The role of relationships in start-up development

Relationships are important in the business start-up phase for a variety of reasons. Internal relationships can support knowledge exchange that determines the business model development and external relationships can facilitate a wide range of opportunities, support and insights. The paper explains the key relationships experienced by the founding team of a recently formed Swedish digital trading platform. Data were gathered through a self-reporting diary approach based on the Critical Incident Technique format and texts were analysed by the Pertex text-analytic software. The findings explain how important relationships were formed during the initial start-up period targeting international expansion. Interaction with early adopters enabled a rapid evolution of the business platform with the aim to build a community of users to support development

Food Product Development::A Consumer-led Text Analytic Approach to generate Preference Structures

Purpose - This paper aims to illustrate a new method to cluster consumer attribute preferences and to transform spontaneously written texts by consumers about a certain favourite food product (hamburger) into distinct preference clusters of attributes. Design/methodology/approach - A new way of finding significant clusters of consumer attribute preferences is developed by means of a new text analytical approach (Pertex) and a multi-step two-sided cluster analysis procedure. Findings - Clear linkages were ascertained between four respondent and four preference clusters for the two key product dimensions taste and ingredients of the hamburger. Research limitations/implications - Clusters expressed were in close conformity to the conception of the standard hamburger. Only one student sample (N = 100) was used. Practical implications - A new and practical method to transform written text into distinct consumer preferences (segments) was tested using a multi-step cluster analysis to support food innovation in the food industry. Originality/value - Product dimensions were integrated in a meaningful way into distinct preference clusters that could be used to segment consumers when innovating new food products

Die Ökologie des Sprachraums

The dominating property of the present report concerns an approach, which is exclusively based on discontinuities as the reliable observations. In what way the presentation is designed and the main assumptions are formulated is described within an ecological context. Furthermore, a system of computer programs constitutes the background for reflection. A perspective, oriented on the environment, is extricated through effective evolutionary processes, bifurcation, and loss of stability. With the achieved results, it is demonstrated that various context dependent structures and sub-structures have been differentiated and established. Finally, in its dealing with problems of complexity, the significance of the ecological approach has been made evident with the aid of model-oriented and topological expressed references to the well-known “Visual Cliff” experiments

Motivation fatigue as a threat to innovation:Bypassing the productivity dilemma in R&D by cyclic production

What do employees need in order to be innovative? In this paper, we explored how employees with different lengths of tenure within the research and development (R&D) department of a company in the automotive industry answer this question. We found that the needs vary depending on the length of the employee's tenure. New employees view innovation as an organisational work issue and employees with longer tenure seek the support of management in changing the work situation themselves in a way that will enhance innovation. In contrast, employees who have been with the company over 10 years show signs of resignation and blame management for the problems around innovation that they experience. However, one opinion that all groups of different tenures share is that there is not enough time to engage in innovation activities. To address some of these different needs, we suggest viewing productivity as a cycle of two outcomes: product information and knowledge creation. When one is low, the other peaks, and vice versa. This view of dual value creation in R&D is one way to bypass the productivity dilemma