In einem durch das Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung geförderten Projektes wurde untersucht, wie Nachhaltigkeit in unternehmerische Innovationsprozesse integriert werden kann. Als konkretes Untersuchungsfeld wurde der Maschinen- und Anlagenbau gewählt, da sich die Nachhaltigkeitsintegration in Innovationsprozesse in diesem Industriezweig auf alle Produktlebensphasen auswirkt. Der Untersuchungsschwerpunkt wurde auf kleine und mittlere Unternehmen gelegt, weil bei diesen ein besonders großer Zielkonflikt zwischen marktgetriebenen kurzfristigen wirtschaftlichen Interessen und der langfristigen Orientierung auf Nachhaltigkeit erwartet wurde. Dies lies sich durch empirische Untersuchungen bestätigen. / In research project funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research it was investigated how sustainability can be integrated in corporate innovation processes. As the specific field of investigation the construction of machinery had been chosen since the integration of sustainability in innovation processes in this field has an impact on all product life cycle. The focus of the study was on small and medium-sized companies because of its present conflict between market-driven short-term economic interests and long-term focus on sustainability. This was confirmed by the empirical study.

Purpose: The study primarily aims to examine the effect of internal innovation in determining the firm performance for the textile industry of Pakistan by testing the research framework of innovation diffusion theory. Additionally, the study also explores the moderating role of collaborative innovation in explaining the relationship between internal innovation and a firm’s performance in the target population. Methodology: The study used a self-administrative questionnaire-based survey technique to collect data from the participants. Due to the prevailing Covid-19 pandemic situation globally, the data was collected online using the Convenience sampling approach. The outcome variable of the study was firm performance, while the explanatory variable is internal innovation, which is measured by product and process innovation. Additionally, collaborative innovation was used as the moderating variable of the study. The population of the study was the textile sector of Pakistan. The unit of analysis was managerial employees (at all levels) working in the textile industry of Pakistan. The online questionnaire was shared with approximately, 100 target people successfully and completely provided their unbiased responses using online means. The researchers analyzed the collected data using SPSS software. The analysis techniques include descriptive statistics, correlation, reliability analysis (using Cronbach alpha), convergent reliability & validity (using outer loadings, composite reliability, and average variance extracted), VIF, and regression for testing the hypotheses. Findings: The study found that product innovation and process innovation both serve as critical drivers for the firm performance in the textile industry of Pakistan. Moreover, collaborative innovation plays a complementary role as the significant moderator between the internal innovation process and the firm’s performance in the target population. The results concluded the acceptance and support of the required hypothesis of the study, including the acceptance of innovation diffusion theory for the textile industry of Pakistan, and finally the consistency of results with existing literature. Implications:  Contribution of Study: Existing literature lacks to provide the mechanism and understanding that how internal innovation (product innovation and process innovation) collaborative innovation shapes the effective and efficient performance of the firms in the textile industry of Pakistan. Therefore, the lack of research work and clarity in the existing literature makes this study meaningful. Moreover, the contributions of the study are multifaceted as the first time this study is being conducted in an emerging economy Pakistan. Novelty: The findings of the study add the literature for the domain of innovation and performance, especially, in the case of the textile sector of Pakistan with the partially moderating impact of collaborative innovation. The study also contributes towards the acceptance of innovation diffusion theory in the textile industry of Pakistan. Limitations & Recommendations: The findings of the study apply to the Textile sector only due to the specific nature of their operations. The prospective researchers in this domain can consider further dimensions of innovations to examine their impact on a firm’s performance. Additionally, innovation performance can also be considered for future studies. Furthermore, cross-sector analysis can be performed for understanding how innovation works in different sectors.

Digitalisation has changed the way many industries do business, and the consultancy industry has not escaped the challenges these changes can bring. To stay competitive, companies need to explore new products and services, as well as maintain their established businesses. However, this can be difficult to do, especially if companies are not experienced in developing new products or services. Research on innovation processes in professional service firms is sparse, and most existing research focuses on the first stages of innovation. Therefore, this study examines the innovation process at a large consultancy firm, placing the focus on the later stages of innovation, particularly, the development and commercialisation phases. Our aim was to identify the challenges in these phases, and to present recommendations on how to address them.  The study was conducted at a large Swedish consultancy firm that had recently implemented an innovation programme. We identified several challenges. The financial structure led to challenges, a reluctance to take financial risks and allocate the needed financial resources towards innovation. This case company lacked funding of the business side of innovation, which led to challenges such as insufficient groundwork in the FEI and insufficient business support. The contextual ambidextrous structure included challenges for the employees to balance the core tasks and exploitative tasks. Other challenges were related to innovators lacking NPD competence, support and a dedicated team. Based on best-practices from literature, recommendations were provided regarding financing the business-side of innovation, front-loading the projects more, clarifying and communicating the process to team members, as well as implementing a decision board to better handle changes in the projects. / Digitaliseringen har ändrat hur många företag arbetar, och även konsultbranschen påverkas av detta. För att förbli konkurrenskraftiga måste företag arbeta med kärnverksamheten samtidigt som de utforskar möjligheter att skapa nya tjänster och produkter. Dock kan det vara utmanande för företag att utveckla och kommersialisera nya innovationer, speciellt för de företag som inte ägnar sig åt det i det vardagliga arbetet. Det finns bristande forskning kring innovation på professionella tjänsteföretag och mycket forskning fokuserar på de tidigare skedena av innovationsprocessen. Den här studien utvärderar innovationsprocessen på ett stort konsultbolag med fokus på de senare faserna i processen, mer specifikt utveckling och kommersialiserings faserna. Målet med studien var att identifiera utmaningar i dessa faser och att presentera rekommendationer hur de kan hanteras.  Studien har utförts på en stor svensk konsultfirma som nyligen implementerat ett innovationsprogram. Flera utmaningar kunde identifieras. Konsultverksamheten är ovana att ta stora risker och investera stora belopp i innovationsprojekt. Detta fallföretag hade otillräcklig finansiering av affärsdelen av innovation, vilket ledde till utmaningar relaterade till otillräckligt förarbete och bristande affärsstöd. Den kontextuella tvåhäntheten medförde utmaningar för arbetarna att balansera de vardagliga uppgifterna och innovationsprojekt. Andra utmaningar kunde kopplas till att innovatörerna saknade kunskap inom produktutveckling, stöd och team. Rekommendationer baserade på bästa praxis gavs angående att finansiera affärssidan av innovation, koncentrera mer arbete i projektets start, förtydliga och kommunicera innovationsprocessen till teamet, samt införa en styrgrupp för att enklare hantera ändringar i projekt.

Innovation är en viktig del i alla företag då det är ett sätt att differentiera sig, utveckla sig och anpassa sig till de nya omständigheter som ständigt råder. Samtidigt är en innovationsprocess väldigt kostsam och riskfylld vilket gör att det är av stor vikt för företag att minimera risken samt optimera processen. Innovationsprocessen är väldigt komplex och skiljer sig beroende på situation. Syftet med denna studie är att identifiera olika framgångsfaktorer inom innovationsprocessen beroende på olika innovationssituationer. Detta har gjorts genom en fallstudie på ett globalt företag inom processindustrin. Datainsamlingen bestod av tolv semistrukturerade intervjuer med individer med olika ansvarsområden kopplade till innovation i det studerade fallföretaget. Studien identifierade sju olika innovationssituationer, en ny kundorienterad produkt, en ny marknadsorienterad produkt, en kundorienterad förbättring, en marknadsorienterad förbättring, en kundorienterad bevisad funktionalitet, en marknadsorienterad bevisad funktionalitet samt en intern effektivisering. Bidraget från studien är en modell för varje innovationssituation som beskriver de identifierade framgångsfaktorerna inom den specifika innovationssituationen. Överlag visar resultaten att många framgångsfaktorer är gemensamma för marknadsorienterade respektive kundorienterade processer. På samma sätt är andra faktorer gemensamma för många projekt som är nya produkter, förbättringar eller bevisade funktionaliteter. Förslag på fortsatt forskning är att genom kvantitativa studier bekräfta eller dementera de framgångsfaktorer som identifierats i studien.

Introduction: Traditional organizational routines for the innovation process, like the Stage-Gate Model, are often characterized by rigid and inflexible activities, limiting firms' ability to identify, develop, and commercialize software and digital/connected products and services. Examples of inflexible activities include predefined project milestones, linear progression through development stages, and a lack of iterative feedback loops. This rigidity can lead to prolonged development timelines, increased costs, reduced competitiveness, and the risk of losing market share. Specifically, the rigidity inherent in traditional innovation processes hampers the ability to adapt to the rapidly changing digital landscape, where swift recognition of opportunities, flexible development strategies, and repeated enhancements are key to achieving success. The literature has suggested organizational agility as a potential approach to address the consequences of rigidity. The medical device-development healthcare industry has unique characteristics. It faces challenges that increase the lead time from idea to market in innovation processes, reducing the number of innovations that are developed. Therefore, for medical device development, healthcare firms may need to understand how their innovation process routines align with organizational agility to address the unique features of their industry. Purpose: This thesis aims to understand the current organizational routines of a medical device-developing healthcare firm's innovation process and how these routines align with operational, customer, and partnering agility. Method: A single case study with 12 semi-structured interviews was conducted at a leading European medical device-developing healthcare firm, hereafter referred to as MedTech X. Findings: MedTech X's innovation process routines align with organizational agility through its customer-centric approach, adaption or modification of its extended network to access diverse knowledge, assets, or competencies, practical and iterative operations, and adaptable informal routines. However, as MedTech X further ventures into the realm of software and digital/connected solutions, there is a failure to realize the full potential of real-time customer data. Moreover, there is a recognized need to improve its partnering agility. Also, over-reliance on external resources for sensing may limit the firm's operational agility. Conclusion: Despite certain routines aligning with agility, inconsistency, and overreliance on external resources for sensing pose challenges. Therefore, reassessment and redesign of current innovation routines are advised to balance stability and flexibility. Formalizing innovation processes may be critical for MedTech X to handle unexpected changes, and informal routines play a significant role in this process, suggesting a future research direction.

This project puts the focus on innovation towards sustainability driven by teamwork inside an organisation. The case study company is TED BED, which is a leader in mattress production in Bulgaria and is also striving to become a notable example for the industry. There are major issues in this field, from waste management to sleep deprivation and disorders. Therefore, sustainable development plays an important role in the strategies which have a holistic approach toward each one of the three pillars of sustainability: economic, social and ecological. These complexities can be solved only by having a deep comprehension of several fields which could be best obtained through the teamwork of organisational members from various backgrounds. Thus, the expected outcome is to build a new mindset with which those strategies could be fulfilled. This is done by integrating a bottom-up approach, meaning that the employees are developing a plan on how a specific strategy could be implemented into real practice. The result is a proposal for integrating togetherness activities to spark creativity and drive innovation through cross-departmental  work.

Background: These days in uncertain circumstances and economic downturn, innovation is very important for organizations. This applies also on Dutch franchise retail organizations (DFRO’s) and its suppliers, which are in focus in this thesis. The authors argue that shop employees working in the physical shops are a valuable source of innovation and can function as a pass-through of consumer information to the management of a DFRO and its suppliers.The main question is, if and how DFRO’s and its supplier use shop employees as a source of innovation? Purpose: To describe and explore the involvement of shop employees in the innovation process of Dutch franchise retail organizations and its suppliers; and to find out possible advantages and disadvantages of shop employees’ involvement in the innovation processes, and directions of innovation in which shop employees are involved. Method: This thesis is written from a social constructivism perspective with the use of a deductive approach. A holistic multiple case-study of eight Dutch franchise retail organizations was applied by using qualitative method. To collect the empirical data 23 semi-structured interviews with shop employees were conducted in combination with several observations. The collected empirical data was analyzed by using cross-case synthesis method. The research quality is based upon trustworthiness and authenticity. Results and conclusions: The highest degree of involvement of the shop employees in the innovation process by both management and suppliers takes place in the last three stages of the innovation process, which are validation, commercialization and evaluation, in offer- and support-related directions of innovations. In other words, the shop employees are more involved in the innovation process in their own working environment rather than in the decision-making level. The results of the study show that shop employees are willing to be more involved in the innovation process and see more advantages than disadvantages for management, suppliers and themselves. Suggestions for future research: Since this thesis gives interesting results, the future research could be done to strengthen and expand those. The authors suggest to increase the amount of researched DFRO’s; to research multiple shop locations of the same DFRO; to take the position, responsibilities and working period of the shop employees more into consideration. Also the authors see a necessity of future research to confirm the mentioned possible disadvantages and advantages of shop employees’ involvement out of a different perspective.

台灣地區生活型態與人口結構的急遽變遷、老年人口快速增長、疾病型態改變、國民所得提高、醫療支出持續增加以及政府民間對預防醫學的重視，「預防醫學」之風氣逐漸形成，也帶動台灣健檢產業像雨後春筍般蓬勃發展。 　　本研究透過個案研究的方式，使用Betz（1987）的創新類型及Gobeli & Brown（1993）的創新過程兩種不同的創新理論，對7家專業健檢中心及2家醫院附設健檢中心，進行現況分析，分類並歸納出各個案的創新特性及差異，提出可能產生的問題因應策略。 　　研究發現，不同本質健檢機構的創新靈活度就會有很大的差距； 在開創階段重視形象塑立、業務開發，及硬體投資多於強調本業－「健康服務」，.在「商品開發力」方面朝分「主題式商品」、「檢驗設備」、「擴展市場」及「異業服務」四類，以主題式商品居多，其次為強化檢驗設備，健檢市場發展成熟，為因應醫療環境的改變，更擅於利用「應變元素」避險佈局。 　　根據研究結果，建議健檢中心仍應先著重於預防醫學專業及檢驗技術，定義能契合顧客價值的創新性產品，執行一套內隱的系統制度，其創新的核心靈魂是回歸到「健康」、對生命的尊重，提供顧客永難忘懷的服務，才是撼動人心的競爭優勢。 / During the past decades, the change of life style and growing of aging population in Taiwan have leaded to a great alteration of disease patterns. As the Gross Domestic Product increased in this country, the global medical expenditure increased year by year. Due to the widely accepted concept of “prevention is better than cure”, the importance of health examination is becoming more and more significant. Thus, the number of health examination institutions in Taiwan is growing rapidly. In this research, cases studies using two innovation theories including “Types of Innovation” (Betz, 1987) and “Innovation Process” (Gobeli and Brown, 1993) were implemented. Current situations of seven health screening clinics and the health screening center of two hospitals in Taipei metropolitan area were analyzed, re-classified, and compared to identify the distinct innovation characteristics in different health examination institutions. The problems that might happen in these institutions were disclosed and their resolutions were tried to found. This study discovered that there is a great difference in innovation flexibility between health examination institutions of different nature. In the initial stage of these institutions, most of them focused on image-shaping, business development and hardware investment rather than on the fundamental medical services itself (i.e. health examination). There were four ways used to strengthen product development: theme product, investment on instrument facilities, market expansion and strategic alliance. Among them, theme product was the most popular and investment on instrument facilities, the second popular method used. As health examination market was well grown, these institutions were skilled in using there reality-confronting ability to face the competitive healthcare market. According to our results, we suggest the health examination institutions still need to focus on their basic competence: preventive medicine, and health care technology. In addition, they should be able to develop a tacit system to define innovative products that match customers’ value. The core of innovation in this industry should begin from “health”. By having respect to human life and creating the health and empathy business model, health examination institutions can provide the value co-created with customers and thus, maintain competition advantage.

Submitted by Silvana Teresinha Dornelles Studzinski (sstudzinski) on 2015-06-24T15:51:53Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Ricardo Maffazioli..pdf: 2316449 bytes, checksum: 9494d95cf909da7a58ac0dd1f34760ae (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2015-06-24T15:51:53Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Ricardo Maffazioli..pdf: 2316449 bytes, checksum: 9494d95cf909da7a58ac0dd1f34760ae (MD5) Previous issue date: 2012-04-24 / Nenhuma / Partindo da ideia de que a inovação de produtos e processos são fatores essenciais para a competitividade e a sobrevivência das empresas no mercado, o presente estudo objetivou analisar o desenvolvimento de produto pela ótica do Design Estratégico e suas ferramentas. A partir desta premissa, foi proposto um novo modelo de desenvolvimento dentro de uma empresa do ramo metal-mecânico de abrangência internacional. Para a análise, foram confrontados os modelos utilizados hoje no mercado, com a visão dos teóricos do design, através de entrevistas e pesquisas. Estas informações trouxeram subsídios para a criação e implementação de um novo modelo de projetação baseado no Design Estratégico. Com isto, pode-se avaliar a importância de cada uma das ferramentas disponibilizadas por esta metodologia e, assim, gerar um novo modelo de desenvolvimento de produto com foco direcionado para a inovação. No decorrer da pesquisa, também foi possível analisar o comportamento do grupo que fez parte do processo e os resultados apresentados por este modelo. / Considering that the innovation of products and processes are essential for competitiveness and survival of companies in the market, the present study aimed to analyze the development of a product from the optical view of Strategy Design and its tools. Based on this premise, a new model of development is proposed in an international company from the metal mechanic field. The presented analyzes is based on new models available in the market and on the vision of design theorists. The information presented brought grants for the creation and implementation of a new model based on the Strategic Design. From this perspective, it could be evaluated the importance of each tools available, thus generating a new model focused on innovation. During the research process was also possible to analyze the group’s behave that were part of the process and the results presented for this model.

Submitted by Mario BC (mario@bc.ufrpe.br) on 2017-02-08T14:12:20Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Breno Leonardo Gomes de Menezes Araujo.pdf: 3596044 bytes, checksum: ba04fae7f1924573f14255f9d5e2c44a (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-02-08T14:12:20Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Breno Leonardo Gomes de Menezes Araujo.pdf: 3596044 bytes, checksum: ba04fae7f1924573f14255f9d5e2c44a (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015-07-08 / Innovation driven approaches prescribe principles, practices and tools that are used to develop innovative products or services. Introducing elements of these innovation-driven approaches in the context of software processes allow that aspects related to the business, market and creativity being considered in design an innovative software product. However, there are gaps between innovation processes and software processes. This work seeks to address the relationship between elements of innovation processes and elements of software processes through traceability. Therefore, this work proposed an approach called InnoTrace that aims to enable tracking of innovation requirements toward system requirements and tracking of system requirements backward innovation requirements. The InnoTrace approach consists of: specifying signs to represent innovation requirements and system requirements; specifying a track to represent the relationship between signs through the notation provided by the SysML language; and traces that consist of following the track in the context of cases that demonstrate the application of software processes that incorporate innovation practices and techniques. The main contribution of this work is to provide a method appropriate for documenting traceability relations (cause and effect) between innovation and system requirements and thus mitigate the gaps commonly observed between innovation and software processes. / As abordagens dirigidas à inovação prescrevem princípios, práticas e ferramentas que são utilizados no desenvolvimento de produtos ou serviços inovadores. A introdução de elementos dessas abordagens dirigidas à inovação no contexto de processos de software permite que sejam tratados aspectos relacionados ao negócio, ao mercado, e à criatividade na concepção de um produto de software inovador. Porém, é comum existir lacunas entre os processos de inovação e os processos de software. Este trabalho procura tratar as relações entre elementos dos processos de inovação e de software, através de rastreabilidade. Para tanto, é proposta uma abordagem denominada InnoTrace que visa possibilitar o rastreamento de requisitos de inovação em direção a requisitos de sistema e vice-versa. A abordagem InnoTrace consiste: na especificação de sinais que representam os requisitos de inovação e de sistemas; na especificação de trilha que representa os relacionamentos entre sinais, através de notação fornecida pela linguagem SysML; e em rastros que consistem em seguir a trilha no contexto de casos que demonstram a aplicação de processos de software que incorporam práticas e técnicas de inovação. A principal contribuição deste trabalho é prover um método que permita documentar as relações de rastreabilidade (causa e efeito) entre requisitos de inovação e de sistema e assim mitigar as lacunas comumente observadas entre processos de inovação e de software.