Enhancing creative knowledge-work: challenges and points of leverage

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to explore critical success factors in knowledge‐intensive creative project work, using product development as an example field. Design/methodology/approach– Critical‐incident based in‐depth interviews of 11 product development experts (chosen based on their recommendations and length of experience) were carried out. The results were categorized into thematic classes of critical factors. Findings– Most challenges are embedded in the context of the product development projects. Collaboration and cognitive‐motivational factors such as trust, attitude, and intrinsic motivation‐related issues formed the most common classes of discovered critical factors behind product development project success, along with the mediating categories of goal and autonomy‐related factors. Furthermore, product development specific skills or knowledge accounted only for a small minority of the identified factors. Practical implications– The most pressing learning objective becomes not updating product development knowledge, but that of increasing motivation, initiative, trust, and collaboration. As the discovered challenges are embedded in the context of work, addressing them ultimately requires project managers to master some of the personnel development aspects traditionally left for human resources management. Training efforts need to be tailored to the project context if they are to have a lasting impact on behavior. Originality/value– In addition to providing further support for the importance of climate factors, this paper suggests that special attention should be directed towards goal setting and autonomy, as they play a significant role in many of the climate and cognitive‐motivational constructs increasing creativity.Peer reviewe

Initial mental representations of design problems: Differences between experts and novices

Defining and structuring wicked design problems has a major influence on subsequent problem solving, and demands a considerable level of skill. Previous research on mental representations in design is scarce, and has been largely based on students or individual experts. This study explored the differences in the initial mental representations of real-life product development problems between advanced product development engineering students and recommended, professional experts. Expert mental representations were found to demonstrate superior extent, depth and level of detail, accommodating more interconnections and being more geared toward action. The results indicate that targeting relevancy perceptions to locate interconnections and promote proactivity can be a key factor in developing product development education to better match the requirements faced by professionals.Peer reviewe

The central role of exploration in designing business concepts and strategy

Design thinking is described as a combination of thinking and acting that leads to new solution possibilities for design problems. Though traditionally linked to the design of objects and services, it can be applied to organizational processes as well. This paper examines design thinking in developing a new business, focusing on the business concept and strategy formation in the start-up phase of the company. How and what elements of design thinking are manifested in the process of designing a business concept and forming a strategy? What is the importance of these elements in this process? The results reveal the experimental and iterative nature of developing the business concept and strategy. In addition, these organizational processes were strongly influenced by the product offering, stakeholders, and environment that the company operated in. While the results highlighted the importance of emergence, they also illustrated a need for structure and planning, thus reminding of the need of balancing between the two. Overall, the results suggest that many of the fundamental elements of design thinking are found in the development process of a company.Peer reviewe

Adapting to the changing needs of managing innovative projects

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the changes in managerial activities and challengesat different phases of innovative projects. Design/methodology/approach – Six NPD project managers were interviewed in three differentproject phases in a qualitative, longitudinal design. The resulting 18 semi-structured face-to-faceinterviews were content analyzed and categorized according to thematic similarity. Findings – Altogether 19 categories describing managerial concerns in managing innovative projectswere recognized. Task-oriented, rather than people-oriented, approaches were dominant throughoutthe projects, although the reported concerns clearly varied at each phase. The early development phaseemerged as a transition point, where managers had to transform their roles, reported activitiesdecreased, and reported challenges increased. Research limitations/implications – Although based on a small number of participants in a singlesetting, the results highlight the need for longitudinal studies and differentiating between the variousphases of the innovation process, as there was great variance in the concerns of each phase.Furthermore, domain expertise seemed to have a large impact on how the managers reformulated theirrole in transitioning from the front-end to the development phases. Practical implications – The present study emphasizes the need to support managers intransitioning between different innovation phases and to recognize the need to adjust managerial roles.Further, it seemed crucial to establish the practices supporting successful teamwork in the front-endphase before the first phase transition. Originality/value – The study is a rare example of a longitudinal research design examining theimplications and transition between different phases of the innovation process within the sameprojects for project managers.Peer reviewe

Generating resources through co-evolution of entrepreneurs and ecosystems

Purpose – The emerging perspectives of entrepreneurial ecosystems, bricolage and effectuationhighlight the interaction between the entrepreneur and the surrounding community, and its potentialfor creative resource acquisition and utilization. However, empirical work on how this process actuallyunfolds remains scarce. This paper aims to study the interaction between the opportunity constructionprocess and the development of resources in the surrounding ecosystem. Design/methodology/approach – This paper is a qualitative analysis of the extreme case of AaltoEntrepreneurship Society (Aaltoes), a newly founded organization successfully promotingentrepreneurship within a university merger with virtually no resources, based on interviews of six keycontributors and four stakeholder organisations. Findings – The opportunity construction process both supported and was supported by two keyresource generating mechanisms. Formulating and opportunistically reformulating the agenda forincreasing potential synergy laid the groundwork for mutual benefit. Proactive concretization enhancedboth initial resource allocation and sustaining input to the process through offering tangible instancesof specific opportunities and feedback. Research limitations/implications – Although based on a single case study in a university setting,proactive concretization emerges as a promising direction for further investigations of the benefits anddynamics of entrepreneur– ecosystem interaction in the opportunity construction process. Practical implications – Intentionally creating beneficial entrepreneur– ecosystem interaction andteaching proactive concretization becomes a key goal for educators of entrepreneurship. Originality/value – The paper extends an understanding of creative resource generation and utilizationin the opportunity construction process. The role of proactive concretization was emphasized in theinteraction of the entrepreneur and the ecosystem, creating virtuous spirals of entrepreneurial activity.Peer reviewe

Framing activities and the co-evolvement of products and operations in new ventures

New ventures need to simultaneously develop both their first offering and the operations of the venture itself. This paper extends the notion of problem-solution co-evolvement from product design to venture design, presenting results from four new Finnish ventures in the midst of creating their first offering market-ready. Based on qualitative analysis of interviews of the entrepreneur teams of these ventures, it is suggested that differences in how the venture idea is initially approached translates into different types of co-evolvement between the offering and the operations of the new ventures. In two of the companies, the product frame had been collaboratively created and remained relatively stable. Development activities within product, business model and working practices did not require large changes in the other arenas. In contrast, the product frame was shifting in the two other ventures, and the co- evolvement of the product problem and solutions had major implications for the business model and operations, and vice versa. The entrepreneurs in these companies would have seemingly benefited from having more structured systematic micro-level working practices to balance the variance in the offering and operations. By conceptually linking venture formation to co-evolvement resulting from the initial frame of development efforts, the study serves to strengthen the link between product development and entrepreneurship research.Peer reviewe

Prototyping in practice – Paths and partners for testing novel industrial product and service ideas

Prototyping is a core activity in developing new products, processes, and organisations alike. This paper describes the prototyping activities of 31 engineering design professionals in a high-technology industrial company, examining the distribution of different types of activities across different phases of development based on thematic interviews. Examining 62 prototyping and testing pathways, we found that most prototyping paths started with the practitioners’ own activities, which was also more likely to lead to paths with more prototyping steps than if the first prototyping activity took place with a stakeholder. Overall, the paths were short, indicating a lack of iteration. Both internal and external stakeholders were involved in collaborative prototyping. This collaboration was enabled by personal and unit level relationships, and different stakeholders were involved in different phases of development. Taken together, our results suggest that practitioner attention in prototyping may focus on latter development phases and demonstrate less iteration than what literature might suggest, with opportunities for prototyping highly dependent on personal networks in the high-technology context in the absence of flexible prototyping budgets

A Sino-Finnish initiative for experimental teaching practices using the Design Factory pedagogical platform

The paper presents a Sino-Finnish teaching initiative, including the design and experiences of a series of pedagogical workshops implemented at the Aalto-Tongji Design Factory (DF), Shanghai, China, and the experimentation plans collected from the 54 attending professors and teachers. The workshops aimed to encourage trying out interdisciplinary hands-on teaching, and enable teachers to implement their ideas for teaching development utilising the DF pedagogical platform. The majority of the participants planned teaching experimentations aiming at enhancing student understanding of curricula through various group exercises utilising concrete artefacts, but found their implementation within established practices quite challenging, highlighting the challenges of transforming strategic collaboration into grass-root activity. However, the workshops ignited widespread interest in a continuum of collaboration in teaching development, and the DF has since acted as a hub for the implementation of subsequent internationalisation efforts of the two universities, including establishing a dual-degree programme.Peer reviewe

Proaktiivisen toiminnan dynamiikka – Kehittämisen käynnistäminen ja ylläpitäminen tuotesuunnittelussa ja yrittäjyydessä

Not even brilliant ideas advance themselves. In all organizations, proactive efforts are required to translate opportunities into actual improvements. However, most research on proactivity in entrepreneurship and product design has addressed dispositional antecedents, and research in general tends to focus on goal setting, idea generation, and decision-making. But what happens after the initial decision to pursue an idea has been made? In this dissertation, a qualitative approach building on 4566 interview segments from 80 interviews in 13 organizations was used to explore how the process of proactive striving in product design and entrepreneurship is initiated and sustained. The four empirical essays included one experiment on how product design experts and students differed in their interpretations of design briefs. Proactive striving was observed already at this stage: more successful developers had more extensive, in-depth, and interconnected representations. The essays also included three naturalistic studies: idea advancement in two product design projects, attracting resources and other input in creating a new organization, and a longitudinal study of four new companies developing their first offering market-ready. In all of these studies, feedback from the environment emerged as a crucial mechanism for sustaining and even escalating proactive striving behaviors. Sometimes this required time-consuming inclusion and communication practices, creating the need for local inefficiency to produce global effectiveness. Based on the results, the generic idea development funnel can be modified into a process model of the enactment of proactive striving. In addition to recognizing the need for pruning non-action from fruitful action and progressively specifying actions in concrete iterations, the model makes two key contributions towards understanding the dynamics of initiating and sustaining proactive striving. First, it emphasizes potential discontinuities in efforts due to transitioning between three different levels of proactive effort manifestations: micro-level specific actions, intermediate-level activities, and global-level approaches. Second, it highlights the potential for positive spirals through individual-environment interaction: creating concretizing approximations of the pursued ideas in the form of boundary objects provided feedback on the feasibility of efforts, encouraged initial stakeholder input, and sustained efforts by energizing and committing developers and stakeholders alike. The model also illuminates several opportunities for enhancing development efforts with relatively minor interventions.Parhaimmatkaan ideat eivät etene itsekseen organisaatiossa, vaan tarjolla olevien tilaisuuksien hyödyntäminen edellyttää proaktiivista toimintaa. Suurin osa yrittäjyys- ja tuotekehitystutkimuksesta on kuitenkin tarkastellut proaktiivisuutta lähinnä yksilön ominaisuutena, ja tutkimus yleisemminkin on painottunut tavoitteiden asettamiseen, ideointiin ja päätöksentekoon. Mutta mitä tapahtuu sen jälkeen kun päätös idean toteuttamisesta on tehty? Tämä väitöskirja tutki proaktiivisen toimintaprosessin käynnistämistä ja ylläpitoa tuotekehityksessä ja yrittäjyydessä. Se pohjautuu kvalitatiiviseen tutkimukseen 4566 segmentistä, jotka saatiin 80 haastattelusta kolmessatoista organisaatiossa. Neljästä empiirisestä esseestä ensimmäinen perustui kokeeseen tuotekehityksen asiantuntijoiden ja opiskelijoiden välisistä eroista toimeksiantojen tulkinnassa. Proaktiivinen toiminta nousi esiin jo tässä varhaisessa vaiheessa: taitavammilla kehittäjillä oli kattavammat ja kytketymmät representaatiot. Kolme naturalistista tutkimusta kartoittivat ideoiden edistämistä kahdessa tuotekehitysprojektissa, työpanosten dynamiikkaa uuden organisaation luomisessa ja kehittämisessä, ja pitkittäistutkimuksessa ensimmäisen tarjoaman kehittämistä neljässä uudessa yrityksessä. Kaikissa näissä tutkimuksissa korostui ympäristön palautteen rooli proaktiivisen toiminnan ylläpitäjänä ja lisääjänä. Välillä hyvän kokonaistuloksen saavuttaminen vaati paikallista tehottomuutta aikaavievien ja kattavien yhteistyö- ja viestintäkäytäntöjen myötä. Kehitystyötä kuvaavasta geneerisestä suppilomallista voidaan tulosten perusteella muokata proaktiivisen toiminnan prosessimalli. Malli korostaa tarvetta tukea konkreettista tekemistä ja tekojen jatkuvaa iteratiivista tarkentamista. Se tuo kaksi keskeistä näkökulmaa proaktiivisen toiminnan dynamiikan ymmärtämiseen. Ensinnäkin malli korostaa mahdollisia epäjatkuvuuskohtia proaktiivisen toiminnan liikkuessa kolmen ilmentymätason (mikrotason tekojen, keskitason toimintojen ja globaalitason lähestymistapojen) välillä. Toiseksi, malli painottaa positiivisten itseään vahvistavien kehien mahdollisuutta yksilö-ympäristö vuorovaikutuksen seurauksena: kehitysideoita konkretisoivien rajaobjektien luominen tarjosi palautetta onnistumismahdollisuuksista, rohkaisi alkuvaiheen sidosryhmien panostusta, ja ylläpiti proaktiivista toimintaa energisoimalla ja sitouttamalla sekä yksilöä itseään että sidosryhmiä. Malli auttaa tunnistamaan useita mahdollisuuksia proaktiivisuuden tukemiseen ja tehostamiseen yksinkertaisilla toimenpiteillä