Diving into the dynamics of product evolution

Three distinct stages describe the technological evolution of a product over time: ferment, convergence on a dominant design and an era of incremental change. Until recently, the era of incremental change has been characterized as stable and one that involves low levels of technological innovation. However, recent studies have indicated that this era of incremental change may actually be quite disruptive. This raises the question as to which processes and mechanisms in new product development during the era of incremental change trigger high levels of innovation. First, this dissertation offers a conceptual study about how collaboration practices with suppliers characterized by a relatively high intensity shift the technological evolution away from the era of incremental change towards the stage of ferment. Second, a quantitative study of the medical technology industry in Europe reveals that involving suppliers in new product development during the era of incremental change may trigger technological novelties that are incorporated into new product architectures; A new product architecture shifts the technological evolution towards the era of ferment. According to the results of the second study, it appears that only by improving products based on established architectures are firms unable to innovate new technologies. Additionally, the stage of convergence on a dominant design has mainly been examined on the basis of technological convergence. However, a possible convergence on a dominant design away from the stage of ferment also involves a cognitive variable. Third, this study observes the cognitive variable while examining the nascent smartwatch market. Within a nascent market, firms within previously distinct domains compete with one another. Firms lack a better understanding of customer preferences and develop initial products based on assumptions that are rooted within their previous industry. This qualitative study illustrates that firms from the same prior industry conceptualize their products in a similar way with regard to nascent product features. Overall, this dissertation more deeply explores the product life-cycle of technological development, provides a better understanding of the dynamics during the era of incremental change, demonstrates how the technological life-cycle of a product may shift from one stage to the other and supplies additional explanations concerning how a dominant design may emerge out of the ferment stage of technological development.

Creative-Learning Innovation Cycle - CLIC

Vincent Nassar

WHY do certain leaders’ management of organizational resources encourage creative people engaged in New Product Development (NPD) to achieve high performance, on time, while other leaders’ practices foster frustration and delays? In this research project I attempt to understand the WHY and HOW of leaders’ management of organizational resources in the context of Csikszentmihalyi’s phenomenon of Flow. Flow is most likely to occur when people perceive a balance between the challenge of a situation and their professional abilities to deal with the challenge. “Being in the flow” increases peoples’ focus and attention, the latter being a prerequisite for high creativity, on the tasks and problems at hand and boosts their commitment to deliver their projects on time. Following the above-mentioned reasoning, I assume that if leaders manage organizational resources to create an optimal balance between challenging situations and the skills of their creative people, these managerial practices would likely result in enhancing the output of the NPD process, and decreasing the delays, or, in other words, accelerating the NPD cycle. To explore this research question, first, I developed a conceptual model called CLIC: “Creative-Learning Innovation Cycle”. The CLIC is characterized by its uniqueness in highlighting the impact of the feedback received from the commercialization process on the managerial practices of leadership for creativity of the components of the work environment. The work environment directly affects the state of flow of creative people, and, subsequently, both the quality and speed of their learning and creativity processes. The CLIC combines Sanchez’s model of an organization’s learning process, Amabile’s componential theory of creativity, and, Csikszentmihalyi and Bakker’s State of Flow concept. Second, I tested the CLIC through two main research methods. I conducted exploratory and action research with a successful global innovation manager and two companies wrestling to accelerate their NPD processes in a changing work environment. The two companies deal with components and technological innovations. They differ in size, continent and products. Both companies innovate products related to health issues in an industry where high regulatory requirements are imposed. I also conducted a lab experiment in which 27 Masters students (18 males, 9 females) who were enrolled in an “Innovation Management” course voluntarily participated. The mean age was 23.5 years. The academic language was English. The exploration of the CLIC model in the course of conducting the comparative studies among the successful global innovation manager, the two companies, and the results of the lab experiment led to the emergence of a new theory about flow in work situations and organizational resources management. The theory defines and prioritizes five organizational resources that have to be managed during the NPD stages to let creative people experience a “state of flow” during their work. The foundation of the theory is that, following the impacts of feedback received from the external world, leaders’ managerial practices of organizational resources affect the state of flow of the people involved in the NPD process in an inverted U shape. Based on this inverted U shape and, as per the CLIC model, this theory prioritized the following five organizational resources to manage flow during the NPD stages: v A. Planning stage 1. Involving creative people in early market feedback during the planning stage would enhance their work absorption and their attention on the problems they are facing. B. Development stage 2. Putting creative people in direct communication with all the people who interact with the product and bring meaning to it, 3. Extending on a rational basis the time lines proposed by creative people, 4. And integrating the customer in the NPD process, mainly during testing phases, are likely to positively influence the intrinsic motivation of the creative people during the development stage. Hence, creative people would be committed to reach their goals by deploying their expertise to its utmost level without counting their working hours. C. Commercialization stage 5. Allow creative people to directly solicit and experience feedback from the VOC during the commercialization stage. This could constitute an enriching and joyful experience for them. In sum, the prioritization of these organizational resources during the NPD stages might constitute a beneficial roadmap to the managerial practices that should be used by leaders. The application of this theory by the leaders would regulate the balance between a challenging situation and the skills of the creative people, so the latter might be in the “state of flow”. Probable effects may be a boosted and an accelerated outcome of the NPD process, leading the organization to thrive in this seldom static world. Some leaders knew WHAT to do and HOW to enhance the creativity of their collaborators. However the understanding of the WHY that drives these managerial practices needed additional elucidation. This research project attempted to provide a potential answer to “WHY” leaders’ practices might enhance or hinder their collaborators’ state of flow; and, in finding the answer, it was thought that leaders and their collaborators may simultaneously enjoy work and savor life.

EPFL2012

A Digital Platform connecting Academia and Small Businesses: An opportunity for Knowledge Management Experiments

Quentin Adrien Cavillier

Digital transformation is one of the biggest phenomena of this decade. One enabler of this revolution was cloud computing. Today, software engineers can deliver software as a service (SaaS), which is accessible to users through the Internet. Slack, Shopify, and Dropbox are examples of successful SaaS. We are experiencing an emergence of numerous small web applications with easy-to-use features for specific domains such as project management, accounting, resources management, customer relationships, and so forth. Thus, SaaS has been recognised as particularly well suited for the digital journey of small enterprises. However, surveys conducted by governmental agencies reveal a low adoption rate of SaaS by small enterprises in traditional sectors such as construction, services, and dealership. Previous studies have highlighted a lack of top management support, a weak relative advantage perceived, and a lack of knowledge as the key reasons for this low level of adoption. Whilst academic research defines these critical factors, it has not found potential solutions to mitigate them. Thus, this thesis presents two exploratory studies to enhance the adoption of digital practices by small traditional enterprises (STEs). A first study explored the value of leading collaborative projects between students and STEs about the assessment of SaaS solutions. A secondary objective of this initiative was the design of a platform acting as an open innovation platform. A three-year study allowed the completion of thirty-nine projects and the testing of two different platform designs. The feedback from students demonstrated the value of a well-structured platform composed of different management models for each project phase. Furthermore, 67 per cent of the STEs involved on the platform acknowledged the value of such collaborative projects. However, the collaborations did not improve top management support, and projects tended to stagnate because of various organisational factors. A second study, using a mixed-methods research design, was performed to explore the relations amongst the organisational factors acting as enablers and barriers to the digitalisation of STEs. The objective was to improve understanding of TSEs' situation and devise a proposition to enhance top management support. An academic contribution of this study was the design and application of a conceptual framework combining organisational factors from the literature on dynamic capabilities, organisational inertia, and intellectual capital. The combination of the qualitative observations and quantitative results highlighted the importance of the sensing and leadership capabilities for STE directors. They also revealed the mediator effect of the relational capability on the development of these latter. Therefore, this thesis makes important contributions to the literature on open innovation by defining a new field for leading knowledge management experiments. It also contributes to develop a comprehensive overview of the organisational factors affecting STEs' adoption. A further major contribution is the potential value of the digital platform to innovate the services of practitioners, such as governmental agencies and consultants, that support STEs on their digital transformation journey. In conclusion, this research is valuable in opening the discussion about potential innovations that might reshape the relationship academia-business.

EPFL2019

Patent Quality: Towards a Systematic Framework for Analysis and Measurement

Gaétan Jean A de Rassenfosse, Kyle William Higham

The quality of novel technological innovations is extremely variable, and the ability to measure innovation quality is essential to sensible, evidence-based policy. Patents, an often vital precursor to a commercialised innovation, share this heterogeneous quality distribution. A pertinent question then arises: How should we define and measure patent quality? Accepting that different parties have different views of, and different sets of terminologies for discussing this concept, we take a multi-dimensional view of patent quality in this work. We first test the consistency of popular post-grant outcomes that are often used as patent quality measures. Finding these measures to be generally inconsistent, we then use a raft of patent indicators available at the time of grant to dissect the characteristics of different post-grant outcomes. We find broad disagreement in the relative importance of individual characteristics between outcomes and, further, significant variation of the same across technologies within outcomes. We conclude that measurement of patent quality is highly sensitive to both the observable outcome selected and the technology type. Our findings bear concrete implications for scholarly research using patent data and policy discussions about patent quality.