Jürgen Hauschildt

Teamwork for innovation: The "troika" of promotors

The management of innovation requires ‘champions’ or ‘promotors’ who commit with enthusiasm to the new product or the new process idea. More complex innovations will require more than one promotor. Division of labour becomes an essential success factor. According to the promotor model, at least a dyad of a ‘power promotor’ and a ‘technology promotor’ is necessary to overcome the barriers of unwillingness and of ignorance. With growing complexity, additional problems of communication and process management will occur. This will demand a third team member, the ‘process promotor’, who is needed to overcome the barriers of non-responsibility and non-communication between the organisational units involved and to act as navigator of the process. In this article, we present an empirical investigation of 133 innovations in the German plant construction and engineering industry. The results strengthen the hypothesis that the level of success of an innovation depends on the existence of a ‘troika’ of promotors.

Realistic Criteria for Project Manager Selection and Development

Five types of project managers were identified and the level of success of each and its frequency of occurrence in the project manager sample were determined. When refined through further research, this typology holds the promise of more effective project manager selection and development tools, and the possibility of maintaining a population of project managers in an organization that is optimum for the needs of that organization.

Gatekeeper and process promotor: key persons in agile and innovative organizations

A characteristic of agile organizations is the development of innovative products and processes. It has been shown that a key factor of success in managing innovative projects is the existence of key persons. Empirical studies on innovation management show that key persons who are able to overcome existing innovation barriers play a decisive role for innovation success. The basic theoretical concepts behind these findings are the “gatekeeper concept” and the “promotor model”. The two concepts are compared under a static and a dynamic perspective. It will be shown that under a dynamic view, one can combine the gatekeeper concept and the promotor model to a powerful management concept for supporting agility in organizations.

Promotors and champions in innovations — development of a research paradigm

Josef Schumpeter can be credited with being the first person to draw attention to the central role played by the entrepreneur in innovation processes, in a book published in 1912 (Theory of Economic Development, Leipzig). This entrepreneur creates new combinations on a discontinuous basis, in totally new forms, in an act of creative destruction. He brings forth new products, introduces new production methods, opens up new markets, conquers new sources of supply or re-organizes (Schumpeter 1931, p. 100). The “dynamic entrepreneur” was thus characterized and described. This was apparently sufficient to incorporate him into the economic models. To understand him as a real person or even to analyze him in further detail seemed superfluous.

Number of alternatives and efficiency in different types of top-management decisions

Abstract What are the causes of the efficiency of complex strategic decisions? To answer this question, the impact of information searching, alternative designing, and complexity of a decision problem on its decision quality are analyzed in a longitudinal study of 83 top-management decisions, made the by executive board of a medium-sized firm (1380 employees). Decision quality is negatively influenced by the complexity of the decision problem. Alternative designing has a strong positive impact on decision quality. Information search shows no significant relationship to decision quality. The results indicate that designing of alternatives is an important instrument to counter the challenges of complex strategic decision-problems. However, one should not simply maximize the number of alternatives. There seems to be a very small optimal number beyond which decision quality will decrease. Besides, alternative designing has to be coordinated with other problem-solving activities, namely goal formation, process organization, and information searching.

Technology transfer through international joint ventures: the case of gamma

Technology transfer through international joint ventures is considered important to enhance competitiveness, exploit opportunities and boost economic growth. A common observation is, however, that such ventures often fail. Present insights regarding transfer processes, influencing factors, and relationships between technology transfer and venture success -- if any -- are modest. This paper reports on a failing German-Russian joint venture established to exploit new business opportunities, where transfer of technology was perceived crucial to success. It was observed that the technology transfer as such was successful, even though the transferring firm sustained monetary loss and worsened its competitive situation.

Plädoyer für eine bedürfnisgerechte Differenzierung der Ausbildung in der Betriebswirtschaftslehre

Die Nachfrage nach dem Studium der Betriebswirtschaftslehre ist starker angewachsen als die Ausbildungskapazitat. Daraus sind Probleme erwachsen, die dem Fach selbst angelastet werden.

Projektleiter als Prozeßpromotoren

Innovationsprozesse entziehen sich als Entscheidungs- und Durchsetzungsprozesse traditionellen betriebswirtschaftlichen Uberlegungen. Komplexitat, Konfliktgehalt und Unsicherheit von Innovationen verlangen vielfach die Entwicklung ganz neuer Methoden, auf jeden Fall die radikale Modifikation der Konzepte, die sich in Routinesituationen oder in Lagen einer mittleren Beherrschbarkeit bewahrt haben. Es last sich empirisch belegen, das die klassischen Management-Techniken, wie Struktur- und Prozesorganisation, Gestaltung von Informationswegen und -netzen, Plane und Programme in Innovationsprozessen ihren Dienst versagen (Hauschildt 1997, S. 363 ff.; Ettlie 1983, S. 239; Cohn/Turyn 1980, S. 100; Rubenstein et al. 1976, S. 18). An ihre Stelle tritt personliche Koordination durch Menschen, die flexibel, tatkraftig und kreativ auf die ungeplanten und unplanbaren Ereignisse reagieren, die die Widerstande gegen das Neue uberwinden und die beharrlich und unbeirrt fur “ihre” Innovation eintreten.

Uncertainty, experience and the phase theorem

Abstract This paper compares the information obtained from involvement in the planning of research and development projects with that obtained from an experiment set up to test the process of decision making with particular reference to the phase theorem. Findings are that there is a weak support for the theorem but that the extent to which the phase theorem is used is dependent on the experience of the decision marker and the complexity of the problem. Under certain circumstances the decision makers tend to substitute the activity orientation for a component orientation. An explanation for this is provided through the framework of the uncertainty map. Finally implications are drawn for management development in both educational establishments and R & D organisations.

Zur Effizienz des Graduiertenkollegs

Unter der Zielsetzung der Deutschen Forschungsgemeinschaft, der Vergaberichtlinien fur Graduiertenkollegs und der Erwartungen der Wissenschaft, Politik und Wirtschaftspraxis sollte durch Graduiertenkollegs eine neue Form des Doktorandenstudiums eingefuhrt werden, die zu einer besseren Betreuung der Promovenden fuhrt, die die Zusammenarbeit der beteiligten Wissenschaftler verbessert, die die Promovenden besser qualifiziert, die den Anstos zur Einrichtung neuer Studienprogramme gibt.