Max von Zedtwitz

How Team Identification and Expertise Identification Affect R&D Employees' Creativity

The relationship between team identification and expertise identification in the R&D context and the mechanism by which these variables influence R&D creativity is not yet clear. We present and empirically test a theoretical framework proposing that knowledge sharing mediates the relationship between identification and creativity in R&D teams. Based on 120 paired‐sample survey data of 30 R&D teams, we show that knowledge sharing mediates the relationship between team identification (but not expertise identification) and R&D team members creativity. Contributions to the literature and the practice of innovation and R&D management, knowledge and creativity management, and team management are discussed.

Criteria to assess potential reverse innovations: opportunities for shared learning between high- and low-income countries.

BackgroundLow- and middle-income countries (LMICs) are developing novel approaches to healthcare that may be relevant to high-income countries (HICs). These include products, services, organizational processes, or policies that improve access, cost, or efficiency of healthcare. However, given the challenge of replication, it is difficult to identify innovations that could be successfully adapted to high-income settings. We present a set of criteria for evaluating the potential impact of LMIC innovations in HIC settings.MethodsAn initial framework was drafted based on a literature review, and revised iteratively by applying it to LMIC examples from the Center for Health Market Innovations (CHMI) program database. The resulting criteria were then reviewed using a modified Delphi process by the Reverse Innovation Working Group, consisting of 31 experts in medicine, engineering, management and political science, as well as representatives from industry and government, all with an expressed interest in reverse innovation.ResultsThe resulting 8 criteria are divided into two steps with a simple scoring system. First, innovations are assessed according to their success within the LMIC context according to metrics of improving accessibility, cost-effectiveness, scalability, and overall effectiveness. Next, they are scored for their potential for spread to HICs, according to their ability to address an HIC healthcare challenge, compatibility with infrastructure and regulatory requirements, degree of novelty, and degree of current collaboration with HICs. We use examples to illustrate where programs which appear initially promising may be unlikely to succeed in a HIC setting due to feasibility concerns.ConclusionsThis study presents a framework for identifying reverse innovations that may be useful to policymakers and funding agencies interested in identifying novel approaches to addressing cost and access to care in HICs. We solicited expert feedback and consensus on an empirically-derived set of criteria to create a practical tool for funders that can be used directly and tested prospectively using current databases of LMIC programs.

Multi-issue negotiation in quality function deployment

A multi-issue negotiation based QFD methodology is proposed.Complicated design trade-offs can be handled.Customer requirements are included in real-time.A mode for negotiation of decentralized NPD teams is provided.Customers play a more active role in NPD. Quality function deployment (QFD) is one of the most powerful methodologies in new product development (NPD) because of its systematic support of knowledge creation and sharing. However, greater product complexity, increasing dynamic customer requirements and further decentralization of innovation teams undermine applicability of QFD in modern NPD. Modifying QFD methodology with a multi-issue negotiation mechanism promises to overcome these obstacles because this negotiation-based structure (i) enables QFD to define a large number of interdependent decision parameters while handling complicated design trade-offs, (ii) includes changing customer requirements in real-time rather than a cycle-time determined by length of the product development process, (iii) allows decentralized NPD teams to negotiate with each other and customers concurrently. This study presents a multi-issue negotiation based QFD methodology by using a recently developed mechanism for multi-issue negotiation (namely, Modified Even-Swaps) and illustrates strengths and weaknesses along with practical insights with a case study of the development of a washing machine. The QFD methodology proposed in this study provides new options to assess new product alternatives by allowing customer co-creation which is essential in complex and often tacit-knowledge dependent comparisons and also intrinsically helpful for fine-tuning dynamically evolving customer requirements. Moreover, it supports competition-based interactions of decentralized NPD teams.

Innovation: Key to Success in the Pharmaceutical Industry

The traditional model of innovation in the pharmaceutical industry is being challenged by an explosion of costs for R&D, a strengthened voice of the customer and regulatory bodies in the development of new medicines, and the vanishing of easy targets. An overview is given of established and emerging pharma companies, the cost structures for pharma innovation, and the nature of the productivity gap. We describe the blockbuster imperative and the pervasive concerns about risk and safety in pharma R&D, and conclude with a brief outlook on the main themes to be discussed in the remainder of the book.

Implications and Recommendations

This chapter presents input for more responsible management of product innovation activities to various stakeholders of product safety, especially regulators/policy makers, manufacturers, retailers, and consumers. The immediate benefits are a better understanding of how to develop products that are safe—with obvious benefits for manufacturing firms and their customers. It also provides empirical guidance for governments to regulate industries properly and effectively.

Conceptual Model and Hypotheses

This chapter develops the conceptual model that maps how the product safety context and product innovation affect product safety performance. The conceptual model is based on the MBNQA framework, the EFQM excellence framework, the innovation diamond, and conceptualizations of culture. We arrive at 12 hypotheses relating how internal context—such as product safety strategy and product safety culture—affects NPD practices (concurrent engineering and the NPD process) and how a firm structures NPD processes, supporting functions and activities (practices) for improving overall product safety.

The Make-or-Buy Challenge: How to In- and Outsource Innovation

The formerly fully integrated pharma value chain is disaggregating given the emergence of highly capable and specialized research and clinical development service providers. The options range from outsourcing, out-licensing, and in-licensing, strategic partnerships and co-development. These concepts are discussed in detail and illustrated with cases from industry. We conclude with an example of how a breakthrough innovation can best be commercialized by a small pharma company using those make-or-buy options.

The Open Innovation Challenge: How to Partner for Innovation

The business models of major pharmaceutical companies increasingly include external R&D elements that range from the acquisition of drug projects, traditional collaborations with academic institutions, multi-year research partnerships, crowdsourcing, centers for R&D excellence, open source innovation, virtual R&D and public private partnerships. Commonly known as “open innovation”, these new virtual forms of organizing innovation processes challenge the traditional, established inhouse-only R&D paradigm. An outlook of the rise of corporate venture funds in the pharma industry illustrates how important the management and valuation of intellectual property is in the life science industry.

Introduction: Better Safe than Sorry

Product safety is defined as whether the use of a product, under normal or reasonably foreseeable condition of use, including duration, involves any risk of injury or damage to health of users or damage to property or environment. Insufficient product safety has grave implications for individuals, companies, and occasionally society as we know it. We investigate what companies that design, develop, and manufacture products can do to improve product safety. Strategic product safety management is central to the emerging field of “responsible innovation,” especially responsible product innovation, as the principal focus of our work.

The Internationalization Challenge: Where to Access Innovation

Pharma innovation is becoming increasingly global, partly due to the lure of serving new markets, partly because of the need to access early new technology and talent wherever it emerges. Apart from the established centers of innovation in the United States, Europe and Japan, India, China and Singapore are rising attractors for global life science R&D. China as a pharma market and host of pharma R&D is highlighted as a case study, both from the angle of foreign R&D investors and from the perspective of indigenous Chinese players. Given the significant cost pressures in mature markets, reverse innovation in healthcare has drawn considerable attention by local governments.