Hannele Lampela

Survival Competence in Russian SMEs in a Changing Business Environment

This paper focuses on the survival competences that enable small and medium enterprise (SME) managers to conduct business in change situations. Russian SMEs, which have undergone several drastic changes in operational environment in recent decades, comprise the subjects of the qualitative study. Their recent World Trade Organization (WTO) membership is challenging in terms of business continuity and competence. The results of the study show that both internal competences and network competences are needed in order to survive in crisis situations. Entrepreneurial competences acquired by everybody in the firm, an open-minded attitude towards external partners, and networking competences provide a future direction for managerial practice and public actors.

Contribution of virtual teams to learning and knowledge generation in innovation-related projects

Virtual Teams (VTs), consisting of participants from many geographically distant subunits, or even belonging to many organisations and communicating mainly through ICT, are used for the purpose of sharing development costs and shortening the time to market. The paper analyses how a VT may facilitate or prevent learning, knowledge generation, and ideation processes in New Product/Service Development (NP/SD). First, the definition of VTs as a specific form of organisation is discussed. Then a review of what has been written about this kind of organisation is given, to provide a better understanding of how this organisational form may impact the NP/SD process. Given the fact that few studies have been produced on the topic, the main research areas requiring further investigations are identified. Managerial recommendations are offered as a conclusion.

Systems thinking and learning in innovation process

The success of a company is increasingly dependent on the innovations and new knowledge it can create. The growing knowledge intensiveness of many industries emphasises the significance of the creation of new knowledge and organisational learning. Learning has become more important than ever before, when companies try to find the fit between their operations, their products and the changing business environment. In the context of learning and knowledge creation, systems thinking is currently widely recognised as an area of growing importance particularly within the area of innovation research. Only few papers that dealt directly with this specific issue were found in the current literature.

Challenges of information reuse in customer-oriented engineering networks

An exploratory research approach to reviewing existing literature.The challenges of information reuse identified from multiple complementary viewpoints.Proposal of a typology of information reuse challenges.The majority of challenges addressed knowledge processes and reuse situations.Implications for organizational development needs in engineer-to-order companies and networks. Project-based engineering companies are striving for innovation acceleration, and lean supply and product processes throughout the product lifecycle. The business orientation of engineer-to-order companies is customer-centric due to the nature of engineer-to-order products, which are tailored and customized according to the specific requirements of each customer. However, this customer orientation may lead to inefficient performance, due to a lack of mechanisms to reuse proven concepts, designs and production facilities, as well as an absence of feedback mechanisms from products in use and service. These challenges have been recognized in earlier empirical research projects conducted in companies providing engineer-to-order products. Based on an exploratory study of the existing literature, this paper aims to identify factors hindering product-related information reuse in an engineering business environment that comprises several networks of actors during the lifecycle of engineer-to-order products. The main challenges of information reuse in an engineer-to-order context are related to reuse situations, which require combining existing information with experience-based knowledge. A typology of factors and challenges of information reuse is built, and organizational development needs at different organizational levels as well as further research needs are identified.

Views and practices on inter-organisational learning in innovation networks

In this paper, the aim is to study inter-organisational learning in innovation networks. In the context of organisational and particularly inter-organisational learning, due to, for instance, organisational and physical distances, various ICT tools and e-learning methods are of particular importance. The emphasis is on different currently important or increasingly important approaches and views on organisational learning that are relevant from the standpoint of networked innovation. Different learning approaches are analysed and their suitability in various situations and conditions of innovation networks is evaluated. Some useful practices to be considered in each learning approach are suggested.

Dynamics of development in innovation collaboration – relationships, learning and end products

This paper addresses the developments that occur during collaborative innovation process from three viewpoints: characteristics of the collaboration relationships, the learning between partners and the end products being developed in the innovation process. Combining these three simultaneous change processes gives a holistic, rich picture of the innovation process, which helps in understanding the phenomenon, identifying development needs and in planning the innovation process from both learning and collaboration perspectives. The study is based on the results of several interviews with managers responsible for innovation process in industrial companies.

Survival Skills in SMEs—Continuous Competence Renewing and Opportunity Scanning

This article focuses on how SMEs react in drastic environmental changes and what part competences play in business survival. The comparative qualitative case study is based on interviews in Finnish and Russian SMEs that have encountered drastic changes in their business environments. The findings indicated differences in the entrepreneurial competences of the SMEs between the countries, such as passive in environmental and/or opportunity scanning. As practical implications, we highlight the need for SMEs to invest in competence renewing to avoid competence traps. Surviving SMEs must also possess a forward-looking attitude with the opportunity exploitation and exploration.

Lifecycle-Based Requirements of Product-Service System in Customer-Centric Manufacturing

Managing through-life information of products and services has become an important competitive means in customer-centric industries. The need for managing new types of product-service requirements for sustainability, traceability and performance have widened the traditional perspective of PLM information to integrate new issues, e.g. service information. In this study we examine how the diverse and through-life requirements information could better be integrated in product and business processes of customer-centric manufacturing. The study is based on a literature review and two case interviews. The objective is to elicit requirements information for Product-Service System (PSS). The study introduces the concepts of product-service system, and outlines through-life requirements in customer-centric business. PSS is a new concept for customer-centric business to improve the performance of sustainability, traceability, reusability and repeatability.

SME competence transformation – a case study on industrial structural change

The paper considers SME competence transformation resulting from structural changes in the forest industry. The focus is on change management of public actors and SMEs. The research data are based on publicly available industry data and 13 in-depth themed interviews of public actors, SME managers and start-up entrepreneurs. In this study, it is found that SMEs develop their business in response to external changes and are able to transform their competences to meet changed circumstances. Furthermore, it is noted that start-up companies base their business on formerly acquired skills and competences. Another important finding is that public actors manage structural change but, from the perspective of entrepreneurs, do not appear to meet the needs of SMEs and micro companies. The paper provides valuable insights into change management, competence transformation paths and possible pitfalls which public actors and SMEs may face when confronting business environment changes.