Kim van Oorschot

Strategic and Cultural Misalignment: Knowledge Sharing Barriers in Project Networks

This article draws on theories from knowledge and project management to develop an understanding of how knowledge sharing is encouraged and hindered in the context of a multifirm network assembled to execute an innovative shipbuilding project. The empirical data are based on a qualitative case study, collected from in-depth face-to-face interviews in China and Norway, with the key people from a ship owner, shipbuilder, and ship technology supplier. The research indicates three interesting findings: First, differences in organizational culture (not national culture) hamper knowledge sharing. Second, a strategic misalignment made knowledge sharing difficult. Third, protecting knowledge by patenting and secrecy barely influenced the knowledge sharing processes. Based on previous research and lessons learned from case study experience, we suggest a framework to analyze challenges and links in project networks.

Pilot Error? : Managerial decision biases as explanation for disruptions in aircraft development

Although concurrency between project development stages is an effective approach to speeding up project progress, previous research recommends concurrent engineering primarily for less complex, incremental projects. As such, in complex radical aircraft development projects, managers opt for less concurrency; however, by using system dynamics modeling, this study shows that less concurrency can contribute to overall project delays, rather than preventing them. The time lost by rework due to early starts of project stages is more than compensated by the time gained by early feedback and faster learning, with positive effects on project completion and subsequent sales.

How to counteract the suppression of exploration in publicly traded corporations

Top management teams frequently overemphasize efforts to exploit the current product portfolio, even in the face of the strong need to step up exploration activities. This mismanagement of the balance between explorative R&D activities and exploitation of the current product portfolio can result in the so‐called success trap, the situation where explorative activities are fully suppressed. The success trap constitutes a serious threat to the long‐term viability of a firm. Recent studies of publicly traded corporations suggest that the suppression of exploration arises from the interplay among the executive teams myopic forces, the board of directors as gatekeeper of the capital market, and the exploitation–exploration investments and their outcomes. In this paper, system dynamics modeling serves to identify and test ways in which top management teams can counteract this suppression process. For instance, we find that when the executive board is suppressing exploration, the board of directors can still prevent the success trap by actively intervening in the exploitation–exploration strategy.

Sharing knowledge or not? Innovation and imitation in shipbuilding projects in China

Innovative Western firms (multinational corporations or MNCs) that want to enter China are facing a difficult trade-off. To get a foot on Chinese ground, the MNC needs to collaborate with Chinese p...

Three Is a Crowd? On the Benefits of Involving Contract Manufacturers in Collaborative Planning for Three-Echelon Supply Networks

In today’s network economy, multi-echelon supply networks have become the dominant life form. The question of how to coordinate goods flows in such multi-echelon settings has become paramount. This study investigates the effectiveness of collaboration and information sharing in a three-echelon supply network, whereas academic research so far has focused on collaboration in two-echelon supply chains. The starting point for this study is a published and prize-winning real-world case of collaborative planning (CP) in the high-clockspeed industry of electronics. In particular, this research zooms in on the role played by the middle echelon, that of the contract manufacturers (CM), whose strategic interests typically are less aligned with the OEM than those of the key component suppliers. A system dynamics simulation model is developed and calibrated from this three-echelon supply network setting. Simulation analysis suggests that, when the CM is actively engaged in the joint CP process, the benefits are higher for all three echelons involved. On the other hand, if the CM does not collaborate, then collaboration between the two other echelons still yields significant benefits for all supply network members. In short, in goods flow information sharing in three-echelon supply network settings, “three is not a crowd”, but “two is company”.