The impact of allowing customers to use control in collaborative new product development

Collaborative NPD typically gives rise to relational risks, implying uncertainty about the successful completion of the project and the pursuit of shared goals respectively. The extant literature argues that the manufacturer could use control mechanisms to overcome this risk but this study is the first to investigate the use of control mechanisms by the customer, rather than the manufacturer, to enhance customer participation and new product success. By examining survey-based data on 70 collaborative NPD projects from the plastics division of one of the world’s largest and most diversified industrial corporations, we found that the use of output and process control by the customer significantly increases customer participation in NPD projects, and that these effects are mediated by the manufacturer’s use of knowledge integration mechanisms. Additionally, we found that team stability initially increases customer participation in NPD, however, that excessive team stability has a counterproductive effect. Based on these results, we suggest three guidelines for NPD project managers on how to manage collaborative NPD in order to maximize customer participation: (1) allow the customer to use output and process control, (2) use knowledge integration mechanisms if the customer uses formal control mechanisms, and (3) assure NPD team stability during the project without jeopardizing team performance

High quality, low oxygen content and biocompatible graphene nanosheets obtained by anodic exfoliation of different graphite types

Anodic exfoliation of graphite has emerged as an attractive method to access graphene nanosheets in large quantities, but oxidation reactions associated to this process compromise the structural quality of the resulting materials. Here, we demonstrate that the type of starting graphite material impacts the oxygen and defect content of anodically exfoliated graphenes obtained thereof. We investigated highly oriented pyrolytic graphite (HOPG) as well as graphite foil, flakes and powder as electrode in the anodic process. Importantly, materials with low levels of oxidation and disorder (similar to those typically achieved with cathodic exfoliation approaches) could be attained through proper choice of the graphite electrode. Specifically, using graphite foil afforded nanosheets of higher quality than that of HOPG-derived nanosheets. This discrepancy was interpreted to arise from the structural peculiarities of the former, where the presence of folds, voids and wrinkles would make its exfoliation process to be less reliant on oxidation reactions. Furthermore, cell viability tests carried out with murine fibroblasts on thin graphene films suggested that the anodically exfoliated graphenes investigated here (possessing low or high oxidation levels) are highly biocompatible. Overall, control upon the extent of oxidation and disorder should expand the scope of anodically exfoliated graphenes in prospective applications.Financial support from the Spanish MINECO and the European Regional Development Fund (project MAT2011-26399) is gratefully acknowledged. The authors also acknowledge partial funding of this work by Plan de Ciencia, Tecnología e Innovación 2013–2017 del Principado de Asturias and European Regional Development Fund through project GRUPIN14-056. M.A.-V. thanks the receipt of a pre-doctoral contract (FPI) from MINECO.Peer reviewe