Studying agile organizational design to sustain innovation.

Innovation is a core part of software development companies, frequently determined by organizational design variables including structure, capacity for learning, for change and adaptation. Agile software methods have evolved as approaches to promote agility and innovativeness in software development organizations. However, little research has examined organizational innovativeness and its relationship with organizational design and adoption of agile methods. In this work, we propose a conceptual framework to characterize innovation?s prone and averse patterns on organizational design in agile companies by measuring diffusion and integration of technologies and practices within individual, team, organizational, and environmental levels

Innovation in Large-scale agile -- Benefits and Challenges of Hackathons when Hacking from Home

Hackathons are events in which diverse teams work together to explore, and develop solutions, software or even ideas. Hackathons have been recognized not only as public events for hacking, but also as a corporate mechanism for innovation. Hackathons are a way for established companies to achieve increased employee wellbeing as well as being a curator for innovation and developing new products. Sudden transition to the work-from-home mode caused by the COVID-19 pandemic first put many corporate events requiring collocation, such as hackathons, temporarily on hold and then motivated companies to find ways to hold these events virtually. In this paper, we report our findings from investigating hackathons in the context of a large agile company by first exploring the general benefits and challenges of hackathons and then trying to understand how they were affected by the virtual setup. We conducted nine interviews, surveyed 23 employees and analyzed a hackathon demo. We found that hackathons provide both individual and organizational benefits of innovation, personal interests, and acquiring new skills and competences. Several challenges such as added stress due to stopping the regular work, employees fearing not having enough contribution to deliver and potential mismatch between individual and organizational goals were also found. With respect to the virtual setup, we found that virtual hackathons are not diminishing the innovation benefits, however, some negative effect surfaced on the social and networking side

Using Guilds to Foster Internal Startups in Large Organizations: A Case Study

Software product innovation in large organizations is fundamentally challenging because of restrained freedom and flexibility to conduct experiments. As a response, large agile companies form internal startups to initiate employ-driven innovation, inspired by Lean startup. This case study investigates how communities of practice support five internal startups in developing new software products within a large organization. We observed six communities of practice meetings, two workshops and conducted ten semi-structured interviews over the course of a year. Our findings show that a community of practice, called the Innovation guild, allowed internal startups to help each other by collectively solving problems, creating shared practices, and sharing knowledge. This study confirms that benefits documented in earlier research into CoPs also hold true in the context of software product innovation in large organizations. Henceforth, we suggest that similar innovation guilds, as described in this paper, can support large companies in the innovation race for new software products.publishedVersio

Organizational Agility

The current competitive environment is characterized by high-intensity rivalry in a dynamic and uncertain environment. The ability to respond swiftly and effectively to these changes is a necessity that separates successful organizations from those that flounder. This paper reviews the concept of organizational agility by exploring the current understanding of the concept, relevant literature and a conceptual framework. Potential avenues for further research are explored

Fostering Continuous Innovation with Engaging IT-Assisted Transparent Information Sharing : A Case Study

The paper received the Honorary Mention – Best Paper Award Nominee.Peer reviewe

‘Lean startup’ or ‘Agile working’ for improved development programme delivery

The idea of Lean Startups comes from tech companies and is very new. The approach provides the promise of greater efficiency and is beginning to be proposed in the area of development but use of and impact measurement are distant. Within the short time frame for undertaking this review it was not possible to find high-quality evidence on improved development programme delivery with use of the Lean Startup approach or Agile ways of working. Some informal stories were identified. Experts consulted were of the consensus that impact in this area is non-existent. The concept is itself philosophical and intangible so difficult to teach and evaluate. It is hard to incorporate as it is fundamentally a behaviour change. There is some anecdotal evidence but not solid research. Anecdotes of where this approach may have failed tend to be less likely to be reported so caution should be exercised in basing decisions on narrative success stories. However, with acclaim from the business world it would be of service to the development world for DFID to explore and record results on using these ideas to share and teach others

German and Israeli Innovation: The Best of Two Worlds

This study reviews – through desk research and expert interviews with Mittelstand companies, startups and ecosystem experts – the current status of the Israeli startup ecosystem and the Mittelstand region of North Rhine- Westphalia (NRW), Germany. As a case study, it highlights potential opportunities for collaboration and analyzes different engagement modes that might serve to connect the two regions. The potential synergies between the two economies are based on a high degree of complementarity. A comparison of NRW’s key verticals and Israel’s primary areas of innovation indicates that there is significant overlap in verticals, such as artificial intelligence (AI), the internet of things (IoT), sensors and cybersecurity. Israeli startups can offer speed, agility and new ideas, while German Mittelstand companies can contribute expertise in production and scaling, access to markets, capital and support. The differences between Mittelstand companies and startups are less pronounced than those between startups and big corporations. However, three current barriers to fruitful collaboration have been identified: 1) a lack of access, 2) a lack of transparency regarding relevant players in the market, and 3) a lack of the internal resources needed to select the right partners, often due to time constraints or a lack of internal expertise on this issue. To ensure that positive business opportunities ensue, Mittelstand companies and startups alike have to be proactive in their search for cooperation partners and draw on a range of existing engagement modes (e.g., events, communities, accelerators). The interviews and the research conducted for this study made clear that no single mode of engagement can address all the needs and challenges associated with German-Israeli collaboration

Building Australia’s comparative advantages

This discussion paper, Building Australia’s Comparative Advantages, builds on the work of the BCA’s 2013 Action Plan for Enduring Prosperity. It seeks to start a conversation about what it will take to build an innovative economy, foster globally competitive industries and identify the types of jobs that can be created in an advanced economy like Australia. The paper focuses on actions government can take to foster an innovative and dynamic economy. The Business Council of Australia will facilitate further discussion on what businesses can do to come to terms with a global marketplace. We will also examine in detail the challenges that each sector faces to becoming globally competitive

Corporate incubators : promoting disruptive innovation and competitive advantage to mitigate the innovator’s dilemma? : the comparative cases of Bosch’s grow platform GmbH and Deutsche Bahn’s DB intrapreneurs

The global business environment is fast-changing with novel technologies and new entrants constantly altering the rules of the game. Many incumbents find their leadership positions increasingly precarious and threatened. In recent years, corporate entrepreneurship, or entrepreneurship from within, has gained importance as a strategy that potentially resolves this threat for companies. Many authors have established positive correlations between corporate entrepreneurship and firm performance. As a result, intrapreneurship has become more and more attractive. One of the many forms of corporate entrepreneurship is the corporate incubator which aims to increase innovativeness and business model development in companies. This thesis analyzes corporate incubator programs with regard to their innovativeness, ability to create competitive advantages to determine whether they are a viable solution to the so-called innovator’s dilemma proposed by Christensen (1997). To this end, a comparative case study approach was adopted with two representative institutions within German corporates analyzed. The results suggest that those programs are able to foster innovativeness and the entrepreneurial mindset in their parent companies and that they do also contribute to the parent’s competitiveness. Although they cannot completely eliminate it, corporate incubators can further aid in mitigating the innovator’s dilemma. Research question: Do corporate incubators and intrapreneurship promote (disruptive) innovation and competitive advantage to mitigate the innovator’s dilemma? – the comparative cases of Bosch’s grow platform GmbH and Deutsche Bahn’s DB Intrapreneurs.O ambiente de negócios global está em rápida mudança com novas tecnologias e novos competidores alterando constantemente as regras do jogo. Muitos dos operadores em exercício consideram as suas posições de liderança mais precárias e ameaçadas. Nos últimos anos, o empreendedorismo empresarial ganhou importância como estratégia que potencialmente resolve esta ameaça para as empresas. Muitos autores estabeleceram correlações positivas entre o empreendedorismo empresarial e o desempenho da empresa. Como resultado, o empreendedorismo intra-empresarial tornou-se cada vez mais atraente. Uma das formas de empreendedorismo corporativo é a incubadora de empresas que visa aumentar a inovação e o desenvolvimento do modelo de negócios nas empresas. Esta tese analisa os programas de incubadoras de empresas no que diz respeito à sua capacidade de inovação, capacidade de criar vantagens competitivas para determinar se são uma solução viável para o dilema do inovador proposto pela Christensen (1997). Para tanto, foi adotada uma abordagem de estudo de caso comparativo com duas instituições representativas dentro das corporações alemãs analisadas. Os resultados sugerem que esses programas são capazes de fomentar a inovação e a mentalidade empreendedora em suas empresas-mãe e que contribuem para a competitividade da matriz. Embora não possam eliminá-lo completamente, as incubadoras de empresas podem ajudar ainda mais a mitigar o dilema do inovador. Pergunta de pesquisa: As incubadoras de empresas e o empreendedorismo intraempresarial promovem a inovação (disruptiva) e a vantagem competitiva para mitigar o dilema do inovador? - os casos comparativos da grow platform GmbH da Bosch e da DB Intrapreneurs da Deutsche Bahn

People in the E-Business: New Challenges, New Solutions

[Excerpt] Human Resource Planning Society’s (HRPS) annual State of the Art/Practice (SOTA/P) study has become an integral contributor to HRPS’s mission of providing leading edge thinking to its members. Past efforts conducted in 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, and 1999 have focused on identifying the issues on the horizon that will have a significant impact on the field of Human Resources (HR). This year, in a divergence from past practice, the SOTA/P effort aimed at developing a deeper understanding of one critical issue having a profound impact on organizations and HR, the rise of e-business. The rise of e-business has been both rapid and dramatic. One estimate puts the rate of adoption of the internet at 4,000 new users each hour (eMarketer, 1999) resulting in the expectation of 250 million people on line by the end of 2000, and 350 million by 2005 (Nua, 1999). E-commerce is expected to reach $1.3 trillion by 2003, and of that, 87 percent will go to the business to business (B2B) and 13 percent to the business to consumer (B2C) segments, respectively (Plumely, 2000)