Sara L. Beckman

Innovation as a Learning Process: Embedding Design Thinking

There is a generic innovation process, grounded in models of how people learn, that can be applied across multiple sectors. It can be applied to the design and development of both hardware and software products, to the design of business models and services, to the design of organizations and how they work, and to the design of the buildings and spaces in which work takes place, or within which companies interact with their customers. This article describes such a model of innovation, grounding it in learning models and developing its implications for understanding, implementing, and engaging in the innovation process. The article focuses on the value and functions of multifaceted innovation teams. It notes the difficulties inherent in innovation efforts, shows where some of the pitfalls are for organizations attempting to innovate, and emphasizes the need to be flexible and adaptive in using the innovation process.

Product recovery with some byte: an overview of management challenges and environmental consequences in reverse manufacturing for the computer industry

Abstract Estimates vary about the rate at which end-of-life computer products have been piling up, but the total population of spent computers is likely to reach into the hundreds of millions. To tackle this mounting solid and hazardous waste problem, policy and business entrepreneurs are promoting product recovery as an environmentally preferable alternative to disposal, and product recovery infrastructure and strategy has begun to develop in recent decades. However, despite some real and theoretical developments in the field, current literature lacks an overall description of the recovery process capable of capturing the essence of end-of-life management challenges for complex, rapidly obsolete, high-tech products like computers and electronics. The absence of this broad frame of reference presents a problem for managers trying to integrate environmentally sound choices into planning and management. Using case research from the computer and electronics industry, in this paper we present a generalized overview of product recovery. The purpose of this paper is two-fold: to describe the recovery of computers as a step-by-step process, and to frame an environmental research agenda for recovery management. With an eye toward generalizing the growing and diversifying practices in reverse manufacturing, we use our description from the computer and electronics industry to highlight broad challenges that managers confront at each stage of the process and to identify environmental dimensions of product recovery management decisions that require additional research.

Environmental supply-chain management in the computer industry: A transaction cost economics perspective

Summary Our article uses the theory of transaction cost economics as a conceptual basis for examining the contracting mechanisms by which firms in the computer industry structure programs to encourage their suppliers to improve their environmental management systems and/or the environmental quality of their products. We explore the economic transactions hazards associated with asking suppliers to invest in the specialized technologies required to improve environmental performance of products and management practices and the relational contracting mechanisms computer industry firms are using to protect themselves against these hazards. We also describe the importance the managers we interviewed attributed to various transactions hazards and their perceptions of how well their firms were coping with them. We conclude by discussing questions for future research. By using TCE to frame our analysis of how computer manufacturers are structuring their relationships with their suppliers in the environmental area, we hope to show how social science theory can be used to enrich and increase the practicality of the work done by engineers and others in the mainstream areas of the industrial ecology field.

Workplace Design: A New Managerial Imperative

The nature of work is changing: it is more global more team-based, and increasingly dependent on information technology. Academic researchers have examined the effect of these changes upon organizational management, technologies, and cultures, but little attention has been paid to the physical environment in which such work is done. Managers, meanwhile, are struggling to cope with the many challenges of designing workspaces to best meet the needs of their organizations, employees, and other stakeholders. This introduction to the special issue builds on existing research in workplace design to put forth a model that describes the various influences on and tensions encountered in workplace design. It highlights the theoretical gaps where additional work is needed to understand the role of and choices made in workplace design for organizational performance. In the process, it emphasizes the contributions of the seven articles in this special issue.

The Role of Voluntary Industry Standards in Environmental Supply-Chain Management.: An Institutional Economics Perspective

Summary Our article uses a new institutional economics (NIE) framework to explore the role of voluntary industry standards in the development and implementation of environmental supplier-management programs in the computer industry. We examine two different voluntary standards, one for the management of design for environment (DfE) in the semiconductor fabrication equipment sector and the other for assessing the implementation and use of environmental management systems throughout the computer industry supply chain. We compare and contrast the two standards to explain why the former was widely adopted and has helped integrate DfE into buyer-supplier relations among adopters, whereas the latter failed to gain acceptance. In line with NIE logic, both standards aimed to lower transaction and customization costs by setting “rules of the game” for interfirm transactions that would help simplify and routinize novel environmental supply-chain programs and activities. Their differential success can be elucidated in terms of how well each met the NIE criteria for remediableness and legitimacy. We conclude that voluntary standards have the potential to play an important role in promoting DfE in industrial supply chains. We further conclude that NIE provides a conceptual framework of great value to industrial ecologists who analyze how industry standards and other institutions help firms move toward more sustainable supply-chain management practices.

Design and Innovation through Storytelling

Because of that it hired a design firm that proposed to go out and closely observe and interact with its customers – parents and other caregivers – and end users – children – to gather insights into diaper wearing that the company hadn’t yet discovered. That design firm discovered that both parents and children prefer to think of diapers as clothing – rather than as waste control bandages, as the company thought of them.

Upstream Problem Solving Under Uncertainty and Ambiguity: Evidence From Airport Expansion Projects

Environmental changes are common during development of large engineering (infrastructure) projects. To accommodate them when they occur, developers design and physically execute the upstream base building with preliminary information about the downstream business-critical fit-out. Base-building subsystems provide service space for occupancy, whereas fit-out subsystems make the space functional. We build theory on design under uncertainty and ambiguity from case study research, drawing on theory of preliminary information exchange in concurrent development. We find that the base-building subsystem shows low sensitivity to incremental changes in fit-out. However, it shows high sensitivity to radical changes, unless the two subsystems interact in a modular fashion. In the face of slow resolution of downstream uncertainty and difficulties in decoupling the physical interfaces (as is the case in modular design for example), upstream developers avoid starvation by making working assumptions at risk and exploring the space of possible design solutions through an early ldquooptioneeringrdquo stage. Two patterns for problem-solving upstream stand out: 1) iterate design when preliminary information is either ambiguous or precise, but unstable and 2) build buffers in the design definition to absorb foreseeable changes when the preliminary information lacks precision but is not ambiguous. Buffers can be designed out if downstream uncertainties resolve favorably before the buffers are physically executed.

The Business of Health Care Concerns Us All: An Introduction

The health care industry affects all of us. The articles in this special issue raise a number of important issues and provide valuable insights, often drawn from other industries.

Longitudinal Study of Learning Outcomes in a New Product Development Class

This paper reports on a longitudinal study of lessons learned from a graduate-level New Product Development course taught at the University of California at Berkeley, comparing lessons learned by students during the course with alumni perceptions one to ten years after graduation. Previous research on student learning outcomes in New Product Development (NPD) found that on the last day of class students identify working in multifunctional teams and understanding user needs as their most important lessons learned. This study raises the question of whether or not students maintain the same emphasis on learning outcomes once they have moved on to careers in industry. To answer this question, we conducted 21 in-depth interviews with alumni who took the course between 1995–2005 and are now working in industry. A qualitative and quantitative analysis of the alumni interviews reveals that former students still highly value what they learned about team work and understanding user needs, but see more value in tools for concept generation, prototyping, and testing after gaining work experience. The results reaffirm the value of engaging students in multidisciplinary design projects as a vehicle for developing the professional skills needed in today’s competitive new product development environment.Copyright

Relationship Conflict and Feeling Communication in Design Teams

Collaborative design team members use feeling language in their communications with one another, dubbed feeling communications, as they negotiate their interpersonal relationships and task, process and relationship conflict to achieve successful outcomes. In this paper, we examine the use of feeling communications by design teams in a new product development class at UC Berkeley, how their use of feeling communications relates to the levels of conflict experienced by the teams throughout the semester, and how both relate to team performance. From this study, it appears that high-performing and low-conflict teams tend to use high levels of feeling communications. High-conflict teams also use high levels of feeling communications, but often suppress its use when given feedback on their process. Medium-conflict teams appear to initially produce less feeling communication, but build up to a normal level over the course of the project. These results are based on our study of 1,926 messages sent by 13 teams in the Fall 2008 class, and present promising avenues for further exploration.Copyright