New Product Development and Innovation - Research Proposal Example

Research Methods According to Radnor & Noke (2004), they argue that the existence of a positive relationship within a company’s ability to innovate and its continuous market prosperity buttresses the wide literature in new product development and innovation. Research into new product development and innovation is vibrant and varied, but it is also fragmented. Innovations re the results of the group’s knowledge of new markets or new technical possibilities that lead to improved product development. Efficient operations come about by ensuring sharing of both explicit and tacit knowledge as well as contribute to the collective understanding regarding how things ought to work. For an organization to be competitive, it is ought to create efficiently, capture, acquire, share and enforce their expertise and knowledge. The organization should also be able to develop dynamic capability that will continually replenish it. LITERATURE REVIEW Innovation strategy According to Ramanujam and Mensch (1985), innovation strategy is a timed sequence of internally consistent resource allocation decision, which are aimed at achieving the organization’s objectives. Activities in an organization ought consistent with the overarching organizational strategy, which implies that management ought to take a conscious decision about innovation goals. Generally, innovation strategy describes an organization’s innovation posture considering its competitive environment, according to new product, and the market development plans. In the conceptualization of innovation strategy as an articulation of organizational commitment to the development of products which are novel in the market and the organization itself, and since the strategy does not work in a vacuum since it needs structural context two complementary methods to its measurement that are both subjective and objective. Evidence for any embedded innovation strategy is subjective and includes evaluation of the organization’s emphasis on new product development, such as resource allocation. Organizations emphasis consists of three fundamental elements: persistent, pro-activeness and risk-taking commitment to innovation. These entail top management responsibility for innovation in the organization; this includes communicating and specifying a direction that need to be taken for innovation. Performance of new product is largely dependent on the strategy adopted by the top management. The instrumental elements are links between the overall business goals and innovation strategy and provision of leadership that will the innovation happen through a strong vision and clear resource allocation and long-term commitment to innovation. According to the strategic leadership perspective, the behavior of top managers’ plays an important role in influencing innovation. Senior managers who can make innovations have a clear vision regarding future operations, direction of organizational change as well as creativity. Chief executives are responsible for establishing and communicating a vision for innovation, supportiveness and adopting a tolerant attitude towards change and championing innovations in an organization. When a manager is tolerant to change, he develops the required environment for implementation of the innovations and conflict resolution is also required. Managerial attitude also supports innovation. According to Loewe & Dominiquini (2006), they argue that expectations, approval along with practical support of methods to bring novel and improved ways of conducting things in the work environment. Mostly in nature, measures are qualitative and explore perceptions regarding the level that respondent can identify elements that are absent or present. Shane et al., (1995) offers various reflective questions aimed at allowing organizations to determine their understanding and expectations of the responsibility of champions. For instance, ‘to what extent must an organization make it possible for individuals working on any innovation to bend organizational rules to come up with an innovation, or be given a chance to bypass specific procedures to get individuals committed towards an innovation. Innovative firms adopt operational approaches to help accommodate flexibility and quality capabilities have various capital management practices that facilitate drooping resources are tolerant to internal conflict when championing for creativity and sustain organizational structures. Seemingly, transition towards innovation strategy takes a number of years since it requires various resources and energy, which will be required prior to the transformation. Organizational culture and structure According to Adams, Bessant & Phelps (2006), in the present dynamic and uncertain business environment, various organizations face different challenges that need approaches to the organizational structure. Developed organizations have to be more flexible and organic so that they can adapt to the ever-changing business environment. According to Sine, Mitsuhashi and Kirsch (2006), state that small firm is extremely flexible and accustomed to their environment; nonetheless, they do not have the advantages of organizational structure. For instance, high levels of individual focus and discretion, high individual focus, low coordination cost and high organizational efficiency. Burns and Stalker (1961) explained a contingency method to innovation management and later developed to include concepts of functional specialization, differentiation and integration, which environment change prompts realignment of the fit between structure and strategy. That is, for any organization to work efficiently it ought to be integrated and specialized. The structure of any organization is linked to the context in which the organization functions. Organizational culture and structure entails how the staff is grouped and the organizational culture that they work. Substantial work has been conducted on psychological and situational factors supportive of innovation in organizations. Undeniably, it has been established that perceived work environment results in a difference in the extent of innovation in organizations. Creative and innovative behaviors seem to be encouraged by the work environment factors. Indeed, it is apparent that organizations can develop environments, which can either hamper or prompt innovations. Polychronic organizations have the potential of being in two states at the same time. Polychromic can be considered to be a two state that moves between tight and loose and business-not-as usual versus business business-as-usual. Prosaically, it implies that the organization has to be in a position to offer enough freedom that will give a chance to exploration of innovative possibilities; however, sufficient control to manage innovation through an efficient and effective manner is required. There are various generic attributes for a dedicated project group that is assigned innovation task: multidisciplinary, inter-functional communication and co-operation, qualification and understanding of the project leader, committed project leader, team leader, and responsibility for the process, these factors are referred to as ‘corporate conditions’ (Loewe & Dominiquini, 2006). According to Volberda (1996), he developed a conceptual approach of alternative flexible organizational types that initiate various types of competition. There are various approaches of personnel flexibility; for instance, adaptiveness of research and development personnel to technology changes and willingness to attempt new measures and experiment with any change so that the situation can be improved. Organizational complexity is the level of specialization and task differentiation has a relationship; however, some authors argue that it is likely to favor initiation (Pauwels, Silva-Risso, Srinivasan & Hanssens, 2003). Administrative intensity favors administrative innovation but at the expense of other technological innovations. Centralization and formalization have negative implications on organizational innovation. Undeniably, rigidity in rules and procedure can stop organizational decision-makers from looking for novel sources of information (Pauwels, Silva-Risso, Srinivasan & Hanssens, 2003). Underlying the idea of the workplace environments are problems related to human resource management and creation of an environment or climate that individuals consider innovation to be desired organizational objective. There is a general agreement regarding the relevance of the group and individual autonomy during the innovation process. Measures of autonomy have both quantitative and qualitative approaches. For instance, ‘the level of freedom personnel has during operating decisions, for instance, the extent of freedom personnel during daily decisions such as how to solve issues, when to work freely from close supervision and constant evaluation. Mechanistic and bureaucratic organizations are typically defined relative to various structural arrangements; for example, in terms of level of specialization and division of labour, hierarchical structure founded on legitimate authority or making duties a routine. In contrast, informality can play a key role in organizations with a degree of innovation; role flexibility and interpersonal cohesion are required. Motivation and morale are dimensions in which innovation in the organization can be measured since they pertain to individuals. Elements of motivation and morale that have been measured include job satisfaction and trust. Organizational culture can be a shared vision. It is also apparent that when a vision is clear, then it will facilitate innovation since it enables development of novel ideas, which can be assessed precisely. An important element of culture is the propensity to take risks. Participative safety is supportive, non-judgmental and characterized by socio-emotional cohesion. Attractiveness of an organization as a workplace and undertake innovations is an indicator of an environment that initiates innovation. This can be developed by candidates applying for positions and the age profile of engineers and scientists. Knowledge management Knowledge absorption refers to the ability of an organization to identify, acquire as well as utilize external knowledge. Knowledge management is critical to successful operations in an organization. Recently, the concept of knowledge management has had a lot of attention and has played a fundamental task in the innovation process. Knowledge management entails obtaining and communicating ideas and information, which underlie innovation competencies, and entails generation of ideas, absorptive capacity along with networking. Knowledge management covers the management of implicit and explicit knowledge held by an organization (Davis 1998; Nonaka 1991) and the process of gathering and utilization of information. There are three main areas within knowledge management that are important, which are knowledge repository, idea generation and information flows. Evidently, ideas are the raw material required for innovation. It is cheap to produce and screen ideas; however, this can have considerable impact on the success or failure of the organization. During the commencement of the innovation process when the ideas are produced and explored, measures tend to be inexpensive and rapid. When the process advances and uncertainties regarding feasibility, appropriateness and business case are reduced, and measurement approaches become qualitative and more costly and therefore it becomes hard to institute these measures. Various attempts to count ideas generated over a time period while others probe the level that the organization is using various generative techniques and tools. If knowledge is important to innovation, then it ought to be feasible to measure accumulated knowledge of an organization and its knowledge repository. One element of innovation relates to a combination of existing and new knowledge as well as the mechanism that it flows within and into the firm. Fundamental to this perspective is the notion of ‘absorptive capacity’, the organization’s ability to absorb and use novel knowledge, and involve ‘an ability to identify the relevance of novel, external knowledge, assimilate it and apply it for commercial gains. Normally, absorptive capacity results from a protracted process of investment and knowledge accumulated in the firm and its development is dependent on the path. Firms that have sound absorptive capabilities have high chances of acquiring knowledge and efficiently learn from the outside. High absorptive capacity is positively associated with performance and innovation; however, it is intricate to predict the right level of investment in absorptive capacity in ay firm, which implies that it is not amenable to international benchmarking. Nonetheless, empirical studies and conceptual development infer various organizational knowledge states. Various quantitative methods have been instituted for management of tangible knowledge that has been imported. The most common method counts the number of patents brought. Nonetheless, this limits its application to situations that patents are relevant and overlooks industries that they do not feature. Research objectives The literature review section examines various elements associated with new product introduction in an organization. The main objectives of the current study include: To find knowledge management programs available in organizations. To find out organizational and cultural influence on innovations in multinational corporations To focus on organizational elements identified in the literature review as having a strong impact on innovation and where differences occur in multinational corporations, that is: organizational culture and structure, knowledge management and innovation strategy. Research Design Data collection The researcher will use semi-structured interviews to address three product managers. The citadel intent of this research is to insight among product manager involved in new product introduction in an organization. Conducting in-depth interview will help in ensuring that the data acquired is comprehensive and has rich information. Semi-structured interviews will be used since it offers exploration of a specific topic fundamental to the objectives of research and still allow for other topics and theme to emerge. The organizations are chosen since they consider innovation to be an important element to their core business. Three product managers from three different multinational corporations will be interviewed. Questions will explore how organizational culture and structure influence new product development, how innovation strategy influences new product development as well as how knowledge management results in new product development. Nonetheless, interviewees will be prompted to expand on the answers, this will help in raising new themes or elements that can be included during data analysis. The researcher anticipates that in-depth interviews will help develop trust between the respondent and interviewer and quality data will be gathered, as a result. The interview questions will be selected to cover the following organizational characteristics that influence new product development: organizational culture and structure, innovation strategy and knowledge management. The length and number of questions will be used to determine the duration of the interview and thereafter give room for the interviewees to explain their answers. Probing questions will also be asked so that the answers can be expanded. Pilot study Before interviewing the three product managers in the three companies, pilot interviews will be conducted on other employees in the same firms. The main objective of the pilot interviews will be to validate the questions while getting to know their relevance, understandability as well as timeframe needed to get detailed responses to all the questions. The experience acquired from the pilot interview will help in designing, preparing, managing and structuring the final interviews. Limitations and project risks The respondents of the research study are limited. The research study is likely to have limited resources. There is a project risk of not getting adequate data owing to limited time for conducting the research. Ethical considerations The three product managers who will take part in the process will be selected on a voluntary basis. Before participating, the respondents will be briefed on various elements such as the aim of the research, how information given will be treated confidentially, how participation is voluntary and that they withdraw from the process anytime they feel like, as well as what is expected from the research participants as well as the amount of time required for participation. The respondents will be asked to give permission so that their responses can be recorded. Schedule A November 2014 deadline has been set for completion of the research. Data analysis After the last interviews are carried out and the transcripts are prepared responses will be subjected to detailed analysis. Transcripts will be developed, and data will be developed and organized using thematic analysis using thematic analysis. In surface embedded themes interpretive indexing will be instituted. The strategies and characteristics of the three organizations with regard to innovation will be compared, to find drivers and barriers of innovation and establish hypothetic statements regarding the same where appropriate. Upon completing the interview and basing on the findings, consideration will be given to carrying out further research in the target companies so that the validity and reliability of the findings. Conclusion New product development is an important element in any organization. This is what will help to ensure that the organization remains competitive; therefore, it will earn more profits, as a result. New product development requires competent, innovative strategies that will help in unearthing innovations. It is also worth noting that good management is required in any organization so that it is able to have good innovative strategies. Good management is also required for effective functioning of the organizational structure and culture. References Adams, R., Bessant, J & Phelps, R. (2006). Innovation management measurement: A review, International Journal of Management Reviews, 8, 21-47. Burns, T.R & Stalker, G.M (1961). The management of innovation. London: Tavistock. Cooper, R., Edgett, S & Kleinschmidt, E. (2004). Benchmarking best NPD practices-II: Strategy, resources allocation and portfolio management are the focus of this second in a three- part series. Research technology management. Davis, M.C. (1998). Knowledge management. Information strategy. The executive journal,15,11- 22. Hallgreen, E. (2009). How to use an innovation audit as a learning tool: A case study of enhancing high-involvement innovation. Creativity and innovation management, 18. Loewe, P & Dominiquini (2006). Overcoming the barriers to effective innovation, Strategy & Leadership. 1, 24-31. Nonaka, I. (1991). The knowledge-creating company. Harvard Business Review, November- December, 96-104. Ramanujam, V & Mensch, G.O (1985). Improving the strategy-innovation link. Journal of product innovation management, 2,213-223. Volberda, H.W. (1996). Towards the flexible form: how to remain vital in hypercompetitive environment. Organizational Science, 7,359-374. Pauwels, K., Silva-Risso, J., Srinivasan, S., Hanssend, D. (2003). The long-term impact of new- product introductions and promotions on financial performance and firm value. Read More