Peter Baloh

Managing Knowledge in Global Software Development Efforts: Issues and Practices

Global software development efforts have increased in recent years. One force fueling these efforts is the worldwide availability of a rich and talented knowledge pool that can be effectively and efficiently mobilized, increasing the prominence of outsourcing initiatives. Outsourcing projects have moved from mundane software maintenance tasks to more complex and significant engagements such as innovative product development, complex system development, and large-scale R+D projects

Customer-Driven Innovation

OVERVIEW: Involving customers in the innovation process entails a host of new concerns, concepts and managerial decisions. Transitioning from older models of no or low customer involvement requires attention to the different types of customer innovation, organizational mission and organizational structure. This article provides a typology for customer innovation, describes how to involve customers in the innovation process, and offers guidelines for shifting organizational structure and emphasis toward customer-driven innovation in order to enable continual, sustainable innovation.

Information-Communication Technologies Open Up Innovation

OVERVIEW: Information–Communication Technologies (ICTs) are no longer just for internal use. Rather, in the era of open and distributed innovation, they must be leveraged by businesses and organizations to reach, record and review ideas from internal and external sources ranging from vendors, suppliers and customers to employees. ICTs enable the entire innovation process, from idea generation and development to experimenting and testing, and, finally, to commercialization of ideas.

Crafting Organizational Innovation Processes

Abstract Innovation is a crucial component of business strategy, but the process of innovation may seem dif ficult to manage. To plan organizational initiatives around innovation or to bolster innovation requires a firm grasp of the innovation process. Few organizations have transparently defined such a process. Based on the findings of an exploratory study of over 30 US and European companies that have robust innovation processes, this paper breaks down the innovation process into discrete stages: idea generation and mobilization, screening and advocacy, experimentation, commercialization, and diffusion and implementation. For each stage, context, outputs and critical ingredients are discussed. There are several common tensions and concerns at each stage, which are enumerated; industry examples are also given. Finally, strategies for and indicators of organizational success around innovation are discussed for each stage. Successful organizations will use an outlined innovation process to create a common framework for discussion and initiatives around the innovation process, and to establish metrics and goals for each stage of the innovation process.

Building strategic partnerships for managing innovation outsourcing

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to uncover the mechanisms of organizations managing innovation outsourcing to business partners. In a business environment characterized by the development of deep, niche expertise in a particular domain, business partnerships can provide a source of innovative rejuvenation by outsourcing the innovation to business partners who have complementary skills and expertise. This paper addresses a critical challenge which the organizations are currently facing: how do you manage outsourcing of innovation to business partners effectively while maintaining your strategic competitiveness?Design/methodology/approach – Exploratory multiple case studies of over 30 innovative European and US companies were done. It involved 50 semi‐structured interviews with senior executives from research and development, product management, information technology, and marketing.Findings – The paper identifies three complementary models of managing outsourcing of innovation to business partner: a...

Case study: Deploying information technologies for organizational innovation: Lessons from case studies

Organizations must innovate if they are to survive in todays fiercely competitive marketplace. In this paper, we explore how leading organizations are using emerging technologies to enable novel forms of ideation that can radically increase the sheer volume of ideas they explore. In addition, we outline how organizations use technologies to cost effectively manage this increased volume of ideas by optimizing generation, mobilization, advocacy and screening, experimentation, commercialization, and even the diffusion and implementation of ideas. Critical to this is the management of knowledge during the innovation process.

Case Study: A business process-oriented method of KM solution design: A case study of Samsung Electronics

Improving how knowledge is leveraged in organizations for improved business performance is today considered as a major organizational change. Knowledge management (KM) projects are stigmatized as demanding, fuzzy and complex, with questionable outcomes-more than 70% of them do not deliver what they promised. A case of Samsung Electronics mobile branch we present shows how KM projects can be more successful if they are treated as business process-oriented organizational change projects. Both organizations and academia can stand on the shoulders of giants as previous experience and research in that area is rich. Adding the KM flavor to such organizational change is the goal of this case study; the learning outcomes include a six-step KM solution design method, a justification for the business process level of analysis and managerial action, and the need for modest and just-do-it approach when introducing KM-related organizational interventions.

The Role of Fit in Knowledge Management Systems: Tentative Propositions of the KMS Design

While most organizations have deployed knowledge management systems (KMS), only a handful have been able to leverage these investments. Existing knowledge management (KM) research offered valuable insights on how to introduce KMS in a sense of innovation-diffusion, yet little guidance has been offered to KMS developers who need to decide on functionalities of a tool they are to introduce in a particular organizational setting. The goal of this paper is to propose theoretical background for design of IS that successfully support and enable decision making, which is seen as the ultimate form of knowledge creation and utilization. By using principles of the design science, design profiles proposed build upon works from organization and IS sciences, primarily the evolutionary information-processing theory of knowledge creation (Li & Kettinger, 2006) and the task technology fit theory (Zigurs & Buckland, 1998), the latter being amended for particularities of the KM environment. Proposed fit profiles suggest that one-size-fits-all approaches do not work and that organizations must take, in contrast with suggestions of extant literature, a segmented approach to KM activities and fitting IT support.

Case study: Business process outsourcing: A case study of Satyam Computers

The prominence of business process outsourcing (BPO) continues to intensify in todays hyper-competitive marketplace. Engaging in BPO can help an organization focus on its core competencies, while gaining specialized knowledge, skills, and processes in auxiliary spaces. The literature is laden with evidence that engaging in a BPO will help organizations secure financial, operational, and even strategic advantages. While there is little doubt that organizations can attain these benefits, few BPO arrangements work out as planned. Managing risks in BPO arrangements is paramount. In this case analysis, we describe a significant failure through chronological description of scandals that took place at one of Indias largest outsourcing vendors, Satyam Computer Services. In describing the study, we draw attention to the fact that organizations need to (1) improve their sensing capabilities and keep abreast of strategic transformations at their outsourcing vendors, (2) be able to plan for and execute contingency plans, and (3) balance the risks and rewards of BPOs in terms of knowledge and capabilities dependencies.

Influence of Internet and Information Technology on Work and Human Resource Management

Internet has transformed our lives and the way we communicate, how we learn, how we work and spend free time, in essence – it has more or less changed every aspect of human society one can think of. This paper deals with the influence of Internet and information technology on work and human resource management. It observes main novelties and (inevitably coming) changes in areas of staffing, motivating and leading and discusses possible adaptations of organization and business. To discover the mentioned changes and consequences, firstly we try to broadly assert present condition in the field, both globally and in Slovenia, and outline promising future trends. Finally, combining that with elements of humanresource management we try to predict basic consequences that IT will have on the way employees are rewarded and the way new employees are acquired.