studies

This article aims to identify how knowledge workers develop their own collaboration strategies and techniques for getting their work done in complex, dynamic knowledge intensive work environments. Three case studies have been conducted to explore the nature of routines in different collaborative working settings as they provide sufficient detail to better understand the actual state and problems regarding collaborative work processes among knowledge workers. Evidences from these cases show that coordination and control of projects, tasks, information, and little support by collaboration tools in all work patterns seem to be the biggest issues and there is a need for better understanding of collaboration culture as well as harmonious and integrated redesign of collaboration routines with new collaborative working environment technologies. The analysis of the cases also shows that there are considerable differences in ways of how actors communicate and coordinate their work which leads varying degrees of quality in knowledge intensive work. The results can be used to achieve a smoother collaborative working phase through innovative technical developments.

Virtual project productivity - a management issue

Projects that operate in a virtual mode remain to be risky. Despite improving technology they fail more often and are less productive. This paper focuses on team collaboration and virtual project management in the search for solutions and argues that new research environments are needed to achieve results with higher external validity. One under-researched element of virtual project management is the link between the project team and its environment. This especially has an impact on the continuous (re-) structuration of the project and its team members. The paper discusses a living laboratory environment in which real-life situations are used to study technical and organisational scenarios to go beyond traditional close system control group experiment for the longitudinal study of virtual project team collaboration. As an example of research results from the living laboratory the paper presents a set of coordination routines, how they evolve within the team over time, and their impact on productivity. Such routines can serve as best practices for virtual project management.

Cross-border innovation intermediaries – matchmaking across institutional contexts

This paper draws attention to the specific aspect of institutional environments in international matchmaking for innovation. While technology is largely global this exploratory study of 18 cross-border cases between Europe and China points to the impact of distant institutional environments on the success and structure of cross-border collaborative innovation. Addressing differences in governance, market regulation, policy, IPR protection, language and culture like the Chinese guanxi are specific services based on dedicated capabilities of international innovation intermediaries.