David Tranfield

State-of-the-art in product service-systems

Abstract A Product-Service System (PSS) is an integrated combination of products and services. This Western concept embraces a service-led competitive strategy, environmental sustainability, and the basis to differentiate from competitors who simply offer lower priced products. This paper aims to report the state-of-the-art of PSS research by presenting a clinical review of literature currently available on this topic. The literature is classified and the major outcomes of each study are addressed and analysed. On this basis, this paper defines the PSS concept, reports on its origin and features, gives examples of applications along with potential benefits and barriers to adoption, summarizes available tools and methodologies, and identifies future research challenges.

The Nature, Social Organization and Promotion of Management Research: Towards Policy

This paper argues for the distinctiveness of management research and develops a perspective concerning management research policy. It argues that the key defining characteristic of management research is its applied nature, and that its central concern should be ‘the general (engineering) problem of design’. Because a key goal of management research is to improve the relationship between theory and practice, a fundamental concern lies with its diverse nature and the consequential difficulty of integration of sub-disciplines, as well as with the issue of the relevance and the application of findings. As a policy paper, it aims to introduce a limited number of analytical frameworks in order to develop a policy position, thus helping frame the debate concerning the role of management research. Specifically, it achieves this, first by exploring the ontology of management research, examining its form, features, peculiarities and idiosyncrasies using Bechers conceptual schema for exploring the nature of disciplines; second by identifying a requisite form of social organization to support management research activity using the Gibbons et al. taxonomy of knowledge production systems; and finally, by identifying some conclusions, research policy implications, and suggesting a set of policy propositions concerning the conduct of management research.

Using qualitative research synthesis to build an actionable knowledge base

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to address the qualitative synthesis and use of existing management research to inform management practice.Design/methodology/approach – Three methods of qualitative synthesis, each with contrasting methodologies, are presented and their potential contribution in the management field explored.Findings – Professional practice could be improved if practitioners had better access to the products of a large body of management research. Evidence‐based reviews of the literature in the management field could form a crucial bridge between research and practice. The task of reviewing and synthesising qualitative studies comprises a key challenge.Research limitations/implications – The key issues in conducting qualitative synthesis are highlighted and the barriers and enablers to the application of the product of qualitative synthesis in practice are discussed.Originality/value – The paper stimulates debate about what counts as an effective synthesis of qualitative research an...

Factors characterising the maturity of BPR programmes

Addresses the implementation of business process re‐engineering (BPR) programmes in 33 public and private organisations wishing to improve performance. By reviewing the existing literature, the research presented here began by identifying ten dimensions along which BPR projects might be measured. This research then uses these dimensions to investigate two research questions. Uses factor analysis based on quantitative data to address these questions. The factor analysis identified three independent aspects of BPR implementation: strategy, process and cost. These terms were then used in labelling three characteristic approaches, strategic BPR, process‐focused BPR and cost‐focused BPR. To investigate causality we re‐visited seven of the original organisations which had been in the early stages of implementation. Preliminary results indicate that managers might avoid the naturalistic tendency towards slow or stalled BPR maturity by intervening in a strategic sense at an earlier stage of implementation, thus bringing an organisation to a mature BPR programme more quickly.

The strategic regeneration of manufacturing by changing routines

Uses theory and empirical data to develop further the understanding of the strategic regeneration of manufacturing companies. Reviews literature relevant to the areas of management and manufacturing strategy and organisational learning, identifying the importance of taking “resource based” views of strategy as a point of departure for aiding understanding of the process of manufacturing regeneration. Argues that regeneration can be understood from a change management perspective as a redefinition of tacit and explicit organisational routines. Reports the further development of earlier work and uses one exemplar case to describe and help begin understanding the complex process of strategic regeneration using an ecological, perceptual/cognitive, and structural analytical framework. Finally, draws some tentative conclusions on the nature and process of strategic regeneration and regenerative strategy, and notes the value and potential of taking a perspective based on the notion of “organisational routines” in attempting to understand this complex phenomenon.

Co‐producing management knowledge

The division between academic knowledge and its relevance for practice is an enduring problem across many fields. Nowhere is this division more pronounced, and resolution of its negative features more required, than in academic management research and its relationship to management practice, for the advent of the knowledge revolution requires that organizations capitalize on all available assets including knowledge assets when improving performance either by increasing efficiencies or ensuring mission delivery in the medium term. How companies might achieve this has become a key question. This paper reports the “co‐production” model of knowledge creation and transfer through a novel case of this in practice. It outlines how academics and managers can work together using a “systematic review” of the science base to synthesize management knowledge and ensure its transfer. In doing so it offers management academics and practitioners a new model for the production and application of knowledge.

Performance measures: relating facilities to business indicators

Throughout the 1980s and into the 1990s, manufacturing companies have adopted a wide variety of performance‐improvement programmes. Such approaches have resulted in productivity gains for some companies, although the UK still has few world‐class performers. Despite huge investment in performance‐improvement programmes, competitive advantage for many British companies still remains elusive. Looks at recent developments in thinking which have begun to shed light on why this is happening. Discusses flaws in the widely‐adopted competitive‐forces model and considers the strategic‐capabilities approach as an alternative and potentially crucial model. In the context of the whole organization, it is claimed that the role of facilities management has evolved from merely helping the organization survive, to acting to enhance its potential to prosper in a volatile commercial climate. Thus the challenge for facilities management is indeed the same challenge facing the organization.

Strategies for Managing the TQ Agenda

Reports the findings of a research project into the development of a total quality methodology for strategic use by senior management teams aimed at enabling them to audit current approaches, revise where necessary, and then implement in order to produce TQM programmes which are resilient in the medium/long term. Recounts the empirical and theoretical work underpinning a partially inductively derived map of approaches to TQM, comprising four TQM paradigms which are postulated to be the product of managerial mindsets and which result in predominant and implicit TQM cultures in management teams. Explores the role of TQM in strategic cultural change. Finally details the development of a methodology (TQM2) based on the research findings.

Knowledge management routines for innovation projects: developing a hierarchical process model

In this paper we use the literature on knowledge management and innovation, together with empirical data, to develop a process model for knowledge management routines in the context of innovation projects. First we develop a high-level conceptualisation from the literature, the model characterising knowledge management as consisting of three distinct phases: Discovery, Realisation and Nurture. We then expand this three phase perspective into a model of generic knowledge management routines, reporting four contrasting, exemplar cases from a wide ranging study across business sectors. Using the notions of radical and incremental innovation in both products and processes we illustrate how the three high-level phases may be further expanded into a more detailed conceptualisation of the knowledge management process. This comprises eight generic routines: Search, Capture, Articulate, Contextualise, Apply, Evaluate, Support and Re-innovate. We derive a new description of knowledge management and discuss the practical implications of the model, including the opportunities which exist for cross-sector learning between organisations which are superficially dissimilar. We conclude that the successful management of organisational knowledge in the context of innovation requires attention to be paid to all eight generic routines and to the influence of enablers and blockers operating both inside and outside the framework of routines.

Integrating lean and 'high reliability' thinking

Abstract This paper illustrates how recent tragedies have been shown to be threatening to the medium-term sustainability of organizations designed and developed solely on the basis of short-term efficiency gain. Over the past 30 years, Western organizations have institutionalized this emphasis on efficiencies through the implementation of Japanese management philosophies, such as lean thinking. This situation has assisted the removal of vital adaptive and responsive capacity or ‘organizational slack’, necessary for organizations that need to contend with complex and dynamic environments. The authors argue for the need to challenge managerial mindsets and re-engage a pluralist metaperspective both at the level of strategic purpose and organizational configuration. In particular, it suggests that, in addition to the efficiency model, a complementary and to some extent alternative set of ‘high-reliability’ organization (HRO) design principles are required. They focus on the notion of creating an HRO that privileges integrity in the achievement of medium- and long-term goals over short-term efficiency gains. Integrating both ‘lean thinking’ and ‘high-reliability’ principles is a requirement for post-modern managers operating in their roles as organizational engineers, if mission accomplishment is to be realized.