<p>The change in the present global world puts pressure on companies to develop new strategies for gaining competitive advantage. The new fast technology leads companies to try to outshine one another to reach further into the world of innovation. Sharing knowledge online demands brave and huge changes from managers and employees. The use of new tools for faster more open communication requires a change of mindset from the involved parties. Our aim was to determine if the internal open communication was the solution to a more open knowledge sharing work climate. The Purpose of our study is to investigate if knowledge sharing indirectly foster a more learning and innovative organization. Which leads us to one of our main questions: can a wikis- tool for internal communication be an enabler for a more open and knowledge sharing working climate? In this thesis we are focusing on the new communication tool for a better internal collaboration which has the ability to facilitate the work for employees if it is implemented in a positive manner. All our research was performed in Ramböll a global company that gave us useful access and information for our thesis. We performed our study by using qualitative research such as interviews, dialogue and observations<em>.</em> The result from our study showed us how the open communication and knowledge sharing can strengthen the core communication to foster a more learning and innovative company. Open communication as enabler of the power of innovation in global companies.</p>

The change in the present global world puts pressure on companies to develop new strategies for gaining competitive advantage. The new fast technology leads companies to try to outshine one another to reach further into the world of innovation. Sharing knowledge online demands brave and huge changes from managers and employees. The use of new tools for faster more open communication requires a change of mindset from the involved parties. Our aim was to determine if the internal open communication was the solution to a more open knowledge sharing work climate. The Purpose of our study is to investigate if knowledge sharing indirectly foster a more learning and innovative organization. Which leads us to one of our main questions: can a wikis- tool for internal communication be an enabler for a more open and knowledge sharing working climate? In this thesis we are focusing on the new communication tool for a better internal collaboration which has the ability to facilitate the work for employees if it is implemented in a positive manner. All our research was performed in Ramböll a global company that gave us useful access and information for our thesis. We performed our study by using qualitative research such as interviews, dialogue and observations. The result from our study showed us how the open communication and knowledge sharing can strengthen the core communication to foster a more learning and innovative company. Open communication as enabler of the power of innovation in global companies.

Digitalization has led to a higher speed of product development and increased competition on the market. This has impacted how firms organize and manage innovation activities, where firms need to have certain abilities to quickly respond to the external environment in order to stay competitive in dynamic markets. As obtaining innovation capabilities internally require large amount of R&amp;D expenditures, there are several strategies a firm can pursue in order to innovate more efficiently; such as pursuing an Open Innovation landscape, and investing in strategic alliances. However, as these strategies come with additional challenges and costs, focus has instead been turned to the internal environment, and collaborating more effectively internally for innovation purposes has received new light in recent research. Therefore, this study aimed at exploring the underlying structures and mechanisms of intra-organizational collaboration for innovation. Previous research on internal collaboration for innovation have investigated the formal and informal structures for knowledge sharing and joint problem solving. In this stream of research, there has been both consistent and mixed results on the enablers of collaboration. Firstly, previous research is consistent with the importance of trust and social interactions for informal collaboration. However, there exists mixed results on the impact of centralization on collaboration. Therefore, this thesis aimed to shed a new light on this topic, and answer the research question: What are the enabling factors for formal and informal collaboration? In an attempt to answer the research question, a qualitative study consisting of 13 interviews with innovation practitioners and corporate executives in the organizational setting of an IT-service company was conducted. The interviews aimed at providing insights on how collaboration for innovation across units and individuals was carried out, and were carefully recorded, transcribed and analyzed. The findings revealed both support for previous theory as well as provided with new insights, stating that centralized decision making, managers’ self-interest and a clear mandate enables formal collaboration; while decentralized decision making, social connections, employees’ mindset and geographical proximity enables informal collaboration. Particularly important for enabling informal collaboration is the possibility for social interactions between employees, their level of organizational awareness and their mutual trust. Furthermore, the results highlighted the presence of interdependencies between the enabling factors, and provided with a new insight on the impact of centralization by clarifying when and how centralization is an enabler of collaboration, and where firms benefit from decentralized decision making instead. The results indicate that centralized decision making enables collaboration on a strategic “macro” level, and decentralized decision making enables collaboration on a “micro” level. / Digitaliseringen har både lett till ökad produktutvecklingshastighet och ökad konkurrens. För att kunna anpassa sig till förändringar på marknaden och fortsätta vara konkurrenskraftiga, måste bolag besitta vissa färdigheter och förutsättningar för att innovera. Då interna innovationsaktiviteter kräver kostsamma resurser, finns det ett antal strategier för att istället bygga på sig kompetenser genom externa samarbeten, såsom öppen innovation och strategiska partnerskap. Däremot kommer dessa med egna utmaningar och kostnader, vilket på senare tid har lett till ett nytt fokus på den interna miljön, och ett nytt ljus riktats mot forskning inom internt samarbete för innovation. Denna studie ämnar därför att utforska de underliggande strukturerna och mekanismerna bakom intern kollaboration för innovation. Tidigare forskning inom ämnet har tittat på de formella och informella strukturerna för intern kunskapsdelning och gemensam problemlösning för innovation. Här har tidigare forskning varit entydig i att sociala interaktioner och tillit är viktigt för informell kollaboration, däremot har påverkan av centralisering visat motsägelsefulla resultat. Därför ämnar denna studie i att svara på forskningsfrågan: Vilka faktorer möjliggör formell och informell kollaboration? I syfte att svara på frågan har en kvalitativ studie bestående av 13 intervjuer med innovatörer och bolagschefer på en IT-tjänstfirma utförts. Intervjuerna ämnade ge insikt på hur kollaboration för innovation över avdelning-, och individnivå skedde, varvid de spelades in, transkriberades och analyserades enligt ett antal metoder. Resultaten delvis bekräftade tidigare forskning, och delvis bidrog med ett antal nya insikter, genom att peka på att centraliserad beslutsfattande, ledares egenintresse och tydliga mandat möjliggör för formell kollaboration; och decentraliserat beslutsfattande, sociala kontakter, medarbetares tankesätt och geografisk närhet möjliggör informell kollaboration. Viktigt specifikt för informell kollaboration var möjligheten för sociala interaktioner och ömsesidig tillit mellan medarbetare, samt nivån på deras kunskap om organisationen. Ytterligare upptäcktes en växelverkan mellan olika möjliggörande faktorer för formell och informell kollaboration, samt en ny insikt om när, hur, och var nivån av centralisering gör nytta för kollaboration. De empiriska resultaten pekade på att centraliserade beslut möjliggör på en strategisk, “makro”-nivå, medan decentraliserade beslut möjliggör på en lägre, “mikro”-nivå.

Submitted by Nadir Basilio (nadirsb@uninove.br) on 2017-08-04T15:30:37Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Daniel de Lima Pires.pdf: 2531713 bytes, checksum: a3a021ded760a9272ed689161eec2e85 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-08-04T15:30:37Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Daniel de Lima Pires.pdf: 2531713 bytes, checksum: a3a021ded760a9272ed689161eec2e85 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-02-15 / Software projects are increasingly prominent in today's organizational environment. Its use refers to increased efficiency, improvements in products and services, and also the technological strategy of organizations. They are technically complex, do not have physical limitations and are intangible, nevertheless they are very ambitious and surrounded by uncertainties. Software projects teams must deal with a large amount of information, in addition to making intensive use of knowledge of several areas simultaneously, and also must be skilled in communicating and coordinating their actions. In this dissertation, a quantitative approach research using Structural Equation Modeling with Partial Least Squares (PLS-SEM) was carried out to evaluate the relationship between Teamwork quality and software projects success. The Teamwork quality is a construct that allows measuring the internal collaboration of the team within six dimensions: mutual support, contribution balancing, cohesion, communication, coordination and effort. Software projects success is a widely studied construct in the scientific literature, and in this dissertation was considered as composed of efficiency, impact on the consumer and impact on the team. The result obtained showed that the Teamwork quality exerts considerable influence on the software projects success, corroborating the results of previous academic research, and generating the knowledge that the collaboration should be fostered by the organizations in software development teams. In addition, as a contribution to practice, a model was proposed to evaluate the software project teams teamwork quality, aiming to increase the internal collaboration of the project team and, consequently, the success of the software project. / Projetos de software são cada vez mais expoentes no atual ambiente organizacional. Seu uso remete ao aumento da eficiência, melhorias em produtos e serviços, e também a estratégia tecnológica das organizações. São tecnicamente complexos, sem limitações físicas e intangíveis, não obstante são muito ambiciosos e cercados de incertezas. Assim, as equipes de projetos de software devem lidar com uma grande quantidade de informações, além de fazerem uso intensivo do conhecimento de várias áreas simultaneamente, e por isso devem ser hábeis na comunicação e coordenação de suas ações. Nesta dissertação foi realizada uma pesquisa com abordagem quantitativa utilizando Modelagem de Equações Estruturais com Mínimos Quadrados Parciais (PLS-SEM) para testar a relação da Qualidade do trabalho em equipe com o Sucesso dos projetos de software. A Qualidade do trabalho em equipe é um construto que permite mensurar a colaboração interna da equipe a partir de seis dimensões: apoio mútuo, balanceamento de contribuições, coesão, comunicação, coordenação e esforço. O Sucesso em projetos de software é um construto amplamente estudado na literatura científica, e nesta dissertação foram consideradas as dimensões: eficiência, impacto no consumidor e impacto na equipe do projeto. O resultado obtido mostrou que a Qualidade do trabalho em equipe exerce influência considerável no Sucesso dos projetos de software, corroborando os resultados de pesquisas acadêmicas anteriores, e gerando o conhecimento de que a colaboração deve ser fomentada pelas organizações nas equipes de desenvolvimento de software. Adicionalmente foi proposto, como contribuição para prática, um modelo para avaliação da Qualidade do trabalho em equipe para equipes de Projetos de software, visando o aumento da colaboração interna da equipe do projeto e, consequentemente do Sucesso dos projetos de software.