Managing Innovation by Cross-Functional Team - Research Proposal Example

Managing Innovation by Cross-Functional Team. The case of Firms and Organization in the Freight Forwarding Industry Table of Contents 0Introduction 1.1Problem Statement and Research Questions 1.2 Objectives and Purpose of studies 1.3 Importance and Significance of Studies 1.4 Structure and Research Design 2.0Literature Review 2.1Summary of Literature 3.0Research Methods 3.1Methodology 3.2 Sample 3.3 Sampling 3.4 Data Analysis 4.0Expected Outcome References 1.0Introduction Innovation has to do with change management. To innovate is to change and working with cross functional team has to do with diversity and culture. Andrews (1997: p. 52) defines corporate strategy as “the pattern of decisions in a company that determines and reveals its objectives, purposes, or goals, produces the principal policies and plans for achieving those goals, and defines the range of business the company is to pursue, the kind of economic and human organisation it is or intends to be and the nature of the economic and non-economic contribution it intends to make to its shareholders, employees, customers, and communities”. Corporate strategy in effect maps out the businesses in which an organisation intends to compete in a way that focuses resources to convert distinctive capabilities into competitive advantage. (Andrews, 1997). In this vein, managing a cross-functional team requires considerable skills as effective teamwork is seldom an automatic process. Organizational change or change in general can be defined from a variety of points depending on the perception of the user. An individual or employee in an organization may look at a new post or position as a change while higher management may feel it is unimportant. (Cao et al, 2000, p187). Changes viewed also by management may also not be looked upon as change by outsiders like competitors or suppliers. This has led to the categorizing of change in various ways, some of which include strategic and non-strategic change, incremental and radical change, changes of identity, co-ordination and control, planned and emergent change, change in terms of scale, human-centered change in terms of individual, group and inter-group or organizational level, quantum change and so on. (Cao et al, 2000, p187; Todnem, 2005, p372). Innovation is a management change process. 1.1Problem Statement and Research questions There is a growing number of existing literatures on value drivers, core competences, and success factors in an organisation. E.g. Sim & Ali (1998) compared the attributes and performance of firms from developed countries with those from developing countries within the same industry, Park & Russo (1996) focus on the differential impact of firm’s size to its success and parents shareholders value, Hagan (1998) and Prahalad & Hamel (1990) focus on the core competence of an organisation however, none of these studies has addressed the qualities and salient features with respect to a particular organisation. Under today’s fierce competition it has become increasingly necessary to probe into some of the puzzling questions of what factors create an organisation dominance and success in one industry while others continue to lag behind. This is the primary question this paper seeks to address with respect to Innovation and cross functional team. The main research question therefore is to find out how innovation by cross functional team creates a strategic break through in companies. Thus this paper has as the main research objective to evaluate and analyse innovation by cross functional team as a competitive break through in companies. The paper draw samples from the freight forwarding and transportation industry. 1.2Purpose and Objectives of Study The main objective of this piece of work will be to analyse the effect of innovation with a cross functional team on the activities of the organisation. This will be analyse with current arguments for innovation with cross functional team. Other research objectives will be to To evaluate some of the motives and potential gains behind innovations with cross functional teams. Compare the pre-innovation position of an organisation with the present organisation performance. 1.2.1 Hypothesis of studies From the existing body of literature and rational behind innovation in a cross functional team I will be able to test the hypothesis of whether innovation in a cross functional team has:- Positive effect on the employees of the new organisation Whether innovation in a cross functional team has a positive impact on the new organisations activities. The Freight forwarding area, has witnessed considerable level of innovation in the past decades, it there fore provides a fertile ground to host the objectives of this paper 1.3 Importance and Significance of Study Today, innovation has become a source of organisation competitive advantage. Companies that innovate have created a competitive advantage. Kanter (1995:71) on his work of “Mastering Change” argues that success in the present day business is not for those companies that re-engineer the way they do things, or for those fixing the past. According to Kanter (1995) such an action will not constitute an adequate response. This is so because success is based on an organisation’s ability to create, rather than predict the future by developing those products that will literally transform the way the world thinks and view it self and the needs (Kanter 1995:71). By working in this area, this paper seeks to bridge the knowledge gap, and to spur other organisations on how and why innovation takes place in a cross functional team. 1.4 Structure and Design Chapter 2: Here I will carry out a literature review on existing research within the area of investigation.( Innovations and cross functional team, history, methods, motivation,) I am also going to look at two stream of theories within this area (industry shock theory and the corporate control theory) to enable me take a stand. All work to be reviewed will be from per review journals published within the last ten years in business source premiere and science direct. Relevant theories on supply chain management and innovation within this dimension will be analysed. Chapter 3: In this chapter, I have presented my methods and choices made during the discussion and work process and those connected with the decisions and research process. . Chapter 4: In this chapter, I have presented the raw data collected with respect to my sample institutions. That is information relating to innovation and competitive advantage which will be analysed in the subsequent chapter, chapter five. The chapter opens with a presentation of the institutions and information collected during the survey process. Chapter 5: In this chapter, the data presented in chapter four will be analyse in light of the theoretical framework, data collected from questionnaires and interview during the survey method. Chapter 6: In this chapter, my conclusions will be presented, suggestions for further research, recommendations base on findings to policy makers, investors and other stakeholders in both pre-merged and merged organisation 2.0Literature Review 2.1Summary of Literature In the literature proper some companies are successful; others are not. What makes the difference? Whether or not they manage to build an awesome organization, thats able to innovate and capitalize on those innovations. Thus, literature centering on innovation value chain, why companies innovate, how they innovate. For example, Porter (1990) argues that, to remain competitive, companies need to do more than simply deliver products or services that are better or cheaper than those of their rivals. They must also add features, improve performance, and reduce prices more quickly. They must be faster to launch new lines. To grow, they may need to create entirely new markets and develop a whole range of services and activities. Many manufacturers have been successful in commanding a price premium for their brands due to innovation. However, it seems that some designers and manufacturers have become victims of their own success. Once an elite brand has become so closely associated with status and prestige in the minds of consumers, it is only natural that other companies would want to imitate it (Rose 2003). Those who use brand imitating as a strategy to facilitate the adoption of their new product copy certain characteristics of the original brand (Kotler and Keller 2007). Cheng and Duran on their part presented crude transportation logistics using discrete-event simulation which features a transportation network and storage inventories at different locations. Procurement encompasses a broader scope of the supply chain as it includes not only the scheduling, but also the crude selection and purchase decision-making (Karimi et al., 2007). Within the freight forwarding industry many innovations have taken place within the organization value chain. According to Ramsay (2006:1) this relationship between a buyer and a supplier in the freight forwarding industry can be defined as “an ongoing relationship between two organizations’ which involves a commitment over an extended time period and a mutual sharing of interest and a reward of the relationship”. The merits involve in such a partnership has been generally argued by a handful of researchers to include:- reduction in uncertainty, managed dependence, exchange efficiency, social satisfaction, economies of scale & scope, cost reduction and as a strategy to bid out competition (Qiao et al., 2006, Ramsay 2006, Cheng and Gunasekaran 2006, Ford 2006). No wonder many observers have been pushed into recognising long-term relationship management a new innovation in the form of a best practices 3.0Research Methods There are basically two-research approaches, the deductive approach in which you develop a theory and hypothesis and design a research strategy to test the hypothesis, or the inductive method in which you will collect data and develop theory as a result of your data analyses (Bryman & Bell 2004). Since I am mostly concern with reality research, I will be inductive in my approach. From existing research about the nature of the principal agent problem down the organisational structure, we will be able to form our interview questions, analyse and investigate the findings at the level of the managers and the other workers Reality can be perceived from different angle depending on the researcher and individual in question. This view should follow the scientific and theoretical choices of the study. Performing a research requires the researcher to probe into different ideals (Bryman & Bell 2004). In this study, I have identified with positivistic research approach where I intend to use questionnaires and interview to gather my information thus identifying me with two approaches. Bryman & Bell (2004) contend that researchers can identify within two approaches. Depending on the researchers in question, they can identify and position themselves anywhere along the two approaches. As a positivism researcher I am concern with the reproduction of the reality in a much more objective way. I am therefore mostly concern with real life situation. That is what is actually happening. 3.1Methodology Qualitative research has not been used extensively in innovation and cross functional team research. The proposed qualitative research will be the first study to relate the original and current method of innovation in a cross functional team. An interpretivist philosophy will administer questionnaires to three freight forwarding and transportation companies These three companies are some leading innovative company from one organisation. Because the research involves humans, ethics approval is required. The limitations of the proposal include respondents being subject to an undeterminable number of personal, economic and situational variables that affect their perceptions, as well as hindsight bias. The following sections highlight these points in more detail. 3.2 Sample Three companies within the same industry, freight forwarding industry will be chosen focusing on their innovation in the past ten years. These companies are justified because they are successful, international service companies, with credibility in this area. Having a sample of all forms of innovation helps control varying competitive levels that may be found in other organisations. By focusing on the same industry, helps avoid institutional differences that may affect generalization of the findings. As comparative case studies in the form of closed and open ended questions will be conducted, this study will use an embedded multiple case design (Yin, 2003). The aim of the proposed study is to analyse innovation within a cross functional team. To effectively do so, the researcher requires an adequate sample at different stages of their innovation. Thus the study focuses on the freight forwarding and transportation, with samples drawn from three freight forwarding companies. Data for this study will be collected with the use of a questionnaire survey with respondents contacted through surveymonkey.com. Instruments The instrument used in this study is open and closed ended questions. The study strives to uphold content validity as the guideline questions for the questionnaires were developed from a review of prior research on the management of innovation (Gauzente, 2002). Additionally, four pilot questionnaires will be conducted to make any needed modifications to the administration of the questionnaires proper. This will ensure the guiding questions are worded properly. Open and closed ended questions allow the researcher to ask broad, open-ended questions where an informal, organised is followed (Bryman, 2004). 3.4 Data Analysis Qualitative studies build theories from the research by identifying patterns and broad relationships in the rich, descriptive data (Pidgeon and Henwood, 2004). The responses of each interview will be transcribed by the researcher. The researcher will conduct thematic coding and content analysis using MS Word to examine patterns between and within each question drawn from the questionnaires. Patterns and relationships between the innovation in a cross functional team and the current reasons for continuing to innovation will be analysed. To improve the quality and accuracy of the research, deviating viewpoints as well as converging patterns will be highlighted (Barbour, 2001). 4.0Expected Outcome The outcome, of this research will emphasize the need and importance of a cross functional team. The research will also emphasize the importance of innovation as a strategic break through. References Andrews K. (1997). Resources and Strategy: A Reader, edited by Nicolai J. Foss. Oxford University Press, ISBN 0198781792, 9780198781790 Bryman, A. and Bell. E: (2004) Business research methods Bryman, A. (2004) Interviewing in qualitative research, Social Research Methods, Oxford University Press, Oxford. Chun-Hung, C., Houmin, Y. Duan, L. & Tsang-Ming, C., (2006)Channel coordination in supply chains with agents having mean-variance objectives. 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