Design Management Capability in Entrepreneurship: A Case Study of Xiaomi

In recent years, entrepreneurship has become a popular topic and attracted many young people to start their own companies. In entrepreneurship, design was generally viewed as essential to innovation, replacing the conventional role of the engineer. Unlike traditional businesses, which generally take a longer time to become established in the more stable economic context of mass-production, current start-ups have to face fierce competition and have the tendency to expand rapidly and accommodate the dynamic business environment. Consequently, design management is considered to be crucial to business growth, since it contributes to both competitive advantages and strategic flexibility. However, start-up companies are well-known for their high failure ratio. This triggered our initial research question: what is the role of design in a start-up to support it in achieving success? Through a case study of Xiaomi, a well-known successful entrepreneurship in China, the new capabilities of entrepreneurial design management were reported. It was further classified into three key topics in line with the three stages of entrepreneurial business development. Difference with design management capabilities reported in previous studies, the new capabilities show the dynamic nature of entrepreneurial design management

Entrepreneurship students use of causation, effectuation and bricolage in a microcosm

This study investigates students’ use of causation, effectuation and bricolage behaviours within a fund-raising project that provided a microcosm of the entrepreneur’s world. Such a pedagogical device allows us to explore when, and why, students use the various opportunity management behaviours over time. Although research has confirmed the use of these behaviours by expert entrepreneurs, how student entrepreneurs learn about them, and practice them, remains largely unexplored. Causation is the predominant focus for university teaching, yet our data reveal that student groups adopted all three behaviours at different stages of the fund-raising project as they responded to different contextual forces. The implications of our findings are that opportunity management theories should take a more prominent role in the higher education entrepreneurship curriculum. Educators also need to provide a better means of facilitating students to learn about, and practice, a greater repertoire of opportunity management behaviours than is currently the case

The role of business ecosystems in the building of disruptive innovations

Disruptive innovation is an evolving process whose construction depends on a heterogeneous set of organisations that are interconnected through an ecosystem of relationships. However, the systemic development of disruption innovations remains unexplored. Prior studies have examined the conditions under which disruptive innovation is likely to arise focusing on the internal perspective of the incumbent. Moreover, they have not made distinctions among technology, product and business model innovations, suggesting that all types of innovations follow a similar process to become disruptive. We argue that each type of disruptive innovation requires a different type of business ecosystem for the innovation to take hold and become disruptive. By developing a framework that conceptualizes disruption as a dynamic systemic process we provide an understanding of how potential disruptors create and nurture their ecosystem in order to successfully establish and embed their innovation

Institutional factors influencing innovation adoption by dairy farmers in Ireland

Location-based resources are important factors in the entrepreneurial creation of wealth. This is as true in agriculture as it is in other industrial contexts. In this study, we are interested in how formal and informal institutions such as knowledge networks and localized ‘webs’ of influence act to facilitate or block innovation in the dairy farming industry. Our study of dairy farmers in Munster, Republic of Ireland (an intensive location for dairy farming), is located in a context in which there are policy-based interventions intended to improve the local economic environment. We are interested to know if these are effective, or if other factors within the institutional field are too strong and act to impede the take up of new ideas promoted within such initiatives. Our study uses neo institutional theory as the methodological lens through which we assess the interplay of structural factors within the field. Using interview accounts, we are looking for evidence of embedded institutional logics, interpretive schemas, knowledge blockages, and the role of formal institutions on the development of innovation within the field. Through undertaking a deep study of innovativeness in one locale, Munster, with the proviso that we use this as an illuminatory context and not one that is necessarily representative of a wider field, we contribute to an understanding of the influences on resistance to innovation in farming contexts, and to the wider theoretical field of agricultural economics

Uncovering the influences on decision making in the popular music industry; intuition, networks and the desire for symbolic capital

This paper uncovers the influences on decision-making in the popular music industry, and especially the role of intuition, network participation, and the desire for symbolic capital. Based on the analysis of interview and observational data from thirty-six respondents in twenty firms and a dataset of forty decisions, we provide evidence of how strategic decisions are being made within music industry micro firms in the USA. Our findings confirm the pattern of strategic decision-making (SDM) modelled by Liberman-Yaconi, Hooper and Hutchings (2010), but adds a new element, symbolic capital, to the model. Our data showed that aggrandisement was used in order to increase perceived status, an important aspect in an industry beset by uncertainty and insecurity. In addition to creating an enhanced model of decision-making in micro-sized firms, the paper also suggests areas for further research

Fashion design in London: the positioning of independent designers within the fashion fielD

The aim of this paper is twofold. First, we add to the understanding of how the fashion industry's field operates and how particularities of interactions in this field influence the entrepreneurial performance of new entrants. Part of this is to add to the previous knowledge on the obstacles to the creation of sustainable production chains. Second, we aim to explore the hypothesis that in the UK independent fashion design businesses are not growing as effectively as they might be, because they are locked-in (Wenting and Frenken, 2011) in the design-driven, retail-led, London-based networks dominated by strong links with their former colleges, intermediaries and other institutions to the exclusion of potentially more productive relationships based outside the core of the field, whether elsewhere in the UK or internationally. Our research addresses the need to reverse the high failure rate of designer businesses (TCSG, 2000). There is a need to find ways of accelerating entrepreneurship and economic development in the fashion industry. Fashion is a creative and cultural industry and is an important source of innovation, knowledge creation, and economic growth. Fashion is typical of important world city-regions: Paris, New York, London, Milan, Tokyo, and is one of the UK’s most successful industries, with 8% of GDP (£21bn) and over 800,000 employees (BFC, 2012, 2010, 2009). It enhances the country’s image and boosts economic growth via exports and on-line sales as well as through direct sales to visitors. The UK can claim world-leading capabilities in both fashion design and retailing (BFC, 2012). The high-end fashion sector sees between an estimated 20 and 50 new UK designer/wholesale labels looking to break into the market each year. Some designers have achieved £2 million p.a. turnover within four years of their label's launch. However, this high growth is achieved by only 10% of labels (DCMS, 2013). Some commentators acknowledge the disparity between the international visibility of fashion industry and the economic returns (McRobbie, 1998) and raise the question: Why do so many of the most talented designers go bankrupt within a few years of leaving college

Money and Audit Practice in the UK Public Sector

This paper uses both role theory and audit expectations gap theory to critically evaluate the ability of Value for Money (VfM) audit procedures to improve performance in UK public sector organisations. Our paper reports on an empirical study of seventeen auditors and twenty two representatives of VfM client organisations. The results show that although the VfM audit plays a part in enhancing the institutional performance of the public sector, much of the audit‟s practices have not been institutionalised in the audited bodies as had previously been assumed. Questions were raised about the relevance of the auditors‟ experience and knowledge of the audited body‟s activities. Our results also indicate significant role conflicts in the VfM process. Three types of conflict could be identified; (a) conflict between the VfM auditors‟ roles and their own professional values and standards (person-role conflict); (b) conflict between the VfM auditors‟ capabilities and their role requirements (role overload), and (c) conflict between the auditors and the auditees (inter-sender conflict)

Stimulating learning about social entrepreneurship through income generation projects

Purpose – This empirical paper examines the use of income generation projects as a pedagogic method to assess students’ learning about social enterprises. We are interested in how and why this innovative approach might improve students’ understanding of the different aspects and attributes of social entrepreneurship. Design/methodology/approach – our study used thematic analysis of qualitative data comprising the reflective logs of 87 students on an undergraduate entrepreneurship module in a university business programme. The major attributes of social entrepreneurship were identified from a review of literature, and we used the logs to judge whether students had learnt about these attributes. Findings – results show that students developed an understanding concerning social enterprises’ diverse stakeholder environment, market needs, social enterprises’ ideological foundations, resource mobilisation processes and performance measurement – both social and financial. In addition, they developed skills in reflection and self-awareness, communication, empathy and the generation of new ideas. Research limitations/implications – our study is limited in that it focused on only one cohort of students, undergraduates. We cannot claim that our findings are generalisable to other students or contexts. Practical implications – students are better able to understand the needs and values of social enterprises. However, this is a resource intensive process for educators with implications for curriculum design and management. Social Implications - This study sheds new light on how experiential learning helps to raise students’ awareness of social enterprises. Originality/value – this study sheds new light on how experiential learning in the form of income generation projects helps to raise students’ awareness of social enterprises. Its value lies in helping to develop a novel and effective pedagogy for entrepreneurial learnin

Using actor-network theory to reveal strategy processes in design firms

In this paper we illustrate the utility of actor-network theory (ANT) as a methodological approach to understand the effect of the eclectic characteristics of design firms on their strategy development processes. The need for creativity, expertise knowledge and the constant need to innovate suggest that the mainstream strategy or decision-making theories provide unsatisfying insights into how strategy of the design firm emerges. These culture laden organisations often operate with limited formality, therefore require attention to the social side of decision-making. To address this rich complex social-fabric of decision-making, we suggest to study strategy development as the result of the formation of actor-networks. By illustration of data collected from 13 interviews with design firms in mainly Europe and a longitudinal study of a global digital design firm, we illustrate how an ANT-based approach allows theorists to analyse the rich cultural complexity of design firms’ decision-making in a focused and coherent manner

A model of service design elements to understand innovative service processes

This paper aims to provide an understanding of innovative service design processes by comparing service design logic with the entrepreneurial logics of causation, effectuation and bricolage (CEB). The paper draws upon empirical data to show how both service design logic and entrepreneurship logics may help us to create more innovative service design outcomes. In this process, we hope to understand how the creation of value enters into the service innovation process through co-creation between customers, organisations, ecosystem members and society. Data used within this paper includes deep qualitative interviews with key stakeholders, written documents and participative observation. From our analysis, we develop a model of service innovation design that shows how design logics and entrepreneurial logics influence the development of new and innovative services