Browsing Ph.D. theses (OM/PEØ) by Title
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Interactions and Convergence in Product Development NetworksBerhausen, Nico Peter (Frederiksberg, 2012)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: Many studies have focused on the topic of product innovation. As a key element of how industrial organisations work, of how competition is shaped and how economic growth is realised, innovation provides an interesting research field, which will never be fully explored. Industrial organisations explore these grounds through strategic processes in which objectives should guide product development processes. Ideas, alternatives or decisions form these processes in which heterogeneous actors need to be aligned and coordinated towards the final product innovation. Heterogeneity is a key aspect here; different, new technologies, conflicting objectives, different opinions and different management practices for example, are part of this process. Although these elements have been studied extensively in extant research, I identify several gaps in the existing literature, which I in turn strive to fill with this thesis. First, a perspective of the interactions in innovation processes is needed with a focus on control mechanisms and the mobilisation of strategic objectives. Secondly, focusing on control, the way calculative boundaries are created and explored and how these may be overcome needs more development and empirical insights. Thirdly, the interaction of control mechanisms and the coordination of product development networks through these interactions lack empirical insights and build an interesting research ground. I do not provide a holistic framework or a contingent perspective of how organisations should manage innovation. Rather I discuss the many ways in which product development networks become convergent through the interaction of control mechanisms, which may act as a vehicle or translator of strategic objectives... URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/8588 Files in this item: 1
Nico_Peter_Berhausen.pdf (2.056Mb) -
Frandsen, Thomas (Frederiksberg, 2012)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: The world is increasingly turbulent with shorter and shorter technological life cycles and more and more frequent changes in customer demand. This situation implies that flexibility and agility are crucial for producers of products and services. Much effort has been directed toward understanding innovation and the ways in which management can increase the value of innovation efforts. As a consequence, suggestions emphasizing different aspects of innovation and creativity have been put forward. However, the value of architectural knowledge for innovation is increasingly recognized as crucial with modular architectures proposed as one way of increasing the rate of innovation by introducing flexibility and agility without sacrificing efficiency. Modularity is a way to design a system with the intent of reducing its complexity by decomposing the system and reducing interdependencies between the subsystems of the system through standardized interfaces. Systems designed in this way allow for greater flexibility through recombination; however, they retain efficiency by means of standardization and scale economies from the reuse of components. For this reason modular architectures present an interesting solution to the dilemma of whether to invest in innovation or in efficiency. The topic has received much attention in the face of demands from customers for increasingly heterogeneous products and services. However, an important aspect to keep in mind is that, while decomposition is a powerful way of reducing complexity, most real systems remain only nearly decomposable (Simon, 1962) or loosely coupled rather than uncoupled (Orton & Weick, 1990).... URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/8420 Files in this item: 1
Thomas_Frandsen.pdf (6.869Mb) -
Kinra, Aseem (Frederiksberg, 2009)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: The spatial scope of organisations has recently been reemphasised in the context of supply chains and supply chain management. This scope is usually accompanied by uncertainty to organisations, especially for the extended supply chain with geographically dispersed operations and activities, thus posing environmental complexity in the form of risks and costs that organisations need to contend with. The main purpose of this dissertation is to create a deep understanding of this environmental complexity facing the extended supply chain, and the main research objective is to develop a construct, consisting of factors and measures, that can aid in describing its state in the context of logistics. Overall, the dissertation assumes an international business (IB) standpoint in undertaking this task whereby it is argued that countries and borders matter, and that differences between country environments lead to environmental complexity in the geographically dispersed supply chain. Country-oriented constraints may then exist at macro-economic level, or the micro-/meso- e.g. firm, network and industry levels of the business environment. In this dissertation, supply chain (logistics) environmental complexity is developed and operationalised in terms of the range and heterogeneity of country-oriented macro- logistics factors that need to be considered in extended, cross-border, or global supply chain (logistics) operations. The remainder of this dissertation is thereafter dedicated to finding these factors, and their respective information measures, by the application of a decision-making approach. A decision factor is one that influences the decision on selection with regards to environmental complexity, and an information measure is a unit of measurement that aids decision-making by providing some information on the factor. The findings of this dissertation are based upon multiple literature reviews, content analyses and expert opinions, and suggest the importance of 17 such decision factors and 187 different types of information measures, which describe the state of environmental complexity in extended, cross-border, or global supply chain operations. The study is particularly relevant from the perspective of strategy and design issues in global supply chain management, international operations management and international business, and more specifically for environmental scanning and decision-making applications such as site location and transport mode selection. By applying the results of this dissertation decision-makers may, for example, get a preliminary idea of the environmental complexity surrounding their extended supply chains. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/7823 Files in this item: 1
Aseem_Kinra.pdf (28.74Mb)
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Now showing items 6-8 of 8