An instrument for stakeholder identification:phasing roles of involvement

The starting point of the paper is that stakeholders fulfill an important role to stimulate sustainable innovation. The question is “who are those stakeholders and what should be their role?” This paper describes an instrument, which enables identifying stakeholders and designating specific roles to those stakeholders. The instrument focuses on two key points, i.e. roles of involvement and phasing this involvement within an innovation process

Applying lead user theory to young adults

Dieser Beitrag ist mit Zustimmung des Rechteinhabers aufgrund einer (DFG geförderten) Allianz- bzw. Nationallizenz frei zugänglich.This publication is with permission of the rights owner freely accessible due to an Alliance licence and a national licence (funded by the DFG, German Research Foundation) respectively.Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to identify lead users within social networks of young adults between 14 and 17 years of age. Design/methodology/approach – A questionnaire and the SAGS-method were used to collect data within seven high schools in the north of The Netherlands. These data were used to empirically test five hypotheses using the variables which could enable the identification of lead users. A multiple regression analysis was used to test the predictive value of the variables. The analysis was complemented with a qualitative analysis of the collected data. Findings – The main characteristics which identify lead users among adults can also be used with young adults. Those young adults who are more likely to be a lead user, are more ahead of a trend and have a higher amount of expected benefit. They also display more expertise than other young adults. Research limitations/implications – The variable of perceived information benefits could complement the variables used for identifying lead users among young adults, but further research is necessary. Because the focus is on only one specific product, the generalizability of the results from this research is limited. Further research should include different products or services in different domains of interest. The variables of perceived information benefits and efficiency did not have a significant positive relation with lead userness, but further research is needed. Practical implications – The identification of lead users could be valuable to organizations that focus on young adults in the age range 14 to 17 years and could lead to significant commercial benefits. Young adults are a large potential market and the identification of lead users within this target group could help organizations Originality/value – Research on lead user theory ismainly focused on adults or organizations. This article tries to fill this research gap by focusing on young adults. It is an extension of the research of Kratzer and Lettl, Kunst and Kratzer and Molenmaker et al. who focused on children from 8 to 12 years old

Understanding dyadic promoter-stakeholder relations in complex projects

In this study, we propose a Bilateral Double Motive framework of stakeholder cooperation in complex projects. The framework analyses and explains dyadic promoter-stakeholder relationships at a micro level by acknowledging both transactional and relational motives. We demonstrate the framework’s usefulness by illustrating its explanatory power in two instances of cooperation and two of non-cooperation within two health information technology projects. The study contributes to project management theory through its combined focus on transactional and relational motives. Further, the study contributes to practice by providing a tool for planning and evaluating cooperation in health Information Technology projects and similar complex multi-stakeholder environments

Bridging the transactional and relational view on management-stakeholder cooperation

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to present a 2 × 2-perspective of management–stakeholder cooperation in organizational issues. The model encompasses the perspectives of both management and stakeholder and bridges the two dominant views in stakeholder thinking, namely, the transactional and the relational view.Design/methodology/approachFrom a state-of-the-art elaboration of the stakeholder literature, this paper combines two separate perspectives on management–stakeholder cooperation.FindingsThe bilateral perspective stresses that the ease of this collaboration not only depends on the willingness of management to pursue cooperation, but also on that of the stakeholder. The double-motive perspective signifies that both parties can be dominantly motivated by either individual, issue-based reasons (transactional motives) or by the desire to establish lasting relationships (relational motives).Originality/valueThis paper presents a more elaborate picture of management–stakeholder cooperation by combining the transactional concept of stakeholder salience with the concepts “stakeholder reputation” and “management reputation” associated with the relational dimension.<br/

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Abstract The starting point of the paper is that stakeholders fulfill an important role to stimulate sustainable innovation. The question is &quot;who are those stakeholders and what should be their role?&quot; This paper describes an instrument, which enables identifying stakeholders and designating specific roles to those stakeholders. The instrument focuses on two key points, i.e. roles of involvement and phasing this involvement within an innovation process

Critically identifying stakeholders: Evaluating boundary critique as a vehicle for stakeholder identification

Although (the relevance of) stakeholder management receives considerable attention in literature, the problem of actual stakeholder identification is yet unresolved. This article analyses the potential contributions of critical systems thinking to solving this problem. Especially Ulrich's notion of boundary critique, by which he focuses on stakeholder roles and particularly the role of 'the affected', seems a fruitful contribution. By adapting the role definitions towards a project context, including project dynamics, and adding operating instructions, a method has been developed that can be used for actual stakeholder identification in organizational projects. This method is demonstrated on two projects. The results show that this adapted version of boundary critique, which in its original form mainly is used in the context of civil society, is also relevant in an organizational profit-based context. Copyright (c) 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd

Diffusing (let it happen) or disseminating (make it happen) innovations in health care

<p>Management has different options for spreading new products. Our study empirically assessed the integral effects of both diffusion and dissemination on innovation adoption. Data on diffusion (as measured by social network density) and on dissemination (as measured by formulating objectives and executing focused activities) was gathered using a questionnaire given to 356 medical specialists, nested in 38 teams. We found both separate and integral effects for diffusion and dissemination. This shows the potential for both engaging the social network structures (diffusion) and adding process measures (dissemination) in order to optimize the innovation spreading process. (c) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.</p>