Hammad Akbar

An Exploration of New Product Development's Front‐End Knowledge Conceptualization Process in Discontinuous Innovations

Organizational knowledge creation, as reflected in new product/service development, is a vital process for firms to master. Critical to the development of new products/services is the management of the front‐end phase, which crucially determines the eventual fate of a new product/service idea. However, studies on how knowledge is created at the front‐end of the new product development process are rare. This empirical paper addresses this gap by focusing on knowledge conceptualization – where new knowledge from its generation is crystallized into a concrete and explicit form. Employing a qualitative methodology, the paper examines ten discontinuous projects and develops a front‐end knowledge conceptualization framework. The framework consists of the identified knowledge conceptualization stages and illuminates the pattern of overlaps, outcomes, contributors, knowledge, interactions and volatility across each stage. Our main contribution is a knowledge‐based appreciation of the dynamic and interactive nature of the new product/service developments front‐end phase in the context of discontinuous innovations, and thence the paper provides clear managerial learning points for the effective management of this phase.

Systems thinking and absorptive capacity in high-tech small and medium-sized enterprises from South Korea

This article develops and tests absorptive capacity’s relationship with one of its important forerunners – systems thinking – which, although postulated as an important element, has received little empirical attention in the absorptive capacity literature. Our contribution lies in the introduction of unique pathways through which systems thinking influences absorptive capacity and how it affects various interrelated dimensions of high-tech small and medium-sized enterprises’ performance, by examining evidence from South Korea’s semiconductor industry.

The translation of higher-level knowledge into different levels of managerial and creative competencies.

Higher-level knowledge is regarded as the source from which managerial, as well as creative, competencies originate. However, how higher-level knowledge is translated into different levels of these competencies remains to be analysed in depth. In this paper, we examine the specific mindset and cognitive actions, through which higher-level knowledge is translated into managerial or creative competencies and the different levels within these competencies. Our aim is to deepen our understanding of how knowledge and competencies are interlinked. Our contribution is to show how managerial and creative competencies at the cognitive level are orthogonal to each other and specify the level at which these competencies are translated into. Finally, we offer theoretical and managerial implications and directions for future research.

Feedback Loops as Dynamic Processes of Organizational Knowledge Creation in the Context of the Innovations’ Front-end

Feedback loops are instrumental in the organizational knowledge creation (OKC) process across the highly uncertain and dynamic innovations front-end. Therefore, managers should be aware of how these loops unfold, how to recognize meaningful patterns and how to steer them towards planned and emergent outcomes. Easy to say, difficult to practise! This empirical paper focuses on knowledge–conceptualization – the new knowledges generation-crystallization journey – and develops a unique model of feedback loops as dynamic processes of OKC in the context of the innovations’ front-end. Using ten qualitatively studied innovations, the authors identify five front-end OKC stages (generation, evaluation, expansion, refinement and crystallization) and pattern these based on their overlaps to explore the associated feedback loops. This model distinctively illustrates increasing–decreasing, diverging–converging and frequent negative-cum-positive loops, and illuminates the complex and rich patterns of loops not captured before.

Charting the organisational knowledge-creation process:An innovation-process perspective

Abstract Organisational knowledge creation (OKC) is a complex and relatively uncharted path, especially in terms of the dynamic journey that new knowledge makes from its generation to crystallisation. This journey is crucial for managers to understand in order to allocate limited resources effectively. In this paper, we employ a qualitative approach and explore this journey as it unfolds during the early phases of the new product development process in 10 cases of discontinuous innovation. We develop a knowledge-conceptualisation framework which not only illustrates the OKC journey as it progresses along a number of empirically derived stages and how these overlap with one another, but also how individual and teams contribute to or interact along these stages to create new knowledge. We thus provide a solid basis for the much-needed theoretical advances in knowledge creation and present specific benchmarks required for managers to facilitate the knowledge-creation process within their organisations.