An ambidextrous approach to practice-based innovation for social product development: lessons from a Dutch company

In the face of increasing competition, an organization’s capacity to acquire knowledge from the outside has become fundamental for new product development. Pertinent extant literature has stressed how an organization should practice social product development, allowing for the inclusion of all types of stakeholders in idea generation, selection, validation, and commercialization. This study investigates how organizations can acquire, maintain, and use different sources of knowledge via ambidextrous habits of exploitation and exploration to sustain social product development. A case study based on 27 semi-structured interviews and field observations at a leading, large-size, Dutch food-service company has been carried out. The findings illustrate the organizational processes and mechanisms that the company has adopted to address and combine practice- and research-based knowledge, as well as the main barriers limiting the accumulation and usage of this knowledge inside organizational boundaries

Learning in an Agile Setting: A Multilevel Study on the Evolution of Organizational Routines

Recognizing a serious lack of research on routinized individual actions and organizational adaptation in the stability-change paradox, we intend to provide an in-depth explanation of the way in which agile methods affect organizational learning in self-managed, team-based organizations, taking a multi-level evolutionary approach. We explore learning in agile organizations by breaking the analysis of organizational routines down into different levels \u2013 individual, team and organization \u2013 and describing the process of variation, selection and retention of routines at each level. Leveraging on multiple case studies, we discuss how team members learn and gain knowledge, from both direct and indirect experience, and analyze how teams develop conceptual frameworks and interpret those experiences. Finally, we discuss how organizational memory develops and how teams in agile organizations adapt simultaneously within an ecological structure that also comprises the changing environment. Our findings reveal substantial flaws in the capacity of agile methods to foster organizational learning

Is the Trend your Friend? An Analysis of Technology 4.0 Investment Decisions in Agricultural SMEs

Smart Agriculture and 4.0 Technologies have brought several benefits to agricultural small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Nonetheless, the penetration of such digital technologies is still poor and slow. This study addresses the issue and provides some insights on the reasons related to the still limited adoption of 4.0 technologies within agricultural SMEs. Authors do not simply focus on the adoption per se, but rather devote attention to the SMEs owners/managers' subjective perception of the opportunity behind the technology adoption, and of the incentives or constraints given by the external environment as well as the organizational capabilities as embedded in the owners/managers\u2019 skills and organizational routines. Authors analyze data collected by surveying 96 Italian agricultural SMEs owners/managers, and empirically confirm the relevance of managerial capabilities, managerial cognition, and managerial perception of the external environment for the adoption of 4.0 technologies in agricultural SMEs. The results of this research support the conclusion that organizational capabilities related to the search for evidence-based knowledge by the SME\u2019s decision-maker are crucial for the technology\u2019s adoption. In addition, we show the statistical significance relevance of the managerial perception of technological usefulness and of the availability of a supporting business environment either in the form of professional services or institutional support, on the technology\u2019s adoption. The article ends by discussing the results and highlighting relevant managerial implications

Managing Generational Tensions Toward Digital Transformation: A Microfoundational Perspective

The rise of digital technologies poses new organizational challenges, redesigning organizational structures, paving the way for new opportunities. Despite the growing body of research on digital transformation, there has been relatively little research on the microfoundational mechanisms that contribute to the successful digital transformation of workplaces. Drawing from the microfoundational perspective, this study examines managers’ cognition regarding the digital transformation of theworkplace, with a particular focus on how generational differences among managers influence such cognitions. To explore this topic, a case study was conducted using 25 semistructured interviews and field observations at a Dutch multinational enterprise. The findings identify key mechanisms related to digital transformation processes, highlighting how generational differences between managers belonging to Generation X and Generation Y necessitate efficient coordination to cope with organizational tensions and successfully pursue the digital transformation of workplaces. This coordination can be supported by orchestrating managers, a shared vision, and the development of a flexible paradigm. The study concludes with a discussion of the implications, limitations, and avenues for future research

Managing Generational Tensions Toward Digital Transformation: A Microfoundational Perspective

The rise of digital technologies poses new organizational challenges, redesigning organizational structures, paving the way for new opportunities. Despite the growing body of research on digital transformation, there has been relatively little research on the microfoundational mechanisms that contribute to the successful digital transformation of workplaces. Drawing from the microfoundational perspective, this study examines managers' cognition regarding the digital transformation of the workplace, with a particular focus on how generational differences among managers influence such cognitions. To explore this topic, a case study was conducted using 25 semistructured interviews and field observations at a Dutch multinational enterprise. The findings identify key mechanisms related to digital transformation processes, highlighting how generational differences between managers belonging to Generation X and Generation Y necessitate efficient coordination to cope with organizational tensions and successfully pursue the digital transformation of workplaces. This coordination can be supported by orchestrating managers, a shared vision, and the development of a flexible paradigm. The study concludes with a discussion of the implications, limitations, and avenues for future research

New product co-creation through practice-based innovation: a case study

In an increasingly competitive environment which facilitates rapid changes in consumers' preferences and needs, an organization's ability to acquire and exploit knowledge is of vital. Hence, through continuous interaction with both users and external stakeholders, an organization should be able to simultaneously utilise the knowledge obtained through everyday work experiences (practice-based), and knowledge updated by research advances (research-based), to remain connected with the market's needs and trends. Practice-based knowledge enables organizations to draw stimulus from information collected by employees through interactions with stakeholders and clients during their everyday working practice. Recently, social product development (SPD) has received increasing attention from scholars and practitioners who have acknowledged it to be a new, and more efficient route through which to improve products through the optimization of the knowledge acquisition process. As part of the SPD approach, organizations must rely on what has been termed 'mass collaboration'

OSSAP: A situational method for defining open source software adoption processes

Organizations are increasingly becoming Open Source Software (OSS) adopters, either as a result of a strategic decision or just as a consequence of technological choices. The strategy followed to adopt OSS shapes organizations’ businesses; therefore methods to assess such impact are needed. In this paper, we propose OSSAP, a method for defining OSS Adoption business Processes, built using a Situational Method Engineering (SME) approach. We use SME to combine two well-known modelling methods, namely goal-oriented models (using i*) and business process models (using BPMN), with a pre-existing catalogue of goal-oriented OSS adoption strategy models. First, we define a repository of reusable method chunks, including the guidelines to apply them. Then, we define OSSAP as a composition of those method chunks to help organizations to improve their business processes in order to integrate the best fitting OSS adoption strategy. We illustrate it with an example of application in a telecommunications company.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Towards an OSS adoption business impact assessment

Nowadays, the adoption of Open Source Software (OSS) by organizations is becoming a strategic need in a wide variety of application areas. Organizations adopt OSS in very diverse ways. The way in which they adopt OSS affects and shapes their businesses. Therefore, knowing the impact of different OSS adoption strategies in the context of an organization may help improving the processes undertaken inside this organization and ultimately pave the road to strategic moves. However, there is a lack of support for assessing the impact of the OSS adoption over the business of the adopter organizations. Based on the goal-oriented characterization of some OSS adoption strategies, in this paper, we propose a preliminary approach to assess the business impact of the OSS adoption strategies over the adopter organizations. The proposal is based on the Business Model Canvas and graph theory notions to support the elicitation and assessment of the impact of each goal over the adopter organization. We illustrate the application of the approach in the context of a telecommunications company.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft