Thesis (M.S.)--Ohio University, November, 2007. / Title from PDF t.p. Includes bibliographical references.

The main goal of the theses is the analysis and selection of open-source, web-based project management tools for support of project management. The theoretical chapter focuses on basic project management definitions and functions. The methodological chapter briefly describes multi-criteria decision-making and other methods used in the practical section. The practical chapter includes a short summary of the IQUAP Czech Republic, Ltd. Company, then research on available project management tools, two round multi-criteria evaluation of the selected tools, selection and pilot testing of the final tool TeamLab, evaluation of the pilot testing by using questionnaires. The main benefit of the theses is the analysis and evaluation of the project management tools in relation to the utilization within practice.

This thesis deals with analysis and possibilities of improvements in the area of customer relationship management in a company. There is a theoretical framework regarding customer relationship management and CRM systems including their implementation. The thesis includes analysis of current state of CRM in a concrete company and a proposal of a new CRM system implementation schedule based on the analysis. Finally, there is a discussion of benefits of the proposed project and author's proposals heading to improvements of CRM in the company.

Open Innovation bezeichnet Innovationsprozesse, die nicht an den Grenzen von Unternehmen oder deren Innovationsabteilungen enden, sondern Akteure unabhängig von deren institutioneller Zugehörigkeit als Ideengeber, Konzeptentwickler oder auch Innovationsumsetzer in die Gestaltung von Innovationen einbinden. Dieser Beitrag skizziert Grundlagen der Open Innovation, stellt die einzubindenden Akteure und ihre Rollen im Innovationsgeschehen vor und führt ein in die fünf zentralen Werkzeugklassen, auf die Unternehmen zur Implementierung von Open Innovation heute zurückgreifen können. Herausforderungen und Spannungsfelder, die sich bei der Nutzung von Open Innovation zeigen, werden abschließend aufgezeigt.

Nowadays the development speed of new software products is a key to success and it is not important whether the aim is to make customer's urges satisfied or get ahead of one's competitors and fill the market gap. Because of the increase of development speed the demands on the saving process of software quality are increasing. There are two types of tools that are supporting the process of software quality assurance. Firstly, we talk about comprehensive testing tools of commercial character that usually include many functions, but their purchase is extremely expensive. On the other hand there are open-source tools that are available for free, they function on many kinds of operating systems and it is possible to modify them. Unfortunately their functions are basically focused on a certain subset of controlling the software quality assurance. Company TRASK solution a.s. has decided to change this current situation, so it asked competence centre Software Quality Assurance at the University of Economics in Prague in order to create Integrated Testing Node (ITN) that would combine the advantages of open-source tools. Moreover, it would offer broad range of functions as commercial solution. The purpose of this thesis is to describe relevant phases of the process of creating the Integrated Testing Node from the factual and methodical point of view. This aim is divided into partial aims included task analysis and the proposal of solving system, open-source products portfolio analysis, choice of the most convenient tools for following integration, choosing the method of information system building, evaluating the feedback from a client and the proposal of future development of this tool. As far as the biggest contribution of this thesis is concerned, it is the realisation of ITN project that can be used during information classes at the University of Economics in Prague. Furthermore, it can be used as the control of software quality in commercial companies.

Involving customers in the creation and design process of new products and services has been dis-cussed in practice and research since the early 1980’s. As one of the first researchers, von Hippel (1986) shed light on the concept of Lead Users, a group of users who are able to provide most accu-rate data on future needs for organizations. Subsequently, many scholars emphasized different areas of contribution for customers and how they provide assistance to the process of innovation. First of all, customers may contribute to product innovation (Cooper & Kleinschmidt, 1987; Driessen & Hillebrand, 2013; Füller & Matzler, 2007; Gruner & Homburg, 2000; Sawhney, Verona, & Prandelli, 2005; Snow, Fjeldstad, Lettl, & Miles, 2011; Yang & Rui, 2009) and service innovation (Abecassis-Moedas, Ben Mahmoud-Jouini, Dell’Era, Manceau, & Verganti, 2012; Alam, 2002; Chesbrough, 2011; Larbig-Wüst, 2010; Magnusson, 2003; Paton & Mclaughlin, 2008; Shang, Lin, & Wu, 2009; Silpakit & Fisk, 1985), e.g., by co-creating values (Prahalad & Ramaswamy, 2004), such as concepts or designs as well as reviewing and testing them throughout the stages of the process of innovation. From the customers’ point of view, being involved in innovation processes and becoming a part of the organ-ization is a desire of an increasing number of them. Customers are demanding more individual and more tailored products. They are increasingly knowledgeable and capable of designing and produc-ing their own products and services. Due to the fact that their influence on product development is positively related to the quality of the new product (Sethi, 2000), more and more organizations appreciate them as innovation actors and are willing to pay them for their input. Today, customers are not only involved in the qualification of products (Callon, Méadel, & Rabeharisoa, 2002; Callon & Muniesa, 2005; Grabher, Ibert, & Flohr, 2009) but also allowed to customize and evaluate them on the path to innovation (Franke & Piller, 2004; Piller & Walcher, 2006; von Hippel & Katz, 2002; von Hippel, 2001). Moreover, there is an abundance of studies that stress the customers’ influence on effectiveness (de Luca & Atuahene-Gima, 2007; Kleinschmidt & Cooper, 1991; Kristensson, Matthing, & Johansson, 2008; Still, Huhtamäki, Isomursu, Lahti, & Koskela-Huotari, 2012) and risk (Bayer & Maier, 2006; Enkel, Kausch, & Gassmann, 2005; Enkel, Perez-Freije, & Gassmann, 2005). While the latter comprises the risk of customer integration as well as the customers’ influence on market risks, e.g., during new product development, studies on effectiveness are mostly concerned with customer-orientation and products/services in line with customers’ expectations (Atuahene-Gima, 1996, 2003; Fuchs & Schreier, 2011). The accompanying change in understanding became known as open innovation (OI; first coined by Chesbrough in 2003) and represents a paradigm shift, where organizations switch their focus from internally generated innovation (i.e., ideation, in-house R&D, etc.) toward external knowledge and open innovation processes, thus, allowing them to integrate external ideas and actors, i.e. custom-ers (Chesbrough, 2006) and other external stakeholders (Laursen & Salter, 2006). Since then, OI has been identified as a success factor for increasing customer satisfaction (Füller, Hutter, & Faullant, 2011; Greer & Lei, 2012) and growing revenues (Faems, De Visser, Andries, & van Looy, 2010; Mette, Moser, & Fridgen, 2013; Spithoven, Frantzen, & Clarysse, 2010). In addition to that, by open-ing their doors to external experts and knowledge workers (Kang & Kang, 2009), organizations cope with shorter innovation cycles, rising R&D costs, and the shortage of resources (Gassmann & Enkel, 2004). Parallel to the paradigm shift in innovation, another shift has taken place in information and com-munication technologies (Kietzmann, Hermkens, McCarthy, & Silvestre, 2011). Only a few years ago, when customer integration was still very costly, companies had to fly in customers, provide facilities onsite, permanently assign employees to such activities, and incentivise each task execut-ed by customers. Today, emerging technologies (subsumed under the term ‘social software’) help integrating customers or other external stakeholders, who are increasingly familiar with the such technologies from personal usage experience (Cook, 2008), and grant them access from all over the world in a 24/7 fashion. Examples include blogging tools, social networking systems, or wikis. These technologies help organizations to access customer knowledge, facilitate the collaboration with customers (Culnan, McHugh, & Zubillaga, 2010; Piller & Vossen, 2012) at reduced costs and allow them to address a much larger audience (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010). On the other hand, customers can now express their needs in a more direct way to organizations. However, each technology or application category may present a completely different benefit to the process of innovation or parts of it and, thus, the innovation itself. Reflecting these developments, organizations need to know two things: how can they exploit the customers’ knowledge for innovation purposes and how may the implementation of social soft-ware support this. Hence, this research addresses the integration of customers in organizational innovation, i.e. new product development. It addresses how and why firms activate customers for innovation and which contribution customers provide to the process of innovation. Additionally, it investigates which tasks customers may take over in open innovations projects and which strategies organiza-tions may choose to do so. It also addresses which social software application supports each task best and how organizations may select the most suitable application out of a rapidly growing num-ber of alternatives. The nature of this research is recommendatory and aims at designing a solution for organizations that are interested in the potential contribution of customers during innovation, already involve customers in innovation tasks or plan to do so. Following the recommendations of this research should result in a more effective organizational exploitation of customer knowledge and their workforce and, thus, a value added to innovation and the outcomes of the process of innovation, e.g., a product that better fits the customers’ expectations and demands or consequently a better adoption of the product by the customer.:1 Introduction 2 Theoretical foundation 3 Research areas and focal points 4 Research aims and questions 5 Methods 6 Findings 7 Conclusion References Essay 1: The Role of External Knowledge in Open Innovation – A Systematic Review of Literature Essay 2: External Knowledge in Organisational Innovation – Toward an Integration Concept Essay 3: Idea Mining – Text Mining Supported Knowledge Management for Innovation Purposes Essay 4: How do Tasks and Technology fit? – Bringing Order to the Open Innovation Chaos